Hello all. So some were
asking how I created an image that made myself appear small. In this entry, I’m
going to tell how I made this through Adobe Photoshop. The image of the final
result is shown below.
For this project, you
will need two photographs. One image will be the background, and the second
image will be of you. Below shows the two images that I used in this project:
The image to the left is
my background image, and the one to the right is the photo of me. In this
project, you will cut out the photo of yourself in Photoshop and then add it to
the Background image. In other words, you will be combining the photos to make
a new one.
To make the process
easier to organize, name the background image “Background”, and for the image
of yourself, call it “Person”.
Now, open the Background
in Photoshop.
Your image may need some
adjustments. For mine, the Background was much too cool. Belo are the edits
I used, and you can control/find these edits in the Adjustments Panel located above the Layers Panel.
Brightness: 21
Photo Filter: Warming Filter
(LBA) with a density of 55
With these adjustments
made, the new background image looked like this:
The new background image
is much warmer and a bit brighter compared to the old background. When editing
your background image, do not make too many edits. You’ll want to cut and paste
yourself into the background image first to make sure you can match the
lighting and all between the two images.
Now that some basic edits
were made to the Background image, start a new file in Photoshop. Load up image
entitled “Person” which is the photo you will use to put into your Background.
The nice thing about
Photoshop is that you can pull up several separate documents inside Photoshop
at once. This makes it easier to jump back and forth between images and tabs.
You will jump from the Background image and Person image a couple times in this
project.
In the Person image, use
some way to select yourself. There are several ways to select yourself, my
favorites being:
Quick selection tool
Polygonal tool
Magnetic Tool
And the Magic Wand tool.
All of these tools (as
well as others) are used to select certain parts of image. By doing this, you
can do edits only in selected areas rather than the image as whole.
For this project, I chose
the Quick Selection tool to select myself from the Person image. Now be sure to
choose a photo of yourself in which you stand out from the background if you
decide to use the Quick Selection Tool. Don’t use an image in which the
background colors are close and/or the same as yourself. This will make it very
difficult to select yourself and you may include some of the background in the
Person image, which you do not want.
The Quick Selection tool “paints”
over areas that you choose and therefore may select some of the background if
the colors and tones are too close to you, so if you use the Quick Selection
Tool (which I do recommend), be sure that you stand out, as stated before.
If you cannot sue the
Quick Selection Tool because of your image, then try using the Magnetic Tool.
The Magnetic Tool picks up of the edges that you move over.
If you cannot use the
Magnetic Tool, try using the Polygonal Tool. This allows you to click and
select shapes. However, you do not want the edges to be too sharp or have a lot
of corners, or it will not look as realistic.
The magic wand only
selects all colors that are the same, so it may not work well.
If none of these methods
for selecting work, then you probably need to use a different photograph of
yourself.
For this project, I used
the quick selection (located in the tools panel). Paint over yourself to select
yourself.
After you have selected
yourself, right click on the selected area and click “Layer via Cut”.
Doing this will cut the
selected area (you) and create a new layer above the first layer. You can see
the new layer in the Layers Panel.
Name the new layer “Person
Layer” (creative name, I know :p).
So now you have two layers in the Person image. The
next step is to move only yourself to the Background image.
In the Person image,
select the layer called “Person Layer”.
Now, right click and
select “Duplicate Layer”. What you are doing here is you are making another
copy of yourself.
When you click “Duplicate
Layer” it will show a little box. In this box, you will see something that says
“Document”. Right beside that, there is a select menu where you can select
different documents that are currently open in Photoshop.
In the select menu,
choose “Background”. What you are doing is you are copying yourself and placing
it into the Background layer.
After you have chosen the
document you wish to send the Person Layer to, click “OK”. You will not see a
change in the Person document because the change occurred in the Background
document. Go to the Background document and close out of the Person image.
When I went to the
Background document, I found myself extremely large in it and saw that the layer
had indeed been copied to the correct file. Depending on the sizes of your
images, you will either appear very large in the Background, or very small.
Either way, you can adjust the size the way you want by using the Move Tool
located in the Tools bar.
When clicking the Move
Tool, you should see a small box-like shape around yourself. These are used to
drag the corners to size yourself. If you do not see the box-thingy, then you
may need to click the “Show Transform Controls” located in the settings area on
the top part of Photoshop. Another reason why you may not see the box-thingy is
if you are in the wrong layer as well. Be sure to be in the Person Layer.
Once you have sized your
image, you can drag it to where you want it.
Now that there are two
separate images together, you will be able to really see differences between
lighting and such. This is where further editing comes in.
If the background needs
more editing and not yourself, then just click on the Background layer and then
choose a new adjustment from the adjustments panel. A hint: Make sure that your
new adjustment layer is below the Person Layer and also above the Background
Layer, this will ensure that only the background and not you will be edited. If
you need to rearrange some layers, just click and drag them to the desired
spot.
Now if you find that only
the Person Layer needs to be adjusted, and not the Background Layer, you will
need to edit it in a different way.
To only edit you, click
on Person Layer. Next, click on an adjustment that you want to make and edit.
You will find that since
the new adjustment layer is above both the Person Layer and Background Layer
that both images are being edited at the same time. If you do not want this,
then click on the adjustment above the Person Layer, right click, and click “Create
Clipping Mask”.
The Clipping Mask will
only edit you without editing any of the layers below it. You can tell if a
layer has a clipping mask because there will be a small arrow on the layer.
To get rid of a clipping
mask, just right click again and press “Release Clipping Mask”.
Below is an image that shows what my new layers looked
like after editing both the background and myself.
Continue to play around
with some adjustments until you are happy with how the lighting and such looks
between the two images. It will require some experimenting, but it is fun! Also,
if you want to add some more photos to it, just repeat the same process you
used to copy yourself into the Background file. I did that when the clouds were
added.
Another tip: if you find
that there are some pieces of background or whatever that you don’t want to be
showing from the Person Layer, just click on the Person Layer, click on the
eraser tool, and then erase the areas you don’t want.
Also, if the edges of
yourself are too sharp to the point where it doesn’t looks realistic, use the
blur tool in the tools panel and blur the edges of yourself, it will blend in better
that way.
Well, I hope that helped, let me know if you have any questions :)
