vignette

[Mrs. Teacher Lady]

I have a picture of a little ballerina on a black background. I would like to add a close up of her face in a corner that looks as if she is looking up with a spotlight shining down on her. I'm sure many of you have seen this type of picture before. Could someone tell me how to do this in pse6?

[ken1]

Mrs. Teacher Lady,

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?pi...9wYG92ZLNScEm0

I am not sure that this is what you want, but here is an attempt to execute in accordance with the description in your post. It is not a vignette.

1. I selected the little girl with the magnetic lasso tool
2. Next, Layer>new>layer via copy
3. Filled an empty layer beneath the layer created in step #2 with black
4. Duplicated the layer in step #2, merged the original layer from step #2 with the black layer
5. Layer 1 copy was now at the top of the stack - see print screen
6. Flipped this layer 180 degrees (Image>rotate), positioned the girl to the corner with the move tool and resized with corner handles
7. Went to Filter>render> lighting effects, and in the drop down box selected the spotlight, adjusted position and intensity.

[Mrs. Teacher Lady]

That is great. Exactly what I was looking for. I thought maybe a vignette would help to soften up the edges of the smaller picture. What would be a good way of softening the edges so that it doesn't look like a paste job? Thanks, by the way!

[ken1]

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?pi...4ehtDJHY5ueH61

1. Duplicate background layer
2. Open blank layer between background and background copy layers, and fill this with white (Edit>fill layer)
3. On top layer make selection of what you want to retain using elliptical marquee tool, positioning ellipse with move tool or with arrow keys
4. Go to Select>inverse, then Select>feather - 25-35px
5. Hit delete on keyboard

[Mrs. Teacher Lady]

Thanks so much. Those were pretty simple instructions. I will post a picture of my finished project when done. THANKS!

[ken1]

You're welcome. Look forward to viewing your project when completed.

[Mrs. Teacher Lady]

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1Trubw824BfAPsig1qS6B7W17LYF

Here is the link to the finished project. I think it turned out great! Thank you so much for your help.

[Mrs. Teacher Lady]

Now my next question. I resized this to 2.5 by 2 inch size before uploading it but it still turned out too big. Can you tell me how to resize it to post to Pixentral?

[Wendy]

Hi ...

When you resize its the number of Pixels in the image that is important not the size in inches ..

I use Save for Web ... and for Pixentral I make the longest size around 750 pixels and the image size about 125k. (Although Pixentral will take much larger sizes than that ... 2MB is the max size)

Resize using Save for Web:

Open your image then do File>Save for Web
When the Save for Web dialogue box come up there is a section over on the bottom right hand side where you can change the pixels size (see A) if you tick Constrain Proportions then you only need to change the longest side then just click on Apply. Next take a look at the new size (B) ... if it is still too big then use the quality slider (C) until the size is OK



Hope that helps

Wendy

[ken1]

When posting to identify the layer structure as you go along for the purpose of instruction (as in my post #4), a print screen is helpful. Here is my work-flow to make it come out ok on Pixentral:

1. Hit "Print Screen" on keyboard. This puts it on the clipboard.
2. Open Microsoft Paint, Go to Paste. This enables one then to annotate further with text and arrows from within Paint
3. Go to File>save as - JPEG - to empty folder on desktop. The file size comes out all right without further intervention.
4. Upload to Pixentral.

Sounds more difficult than it is.