How to go from this to that?

[HeatherW]

Hi all,

I photographed this purple dress by the window. The original photo is nothing spectacular as I am not really good at photography. I want it to look more professional/commercial looking, member of another photo forum took my photo and did something really amazing to it to make it look so much prettier and a lot more presentable than what it was. Does anyone know how he did it? Can Photoshop alone achieve it? Thank you in advance!

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/bemyhost/MVC-798S-1.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/bemyhost/william.jpg

Heather

 

[mykill]

they erased the background behind the lady and added the design to the right and the color change on the left. they also rounded the corners of picture and added that chineese symbol/writing. Photoshop can do this easily.

 

[HeatherW]

Thank you mykill ~ do you think you can teach me how to do that step by step? I use Photoshop CS, but I am not good at it. I use PS mostly for cropping, resizing, and some level and curves. If you could show me how to use a new pattern/background to replace an old one, that would be great. Thank you in advance.

Heather

 

[John_05]

im not all that good with PhotoShop (i use PaintShop Pro more), but changing a background isnt too difficult. you can find a background you like and add the first image you posted as a new layer over it, then use the eraser tool to erase the old background. im sure there are faster ways of doing it, but thats how i do stuff like that.

as for the chinese writing, im not sure if they used a font, or a graphic for that. if its a font, you just use the font tool. if its a graphic, you just add it as a new layer and positon it where you want it. you can also erase anything from that layer that you dont want in the final picture.

when you have the background and text the way you want it, and the final image is to your liking, you flatten (merge) the layers and save it in whatever format you need.

 

[Peacemaker636]

Learn how to use the background eraser. It would work very well with that photo. Just google 'photoshop background eraser'.

 

[mykill]

john gave a pretty good explanation but ill try to go a bit more in depth but im gonna go off the top of my head.

open up the picture that you want to edit in the current case the picture of lady. Duplicate it(i duplicate so that the original is not damaged). Now Create a new layer in between the 2 pictures of the lady. Get the paintbucket and pick a color like lime green and fill the layer. This layer will help you distinguish from the background and the lady (its only purpose). It will help if you zoom in at the tight spots for a better cut. Now go to the top layer of the girl and click it and get the eraser. Now erase away all the parts that you no longer want, so the background around the girl. Now open the background/pattern you want and drag it underneath of the layer you just erased, just above the green layer.

In the example you posted create a new layer above the green layer. the left side is filled using paint bucket with that color. Then they created a new layer above it used a pattern or a created pattern of their own and filled that layer with the pattern. Then erase pattern that is to the left that is covering the solid color. I aslo do not suggest merging layers becuase you cannot go back and edit a previous one if you get to far ahead. So if you want a solid layer of all your layers then... create a new layer then go to Image>apply image and click ok.

As far as the chineese writing looks like its from a picture. But if you want some good fonts go to www.dafont.com and save them in yoru font folder in your windows folder on the c drive....

hope that helped/made sense

 

[Philip Weir]

It's really very easy to do, but like a lot of these kind of questions, I find it difficult to explain without sitting nxt to a computer and showing someone. See if there is another PhotoForum member local to you that can come and show you. I recently had a situation where a question was asked about studio lighting a product. I found he was local to me, so had him come to my studio and I gave him a demonstration.