Using Layers

[John 2]

Donald asked if I could post a description of how layers were used in creating the ghostly figure in a recent post. The monk was a stock image that I had already cut out so I've used different images for this in order to show how to accurately isolate the object you want to place on your selected background.

A couple of points first.
• Everything that follows is based on Photoshop. PS Elements should be similar. I have no experience of other programmes.
• Being totally self taught I am not an expert. Others may know of more elegant ways to achieve what I am describing. If so, speak up and we can all learn some more.

The Two selected images:


The Tools
If you are familiar with these, skip this section.




The Technique
This involves:
• Isolating the aircraft from its current background.
• Copying and pasting it onto the new background
• Resizing the pasted image
• Positioning the pasted image and cropping the overall final image.

1. Both images are opened, the sky for background and the Vulcan Bomber. Their file names appear at the top left of the canvas. Each image is revealed by left clicking on its file name. The aircraft image is selected.
2. Any image adjustments are probably best carried out at this stage (although I haven't done so till later)e.g. the roundels and tail markings have had colour saturation applied, the overall exposure has been reduced slightly.
3. There are several way to accurately isolate the aircraft but my preferred method is to use a rough selection which is tidied up using a Quick Mask. The selection below has been made using the Lasso tool.



4. Next the Quick Mask Tool is selected (left click) which produces the image below. Note that the Foreground and Background colours in the side toolbox automatically go to black and white.



5. The Quick mask can now be adjusted to accurately follow the aircraft outline using the paintbrush tool. Setting the FG colour to black adds to the red mask. But if you go too far, swopping the FG colour to white, erases the red mask. Note: Any bits of the airframe that are not required in the final image such as the undercarriage and the undercarriage doors, can be left in the red masked area. This finally results in:



6. Left clicking on the quick mask tool for a second time removes the mask leaving an accurate selection of just the aircraft. This is the time to clone out what's left of the undercarriage doors and the air intake covers.



7. This is then copied (Edit/Copy), the background sky image is selected and opened (left click on the Sky file name top left) and the aircraft is pasted onto it.



8. Note that the Layers dialogue box on the right hand side for the background sky image now has two layers showing. Layer 0 is the background sky. Layer 1 is the aircraft.
9. Note also that because the aircraft is a JPG and the sky is a TIFF, the pasted image of the aircraft is relatively small. It needs resizing.
10. To do this, we make sure that the Aircraft is selected by left clicking on its layer. Then Edit/Transform/Scale is selected from the Edit drop down menu to produce the box/handles around the aircraft image.
11. To avoid distortion of the image during resizing, the aspect ratio is locked by left clicking on the chain symbol between the percentage boxes in the top tool box. One of the percentages is then increased either manually by entering a new figure greater than 100, by highlighting the box and using the mouse scroll wheel or by dragging one of the corner handles around the aircraft image until the size of the aircraft is what is required..
12. Once the aircraft is at the required size, double left click or hit Return. The Arrow tool then allows it to be moved into its final position.

Note:
13. In the original Ghost image, the Opacity of the pasted image was next adjusted until the BG started to become visible through it. This step is not appropriate here.

14. If required, the two layers can then be merged by right clicking on either of the layers and selecting Flatten Image.
15. Finally the image is cropped to the final composition.
16. The final result then looks like this:



Hope this is of some use.

[Shadowman]

Nice, thanks for the tips and technique demo.

[mknittle]

Thanks John, nice write up.

[Mike Buckley]

I just want to mention that creating a write-up such as this takes a LOT of time. Indeed, you've been very generous with both your time and skill to make such a nice contribution to the community.

[James G]

John, excellent, +1 to Mike's comment.

[Manfred M]

+1 To what Mike has written as well. A lot of work went into that writeup.

One suggestion for further study on your part. I find the pen tool a far faster and more accurate way to extract images cleanly from their background. The only problem is that the learning curve is extremely steep and I probably gave up four or five times before thing clicked. Once you "got it" you can literally be within a pixel when doing the extraction.

[John 2]

Thanks all. It's my pay back. I've have learned a lot since being on here.

Manfred, I quite often use the pen tool. As you say, it is quite difficult and not for beginners particularly if you are attempting to follow curves but where an image has a lot of straight edges, it's the way to go. I know of others who swear by the Refine Edge tool but I find that a bit hit and miss.

