Now Have photoshop, but damn, it's hard!

[Boyd]

A friend of mine gave me a legit version of Photoshop CS2 and I've been trying to learn it so I could hack together some wheel/tire/paint combos for my car. I'm pretty good with MS Paint (although it is considered rudimentary compared to PS) and thought I could pick up on PS quickly. WRONG!. TonyL, got any quick pointers? How do you do a simple wheel change?

[flyinlow89]

honestly, go to the library and borrow some tutorial books, or visit some PS sites and do the tutorials from those. or if you want, I have a few "E books" full of them. (basically a .pdf of real books) They seem tedious and stupid for a while, but it really helps alot in the long run. Once you get a bit confident the program becomes so powerful to you. heres some stuff Ive done:
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[DarkBuddha]

PS is a challenge for sure... too much power and kinda cryptic until you finally figure out some stuff. Anyway, check the sticky at the top of the forum for some tips and tutorial websites: https://www.pro-touring.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16001

As for wheel chops, the first step is to find a pic of a car, or at least a pic of the wheel you want to use, at the same angle as the car image you're trying to modify. Then it's a simple matter of selecting and copying the wheels from that pic to the car pic. Now, if you need the wheel to appear behind the fender, it will be necessary to select the body of the car and the rest of the upper part of the image and make a copy onto a new layer. Put that new layer on top of all the other layers and the wheels will appear behind the fender, etc. The rest is just fine tuning.

Hope this helps.

[outlaw ss]

The best piece of asvice I could give is practice. It took me a long time to get decent - ans I still am fair at best.

Also, try digimods.com they have helped me alot!

[hdesign]

It's just one of those things that takes time...there's really no short cut. The faster you understand how layers work, the better off you are.

Here's a tip: never do your work right on the original image. Instead, copy/paste onto a new layer and work on that one. Add new layers and do work on them. Photoshop is like having an infinite amount of transparent layers that you can manipulate independent of each other if you plan it out right.

Another tip: Use the Polygonal lasso tool or better yet, the pen tool to select areas you want to change.

Good luck!

Ben

[TonyL]

i use photostudio not photoshop. (i have photoshop, and illustrator, but suck at it) Its very user friendly.

the principle is the same. find a base car pic. the one you want to add to. then find (using google image search) wheels from the same angle as the car is. its a simple matter of drawing a selection around the wheel itself, copying, and pasteing it on the donor car.

The rest is "finess" blending, shading. and merging the pasted image onto the donor. lowering is done by cutting along the bottom of the car and wheel wells out to the edge of the pic, up to the top, across the top, and back down to where you started. then lowering by dragging the top selected image onto the bottom one where the wheels are. Rotate your selection slightly for a raked look.


learn to use the clone tool. It can be the most powerful tool you use.

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oh and Robbie. Damn. those are good 'chops.

[Boyd]

Using the tutorials now, thanks for the help guys.

[ProStreet R/T]

Flyinlow- Damn dude thats very impressive.

Can you do one off renderings and/or drastic changes to pics similar to what Kris Horton does? If so are you interested in making a couple bucks?

We have a couple ideas we'd like to try on a car, but would like to get an idea of the finished product first, and it's just WAY too much work to render it all in solidworks. Send me a PM and let me know if you're interested.