Photoshop Technique Help Needed

[Gman]

I am working on a project and have a some things I'm trying to do in photoshop and could use help figuring out how to do them.

1. I have a black and white head shot that was taken from straight on. I want to change the lighting to look as though the light were on the left side. This part is not a problem for me. What I can't accomplish however is I want the left side of the face bathed in light and the right side almost hidden in shadow, so there is a stark contrast between the two sides of the face that looks natural. I want the right side to blend into the black background.

2. What is the best way to take photos of people or animals that were taken indoors and give them lighting that will look as if they are outdoors? I am trying to take the objects of my indoor photos and put them in an outdoor setting and want it to look realistic.

3. Why is it that when I copy a part of a picture and then paste that into a second picture, the original is way out of propprtion sizewise to the new picture, when I even sized them the same beforehand? Example: I take a person out of photo 1 who is 2 inches tall in the photo and place him into photo 2 next to a person that is 2 inches tall in the photo. However when I paste the person in from photo one they are huge compared to the person in photo 2.

4. When I put an image into another photo, what is the best way to blend the two images to make them look natural as if they were already in the same photo?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

[ylaenna]

1. Someone else probably knows a better way, but here's what I would try. Create a layer and fill half of it with a blurry white to cover the light side of the face, then experiment with blending on this layer. Create another layer and fill half of it with a blurry black to cover the dark side, and again experiment with blending. You may have to create more than one layer to cover each half and erase parts of it. I just do a lot of experimenting myself.

2. Play with the image brightness/contrast. Look at the outdoor photo, see what kind of quality the light has. Is it a bright yellow with a sharp contrast? Does it have a bluish tint? Is it a dull grey light on an overcast day? Whatever qualities your outdoor shot has, try to add it to your indoor photo. Play with the hue/saturation. Also experiment with adjusting the curves (ctrl or command + M).

3. Sounds like your dpi is off. Make sure your 2 images have the same resolution (Image>Resize).

4. See #2. Also, if the outdoor photo is grainy, add noise to the indoor photo. If the outdoor is blurry, add a blur to your indoor photo. Get the idea? Play with the Layer>Matting>Defringe to see if that helps eliminate any unsightly jagged edges on your indoor layer.

Hope that helps. I'm sure others here have other tips as well.

[D-Frag]

Wow okay man, I can try this out.

1. I would use the burn & Dodge tool for this one, along with trying what ylaenna said.

2. This is very very tough to do, I have had similar problems, and even with my photo manip techniques have a severly hard time mimicking this idea. Your best bet, shoot the shot in its best environment first, do not rely of Photoshop to do it for you. It is possible, but I get the feeling that you are a new PS user, and this would be very time consuming for me to explain.

3. ylaenna nailed it, def a resolution issue.

4. This is also a technique that you will need to practice with, I recommend using the blur tool, healing brush, clone stamp, check out www.impactdesign.org and look through some of there photo techniques.

hehe, thought I would be able to help out more with this, but ylaenna nailed most of it. Gman, stick around, we can point you in the right direction.