[John 2]

Whoops, I have just noticed a fundamental error. The light source in the sky is on the left. The light on the aircraft comes from the right. One of the layers should have been flipped- preferably the sky.

[Loose Canon]

Very well done presentation John. And very gracious of you to provide it. It does take some doing to put these things together!

[jcuknz]

I agree a very helpful and well presented explanation .... however last night I downloaded the latest PSPX8 into my machine and one of the new things it heralded is a simple select and drag option that does all that for you in a couple of moves without the need for layers ... not that I would argue against layers as they are a very useful way of working and I cannot see why people spend money on programs without layers LOL .... Trouble is that the latest X8 version is only used in Windows 7 onwards and I normally work in earlier XP though have both operating systems in my computer it is a bind to close down one and open the other
So I went to my older PSPX6 [ in XP OS ] and used ' intelligent selection tgol' to pick up the plane and copied it to a new layer.
Saving as a jpg merged the two layers
[ ctrl- c then ctrl -l ] and there I had the plane on top of the clouds.
and a final crop gave me this ...



since one can apply actions to each layer individually of the others I darkened the plane to make it stand out ... not sure if that equals the stages that John 2 used but with either programme it was/would have been very simple thanks to Corel

Note ... I have no connection with Corel and after the hassles I had in connection with getting PXPX8 I would caution folk about the Corel/Cleverbridge crowd as I am not impressed and probably will stick with what I now have rather than get further upgrades.
The rigmarole and messing around was extremely frustrating and I'm getting too old for it

[John 2]

The trouble is John, it will never fly.

As I said, I am not familiar with PSP these days although I did use many years ago. I suspect that the facility you describe will work well where the edge contrast is high but may not do so well when it's not. In Photoshop for instance there is an auto select tool which is very useful for a quick selection but it struggles a bit when the tonal difference across the edge you want it to follow, is low. The accuracy using the layers method is at least down to the individual holding the mouse or stylus.

[mknittle]

I agree a very helpful and well presented explanation .... however last night I downloaded the latest PSPX8 into my machine and one of the new things it heralded is a simple select and drag option that does all that for you in a couple of moves without the need for layers ... not that I would argue against layers as they are a very useful way of working and I cannot see why people spend money on programs without layers LOL .... Trouble is that the latest X8 version is only used in Windows 7 onwards and I normally work in earlier XP though have both operating systems in my computer it is a bind to close down one and open the other
So I went to my older PSPX6 [ in XP OS ] and used ' intelligent selection tgol' to pick up the plane and copied it to a new layer.
Saving as a jpg merged the two layers
[ ctrl- c then ctrl -l ] and there I had the plane on top of the clouds.
and a final crop gave me this ...



since one can apply actions to each layer individually of the others I darkened the plane to make it stand out ... not sure if that equals the stages that John 2 used but with either programme it was/would have been very simple thanks to Corel

Note ... I have no connection with Corel and after the hassles I had in connection with getting PXPX8 I would caution folk about the Corel/Cleverbridge crowd as I am not impressed and probably will stick with what I now have rather than get further upgrades.
The rigmarole and messing around was extremely frustrating and I'm getting too old for it

Those military cuts are getting really bad

[Donald]

That is wonderful. Thank you, John. I didn't appreciate just how much I was asking when I made the request. We'll mark this thread so that it's more easily found by people looking for this sort of information in months and years to come.

[Dave Humphries]

We'll mark this thread so that it's more easily found by people looking for this sort of information in months and years to come.

Tagged for 'Post Processing'

[IzzieK]

Good info. I know how to do this but I wasn't aware of Step #11...I will remember that. Thank you.

[jcuknz]

Those military cuts are getting really bad

I thought when I saw the result after posting that it was remembering the DC2.5 of pre-WWII days which flew out of China with a DC2 wing grafted on to replace DC3 one the Japanese had destroyed ... then I realised that it is not a perfect process and the layer way is better for a proper job as John2 described and executed very nicely

[mknittle]

I thought when I saw the result after posting that it was remembering the DC2.5 of pre-WWII days which flew out of China with a DC2 wing grafted on to replace DC3 one the Japanese had destroyed ... then I realised that it is not a perfect process and the layer way is better for a proper job as John2 described and executed very nicely