The Photoshop Guide Thread

[Has anyone seen my shoe?]

Basically I have noticed that alot of people ask for help on how to use photoshop.

This thread can be a kind of bible for those of you who don't know use or need more guidance with photoshop.

So first of all lets start with the basic colour change.

*****Click on the Images to make them bigger*****

Open photoshop and open the image you would like to change. I have picked an Onza T-Pro as it is pretty simple (Changing things to or from silver, black or white will be the most difficult. Also if you are going to use a photograph, try to find one without to much light on it and fairly good quality.)

Next click Layer>Duplicate Layer. This is so that there is another image that you can edit without changing the original image. If you look at the 'Layers' box you will see two boxes, one called something like Background and the other called something like Background Copy. Background Copy is the one we are going to edit and is already selected.

Next you have to carefully using the 'Polygonal Lasso' tool (to select this tool go to the lasso shape in the tool menu, click and hold and then go to the one that says polygonal lasso) select the area you want to change (You have to get close to the lines but if you don't press and hold the Ctrl key to add some more to the selected area or the Alt key to take away some).

After this there are a few different ways to go depending on the colour of the bike. The way I do it is to go to Image>Adjustments>Variations.

Here you will see some boxes with a picture of the bike, but with some colour added to them.

Say, for example, you wanted make the bike blue, you would click on the box labelled more blue a few times until you were happy with the colour. After that you can edit the colour more by going to Image>Adjustments>Brightness and Contrast to edit (you guessed it) the brightness and contrast of the picture or Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation to edit the colour there as well.

Also if you want to have a bike with more than one colour than go to the layers menu and, in the top box click the little eye on the end. This will hide the first colour you did but don't worry its still there. Then click on the bottom box (not on the eye). After that do the same that you did before. Then decide on the pattern you would like for instance have it in two halfs with the the middle line being vertical or horizontal or even diagonal. Or even flames if your feeling confident.

The final two stages are saving and uploading the pictures. if you have a transparent background on the pictures and you want it to show up transparent then save it as a .gif, otherwise I would reccomend .jpeg you do this by going to File>Save and selecting either .gif or .jpeg in the format drop down menu. For uploading the pictures I would recommend photobucket. All you need to do is sign up (free of charge) and you can store loads of pictures without losing them (I learnt from experience).

For other tips websites such as Digimods can be useful even though its not bikes.

Any other guides you feel need adding just post them here.

Edited July 9, 2005 by Has anyone seen my shoe?

[crazy_gap girl]

Thats VERY helpful :) for someone like me haha

cheers i'll look at that in more detail when im a ps mood :angry:

[Lewis Poyntontrials.com]

Nice one, I will have to try it. :)

[Johneh]

its also sometimes best to take all the colour out o the image 1st by pressing shift, control and u (i think)

[Has anyone seen my shoe?]

Yeah or Image>Adjustments>Desaturate

[Swize]

Thankyou .

This is the 1st photoshop guide ive read and understood .

Cheers

Sam

(N)

[crazy_gap girl]

that guide is soo good i even got it straight away and hay take a look at my version of the ashton 20"

[Kerrie-Anne]

Woah, Nadine, thats amazing.. you know how much i love pink and purple bikes!! Well done (N) XX

Kerrie. xXx

[Liss]

Whoa! Wish I had photoshop! :P I'm not allowed to download it though....stoopid parents (N)

Gah! Nads, that bike is pure sex! :lol: lol

Liss xxx

[Has anyone seen my shoe?]

that guide is soo good i even got it straight away and hay take a look at my version of the ashton 20"

←

Glad to see it works for you then.

Thats a good job aswell well done.

[Has anyone seen my shoe?]

that guide is soo good i even got it straight away and hay take a look at my version of the ashton 20"

←

Where did you get the original image from nads?

[crazy_gap girl]

the pic was on the forum quite a while back when it first came about.... im sure it was on the ashton site some time ago.. if not pm me or something if you want the original pic :P

[Has anyone seen my shoe?]

Anyone else tried this recently?

[Wrayvon]

I did some a few months back...

