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To start with, I want to thank everyone who replied to my post. I'm extremely
happy that you all enjoyed my chapter and pictures as much as you have.
In lugnet.castle, Kevin Blocksidge writes:
> In lugnet.castle, Anthony Sava writes:
> > > > http://www.geocities.com/savatheaggie/legohome.html
>
> First off, great story! I love the plot and the effects are amazing... I
> wonder if you could share some secrets of the images with the ship and
> dragon flying.
Some secrets? Okie doki
Ive uploaded some pictures to share some secrets. For reference I use
Photoshop 5.
First I will talk about this picture:
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/savatheaggie/editing/trap05.jpg
First off, I took the picture. Actually, I took two pictures.
One with a flash
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/savatheaggie/editing/p1010024.jpg
One without
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/savatheaggie/editing/p1010023.jpg
If you look at the two pictures, you'll notice that neither show perfect
clarity when it comes to the dragon. (You'll also notice that the pics are
1600 x 1200, good for clarity... Always use bigger pics than you need so you
can shrink them to maximize clarity)
I took the pictures under an artists lamp, a mixture between flourescent light
and normal 60 watt. However, at this distance, the artists lamp loses its'
effectiveness, this is why i took two pics, one with a flash, one without.
Some people prefer sunlight, but with something this big, it's not something
I'm willing to bother with.
I then took the pictures into Photoshop, and took the picture with a flash and
pasted it on a different layer onto the picture without a flash.
If you don't know what a layer is, I'll explain. A layer is simply what it
sounds like. Photoshop edited pictures are like a sandwich, with picture on
top of picture. Any null space in the picture on top will show the picture on
bottom through it. Don't mistake white space for null space. Null space is a
place where there are no pixels, white space is where there are white pixels.
You may be familiar with lesser picture editing software that when you use the
eraser, it really is just replace pixels with white. Photoshop pictures, when
in photoshop format, have null spaces when you erase.
Back to the picture. I then changed the eraser size to its maximum size and
decreased the eraser strength to 50%.
With almost all tools in Photoshop, there are strentths, or whatever particular
term they use for it. Photoshop eraser I believe uses the term Opacity.
Strength works too. In any case, an eraser set at 100% Opacity will erase the
image totally. An eraser set at 0% will have no effect. An eraser set at 50%
(or anywhere inbetween 0 and 100) will erase only a bit of the image, creating
a 'ghost' effect. You'll still be able to see the picture, but you'll be able
to see whatever is behind it as well, kind of like painted glass.
By erasing the top picture, and then moving it till it matched the picture
below it, I was able to encorporate the best parts of both pictures to gain
total detail.
After gaining the desired effect, I then went into the 'layer' tab and clicked
'flattened visable.' What this does, is merge the two layers of dragons
together into one layer. This way whatever you do to the one, you do to the
other as well. You can also choose 'flatten image' but this removes the
ability to create 'null space.' However, 'flatten image' is necessary when you
are done with the image, so that you can save it as something other than
photoshop format.
Next, I rotated the image so that the dragon head was level. In the edited
picture
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/savatheaggie/editing/trap05.jpg
you'll notice the dragon is beautifully banking to swerve away from the magical
spell being cast towards it. Well, that dragon is impossible to put in that
position, so I simply posed her flat as if she was upright and banking. I
always think about these things when taking a picture, what I can do to make it
easier on myself in real life that I can fix in digital life. I rotated her
about 25 degrees, but I dont remember the exact amount. To do this, in
Photoshop, you go into the rotate canvas under the 'image' tab. You'll notice
there is no way of just free styling the rotation under 'rotate canvas', though
you can do it easily elsewhere. However, I like doing it the hard way. So I
choose the 'arbitrary' function under 'rotate canvas.'
Why do I choose the hard way? Because if you free style rotate the image, you
might lose the corners when the image borders dont change but the picture does.
However, 'arbitrary' movement, will expand or shrink the borders to 'fit' the
image in.
So now the image is rotated the way I want it. Now to remove the background.
Some people like to use the 'magic wand' tool of photoshop. What does 'magic
wand' do? You are all familiar with the selection box/circle/square/misc.
shape selection tool of many editors I'm sure. However, the 'magic wand' is a
selection tool with no shape.
What it does, in stead, is select everything that has like or very similar
colors into an oddly shaped area. You can change the strength or 'tolerance'
of the magic wand, the more tolerance, the greater amount of colors the magic
wand will pic up. 0 tolerance will make the magic wand select *ONLY* the one
color you click on. However, most pictures don't have uniform color, so a
magic wand tolerance of 20 is a good start.
