Thursday, January 9, 2014

Change A Photo's Background Without Losing The Shadows In Photoshop - How To

How Change A Photos's Background Without Losing The Shadows In Photoshop - How To
Sometimes you want to see the detail of a photo's background while changing it's appearance. puglypixel has a nice tutorial. (oops, the link no longer works, perhaps she'll bring it back someday)

My favorite choice is the pen tool but I would have lost the natural grunge on the siding and would have had to recreate the nice shadow. A mask lets you see the fabric overlay and the other detail.

My notes:

Place your photo in Photoshop. Simpler backgrounds usually work best.  This one is white siding.

Place your pattern image on top. This pattern is green fabric. Blending Mode > Multiply

Click on the Add Vector Mask icon.
Get a hard brush and paint black to remove the fabric texture. If you make a mistake change the color to white and paint over the error, the fabric texture returns. A grey brush adds transparency; I only used black and white here.

Yes, it's that simple. I think I bookmarked this tutorial since I liked the way she combined layer patterns.

morgue file image of a light on siding



This is the original image from Morgue File.

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