My dads fiat ullyses(sp)

Random ford cortina

me lil lotus

And this one is jonno's clio, that i photoshopped for him (Y)

Edited November 5, 2005 by Merlin man

[Has anyone seen my shoe?]

Not a bad job, the cortina looks a bit ehh but the resy are pretty good.

[spangler]

I made a brown baby >_<

[SamHolmes]

I made a brown baby >_<

Hahahah :blink:

[Has anyone seen my shoe?]

I made a brown baby >_<

Thats fooking scary put that away

[The enchanted broomstick]

looks like Mr. Bean has been tango'd

stu :)

[The enchanted broomstick]

I decided to add my little piece to try and help some people out, this is a small lesson on changing the backgrounds of things. Now you may have a lovely picture of something like your bike, your car, or a person you care about the background isnt always complimenting to the picture so here hopefully i can help get you on the right steps.

First off I have acquired a nice picture of a porsche and another little picture of a nice piece of road. Try and find nice high resolution pictures they give you more to play with in terms of quality for the final save.

On the right hand side circled in red is a little 'padlock' key if you double click this then click the ok box that pops up you have now unlocked the 'layer' unless we unlock this layer photoshop will not let us move pieces around - well not that i know of anyway.

If you now take a look on the left hand side in the red circle there is a tool at the moment is says magnetic lasso now this is such a handy tool but only on the right images if you have an image with big contrasts between the colours photoshop will find the edges where the colour changes and select around the parts you want for you. However i managed to choose an image with a slightly dodgy background so if we click and hold the icon circled in red a sub menu appears from which we can choose 'lasso' which allows to free handly run around the edge of the car selecting it from its own background.

I have quickly just round around the basic outline of the car, with things im worried about i take more care but this is as a guide.

Now select the 'move tool' on the left hand side circled in red.

Now grab anywhere within the outline you have created of the car and 'drag n drop' it over to the picture underneath which is our new background.

We position the car a little more where we would like it to be on the screen by dragging it with the mouse.

If we now press our Ctrl button and T at the same time (Ctrl + T) then it gives us this box around our images wich will allow us to adjust the angles and size of it so we can make it fit the road a little better. Note try resizing the image just to test, now do the same again but holding the Ctrl key you will notice it gives you an extra option of further changing the angles of the image give it a few goes and you will get used to how it works.

Once again click the 'move tool' circled in red on the left hand side as you can see a box has popped up asking if you actually want to perform the actions you have just taken i think we do so click apply.

Now for tidying up the rest of the car as said before care is normally taken with this but you know im lazee :blink: On the left select the 'eraser tool' then on the top right hand side of the screen click the 'brushes' pallette. There are a variation of brushes to choose from, i like to use the ones with feathered edges so we can wave relatively close to the car when erasing and it blends the image in a little nicer with the background then just cutting it in sharply. Now this is where are layers come in images made in photoshop all evolve around different layers. The car we have cut out is a seperate layer that we have laid over the top of the background layer. Now because the background layer hasnt been selected it wont be touched however we can erase things from the top layer (the car) and the background layer will be shown from underneath. Eg; if you wanted to cut out your name using the eraser tool just messing around the background underneath would show through so using this you can create some snazzy little effects.

We have done the tidying up now and we have successfully changed the background of an image practise a few times make sure your finding and image with similar brightness to your original image find something that suits in colours if you can and take your time then you can produce some nice things.

and here is a previous piece of artwork i have done which had a little more care put in.

hopefully someone has learnt at least something from this if not then i have just wasted a chunk of time ;)

cheers, stu (Y)

[Siders77]

Sorry to be a bit Off Topic but what Skin is that for Windows? It looks pimp. (Y)

[Has anyone seen my shoe?]

lol I thought that

[crazy_gap girl]

I made a brown baby (Y)

LOL looks like its heads been dipped in marmite!

[DrEvil270183]

rather than using the lasso tool, i always find that using the pen tool to draw round my selection is easier and more accurate. just draw around the object using pen tool, then in the layer pallette click on paths, click on the little arrow to right which opens up the sub menu, and click "turn to selection."

[RicH_87]

well i usually just magic wand all my shizzle harry potter style, saves time.