The reason why I don't use magic wand is because when you clear the area inside
the magic wand, it deletes half of the pixels that border the area. No, it
doesn't totally delete them, but it is the same as setting the eraser strength
to 50 to all the border pixels. Also, since its the computer picking out
pixels, its far from perfect. A good note, though, reclicking the magic wand
won't give you the same result all the time, so sometimes you can get lucky and
select exactly what you want. Also, ivory or tan walls, as most houses have,
will match colors of light grey on certain parts of MOCs, and the magic wand
will erase your MOC as well as the wall!
This is why I usually do the only thing I can bring myself to do. Zoom the
picture in to about 200-300% and delete pixel by pixel. Its long, its tedious,
but you get a cleaner removal of background (though sometimes I cheat and use
Magic Wand, on some of the pictures I've done, it shows rather badly).
After deleting, you get this picture:
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/savatheaggie/editing/trap05dragon.jpg
I saved it in photoshop as a jpg so you could see it, normally you'd see a
white and grey checkerboard background instead of white. This white and grey
checkerboard is Photoshop's way of designating 'null space' if there is no
background.
Next, I chose a background
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/savatheaggie/editing/trap05background.jpg
And I copied and pasted it behind the dragon.
To do this, you need to create a new layer, if you don't already have one. The
layers in photoshop are listed vertically. The top layer is, as you might
think, on top. So you want the layer with the background under the dragon.
You can either cut and paste the dragon on the background, or the other way
around. But since I had already been working on the dragon, and my dragon was
on 'Layer 2', I placed the background on 'layer 1'
Next I created the spell effect. The number of things I did are so many, I
won't tell you how I created it. However, I'll tell you how I got started. I
first clicked on 'layer 1' in the layer window, and clicked 'create new layer.'
This created a layer between the background and the dragon that I could freely
create the spell effect.
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/savatheaggie/editing/trap05magic.jpg
So now I had the picture done, but it still was too big and not in the right
format. So then I went back to the old 'layer' tab and clicked 'flatten
image.' Like I said, this fused all the layers and made the image available to
become whatever I wanted it to.
Next, I clicked the 'Image' tab and clicked 'image size.' You'll see a spot
for the pixel width and height. If you click on the word 'pixel' after the
number on either width or height, you can change it to 'percent.' Since the
linked height/width box is check, what you do to one will proportionally effect
the other. I chose a 33% or so, and shrank the picture.
I then clicked 'file' and 'save as' and saved the image as a '.jpg' image. The
image quality window that will pop up will allow you to control just how clear
the image will be as the final product. I choose an image quality level of 6,
as the better the quality, the larger the file. Its amazing how small an image
level of 1 can get you.
And voila, the finished product.
I also uploaded this picture and it's pieces.
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/savatheaggie/editing/trap14.jpg
I won't go into as much detail, I'm sure you'll all get the drift. Where
necessary, I'll give notes.
Original
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/savatheaggie/editing/p1010042.jpg
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/savatheaggie/editing/trap14ship.jpg
Layer behind ship, in front of at this stage, blank background, representing
the water at night.
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/savatheaggie/editing/trap14water.jpg
Created behind water, stars added, airbrushed white to make a 'vanishing sun
beyond the horizon effect'
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/savatheaggie/editing/trap14sky.jpg
Background sky and water merged, added effects
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/savatheaggie/editing/trap14seaandsky.jpg
Flattened image, resized, saved as 'jpg'
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/savatheaggie/editing/trap14.jpg
Hope that wasn't too long winded, and I hope it helped.
>
> Or perhaps an island... the ship can't fly, but maybe it's not the fire
> that caused the ship to malfunction.....
>
> -A pondering Kevin Blocksidge
One can only imagine the possibilities ;)
--Anthony
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Picture Editing Tips
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| Anthony, Just wanted to thank you for posting this. Very informative. :-) -Andy Lynch ----- Original Message ----- From: "Anthony Sava" <savatheaggie@yahoo.com> To: <lugnet.castle@lugnet.com>; <lugnet.general@lugnet.com> Sent: Monday, November 05, (...) (23 years ago, 5-Nov-01, to lugnet.castle, lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Picture Editing Tips
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| Hey Anthony, great tutorial! It was fun to read how other people go about editing their pictures. If you don't mind, I'd like to share with you a few techniques I've learned that might make your editing procedure a little more efficient. <snip> (...) (23 years ago, 5-Nov-01, to lugnet.castle, lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Picture Editing Tips
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| Anthony, I'm curious...U said u deleted the background pixe by pixel because the magic wand tool is unreliable.. Do you know about the polygonal lasso tool? It's very effective for making selective edge deletion. The tool, which looks like a lasso (...) (23 years ago, 5-Nov-01, to lugnet.castle, lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: On the wings of eagles... err... hawks
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| (...) First off, great story! I love the plot and the effects are amazing... I wonder if you could share some secrets of the images with the ship and dragon flying. (...) Or perhaps an island... the ship can't fly, but maybe it's not the fire that (...) (23 years ago, 2-Nov-01, to lugnet.castle)
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