Photoshop - 2010 Oct 23

1. Task #1 - Pasting a copied background behind a frontal picture

open a jpeg landscape picture (to be used for the background)

go to 'select' -> 'all'

then go to the file with the frontal picture

'Edit' -> 'paste special' -> 'paste into'

This way the background will be pasted behind the family. If you just did a regular 'paste', the family and everything else would be blocked.


2. Task #2 - Make text display according to an arbitrarily defined path

'file' -> 'new'

'Freeform Pen Tool' -> go the the canvas and draw the path you want

'Horizontal type (text) tool' -> click somewhere on the path -> type the text you want

*I ran into a problem doing the above initially, some people can click on the left end of the path and be able to type throughout the entire path; when I did that, photoshop would restrict my text to a certain length, I had to click at the center of my path to be allowed to enter text into the entire length of the path.

3. Task #3 - Reflections - Today's Handout Details Steps and Concepts on This

'Edit' -> 'Transform' -> 'Flip Vertical' -> then drag to the correct reflection location

for the reflections: 'Opacity = 50%'

first do the reflection for the clouds

then do the reflection for the woman

then do the reflection for the frame

*in the case of the frame, since it has a sense of depth, just doing a vertical flip will not be enough, you will need to do:  'Edit' -> 'Transform' -> 'Skew" on the frame reflection, and then drag one edge of the reflection closer to the edge of the original frame

4. Task #4 - Layer Mask - Make the Woman Look Like She is Walking Out from the Frame

Click on the Layer the Woman is on -> click the 'add layer mask' button at the bottom of the layer panel (looks exactly like the 'quick mask' tool button in the tool panel, except here it has a different functionality)

Then click on the extra mask icon thumbnail that appears in the original layer thumbnail in the layer panel -> then use black to mask out (white to remove mask) , and mask out the portion of the womans leg that should be blocked by the frame when she is walking through it.