Photochopping Confusion

[Bjkadron]

Hey everybody! You might have seen some of my renderings floating around or possibly one of my car projects(see the link in my sig). as of late I have been messing around with photoshop rendering since it is on the computers at my school. One problem. I can't figure out how to mask the car so that it only changes the hue/saturation on the car not the whole picture! Any help? I hear that you use the pen tool but I can only get straight lines with it. Help!

Thanks!

Benjamin

[formula]

i don't know how photoshop works as i use GiMP, but I would presume there should be some way to do a contoured selection around the car, then create a new layer from your selection and mess with the settings there. I hope this helps.

[hdesign]

There's 3 ways to do it, all of which require the body/paint of the car to be on it's own layer:
1. Duplicate the main image and carefully erase everything that isn't paint. Then adjust paint. Very tedious and edges won't be crisp unless you use a tiny eraser size to get the details.
2. Use the Bezier/pen tool to outline the car using handles that protrude from each strategically placed point. (make sure you fully surround the car) Then right click (Make selection), Copy/paste the body onto a new layer. Repeat pen tool step to surround, select and delete out stuff like trim, glass and non-painted items. Somewhat tedious, but it'll give you the best results.
3. If you can't use the pen tool, you can always use the polygonal lasso tool to incrementally click all the way around the object, copy/paste then do the same to delete out unpainted items. Tedious and not nearly as smooth as the pen tool.

Good luck

[Bjkadron]

There's 3 ways to do it, both of which require the body/paint of the car to be on it's own layer:
1. Duplicate the main image and carefully erase everything that isn't paint. Then adjust paint. Very tedious and edges won't be crisp unless you use a tiny eraser size to get the details.
2. Use the Bezier/pen tool to outline the car using handles that protrude from each strategically placed point. (make sure you fully surround the car) Then right click (Make selection), Copy/paste the body onto a new layer. Repeat pen tool step to surround, select and delete out stuff like trim, glass and non-painted items. Somewhat tedious, but it'll give you the best results.
3. If you can't use the pen tool, you can always use the polygonal lasso tool to incrementally click all the way around the object, copy/paste then do the same to delete out unpainted items. Tedious and not nearly as smooth as the pen tool.

Good luck

With the Bezier/pen: Can you drag your line to match the curvature? Whenever I tried to draw with it, it started a line going in both directions. do you click at a bunch of different points along the line or was I doing something wrong?

And does it matter what color is in my selection box when I use the pen?

And By the way you have some Amazing work Mr Hermance!

Thanks,

Benjamin

[19sixtynine]

Look into using "adjustment layers" for your hue and saturation, and all your color and exposure adjustments for that matter.

You can use the "layer mask" function on the adjustment layer to paint away the parts you don't want effected using black and white. It's easier than learning to use the pen tool in my opinion because you are using brushes to paint the shape of your car instead of using the pen tool to outline it. When using the brush, experiment with different sizes and edge hardness by using the left and right bracket buttons. "[" and "]" will change size and if you hold the "shift" key and use the brackets it will change the edge hardness and softness.

Using layers is also non destructive to the image because if you don't like what's on the layer, you just throw it away.

I know that's a lot of info but really look into using layers and layer masks, it will open up a hold new world for you and make things much easier in my opinion.

[Bjkadron]

Look into using "adjustment layers" for your hue and saturation, and all your color and exposure adjustments for that matter.

You can use the "layer mask" function on the adjustment layer to paint away the parts you don't want effected using black and white. It's easier than learning to use the pen tool in my opinion because you are using brushes to paint the shape of your car instead of using the pen tool to outline it. When using the brush, experiment with different sizes and edge hardness by using the left and right bracket buttons. "[" and "]" will change size and if you hold the "shift" key and use the brackets it will change the edge hardness and softness.

Using layers is also non destructive to the image because if you don't like what's on the layer, you just throw it away.

I know that's a lot of info but really look into using layers and layer masks, it will open up a hold new world for you and make things much easier in my opinion.

Too much information is just enough! Thanks I'll look into that too.

[hdesign]

Thanks! And Ben will be fine...you're making me feel old.LOL

Yes, that's exactly what it's for.

When you first click, a point appears. If you continue to hold down the button while dragging,"handles" pull out from that point. Those 2 points are what you grab to manipulate the curve you're trying to create. Click and drag out the handles at strategic points all around the shape you want to select. Then go back and adjust all the curvature of the handles.

The Pen tool is one of the greatest tools in PS, learn it and love it. Trust me!

TIP: if you want to create a hard corner at one of these points along your contoured path, press the ALT button on your keyboard then grab a handle to "break it" from being tangent.

[Bjkadron]

Ok... I figured out the adjustment layers... The pen is still confusing as ever. I guess I'll just mess around with it till I figure it out. Thanks again everybody!

[ZVT]

Here you go this should help you get the pen tool down...Its the most important tool you can learn to use.

http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutorials/pen/pen.htm

[19sixtynine]

The pen tool is a great tool for making certain types of selections, one little trick to making your selections smoother with the pen tool is to clip the object about 2 pixels inside of the objects edge, then when you make a selection out of your path, expand the selection by 2 pixels and feather it by 1 pixel ( you do this in the "select" menu under "modify" once your selection is active).

Doing this will round out the corners nicely and give your selection a smooth transition instead of an abrupt hard edge.

Again, maybe too much information but I'm all about helping someone with Photoshop.

Feel free to PM me if you have any question.

Robert

[DarkBuddha]

You know, for a beginner, you can just use the polygon lasso tool and get pretty darn good results. You can augment it with the Eliptical Marquee tool to add/subtract from the selection. For example, when I want to lower a car, I'll use the polygon lasso tool to draw a selection line straight across the bottom of a car, including both wheelwells (bisecting the wheels). And then I'll use the Eliptical Marquee tool (in subtractive mode) to remove rest of wheel/tire from the existing selection. Make sense? Probably not... it's tough to explain this stuff without screen captures.

[Bjkadron]

Cool thanks everyone! I'll be sure the bring this page up when I'm in photoshop as it will probably be more clear. Though I get most of what you're saying.

Thanks Again! And I'll be sure to post some of my stuff after I use your tips so you can give me more advice! :D

Benjamin

[79_GBody]

http://www.photoshopjunkie.com/tutorials/