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Tip #12: Vector Mask Photo
By: Donna Chapman (Photoshop CS2)Open 2 photos – your main photo for your background and a photo that you
would like to combine some portion into the main
Select portion of photo 2 to be copied – Using the rectangular marquee tool
choose your area then using the move tool drag onto photo 1. Close your
second photo - Be careful – Do not save your 2nd photo in this state or you
will no longer have your
Select layer 1 which this created and click on “add vector mask” this is the little
square with a circle in it at the bottom of the layer toolbar.
Click on the white square that this created on Layer 1 – from now on this will
be called the vector mask. Choose the paint brush tool and make certain that
it is at 100% opacity and 100% hardness. You will need to adjust the Master
Diameter of your brush as you work to get around fine lines. Also enlarging
the image will make it easier to get a more professional result using tiny brushes
for precision.
Make certain that your default black is chosen and start painting away at what
you do not wish to remain on the picture. If you find that you removed too
much just switch your default to white by using the little inverted L arrow to
the upper right of the black and you can paint it back into existence. When you
need to remove very fine lines of detail it is often easier to do so with a larger
brush and then switch to the white to put back in what was outside of the area.
The ease in fixing mistakes is the benefit to using this process instead of erasing.
If you are looking for a nice crisp image then you will want to get in with a
1 or 2 pixel brush. I chose not to do that in this image because I wanted to
show the flags only as a symbol to the spirit of the event. To do that I just
click on the picture of Layer 1 and adjust the opacity until it looks like I want.
Before you save make certain that you flatten the layers and save the image
size as 300 dpi as your original artwork before adjusting it down to put on
web or print. This way you will always have it incase you need optimal
quality for printing.Photoshop Tip #12: Donna Chapman donnaichapman@yahoo.com
