Photoshop Exercise 2 Developing X X-ray Vision: In this exercise, you will learn to take original photographs and combine them, using special effects. The objective is to create a portrait of someone holding an x-ray ray frame that reveals their bones. With your special xx-ray vision, you can see something else lodged in there as well! What is it? That s up to you! Set your camera to record the largest size photos it will take--you take need high-resolution resolution photos for printing. Think about lighting and getting a well exposed photograph with the fframe rame pointed directly at the camera. You will need: A white background A skeleton A picture frame An object of your choice A willing model you can take pictures in clas class, s, or take a frame with you to lunch or another group gathering and take a variety of pictures there to select from For this project you will combine three or possibly four photos: A photo of someone A photo of the Skeleton in the same position as the person An image of the other thing Let ss walk through this exercise step by step: 1. Go to our shared folders on the Google Drive (Graphic Design Class Folder 1st Quarter / Visuals / X-Ray Skeleton Student Photos) and download the pictures you have taken into a folder on the desktop labeled LastName_Working_Documents.
2. Open the Photoshop Elements software, select EDIT and use the drop down menu under FILE to OPEN your photographs in the editing window. You will navigate to the desktop folder to find your photographs.
3. Use the FILE / SAVE AS command to create a copy of this picture in the same desktop folder. Name it: Graphic_Design_LastName_FirstName_PhotoshopEX1. 4. Right click on the picture and use the command duplicate layer to create a background copy. I m going to work on that copy in order to preserve my original image. When you click on the copy layer it will turn dark, indicating that you are working on that layer. Turn off the background layer by clicking on the little eye icon. 5. Use the CTRL + key to zoom in on the picture frame in the photo. (CTRL-Zooms out) Use the polygonal lasso tool to select the inside of the frame where you will need to position the skeleton s face. (You will adapt these instructions based on what body part you are working with.) If a different lasso tool is visible, click on the tool and you will see a choice of lasso tools. Pick the polygonal tool for straight line selections. As you click in each of the corners of your frame, you will see a line extend. When you come back to the first corner it will complete the window. You will see the little marching ants to show the selection. Use DELETE or EDIT / CUT to eliminate the inside of the frame. The gray and white check pattern will appear to tell you that it is transparent now. SAVE YOUR WORK.
6. Click on the skeleton picture. Repeat the steps used to create a copy of your background layer. Click on the background copy and then hold down the CTRL+I shortcut to inverse your skeleton and make it look like an X-ray. SAVE YOUR WORK. 7. Use the ENHANCE / ADJUST LIGHTING / LEVELS tool to increase the contrast between your skeleton and the background. Slide the arrows under the graph of your input levels, adjusting black, mid-tones, and highlights until they look like you want them to. If you re going to add an extra object, this is probably a good time to do it. MODE / GRAY SCALE if you want to change it to a black and white X-Ray. 8. Use the ENHANCE / ADJUST COLOR / ADJUST HUE SATURATION tool to colorize your skeleton if you want to give it a different tone. You can select the background around the skeleton using a selection tool and fill it with black if you want a solid black background. You can use IMAGE / SAVE YOUR WORK.
9. Use the SELECT / ALL command or the keyboard shortcut CTRL+A to select the layer you have been working on and copy that to your photograph of the person holding the frame. You will see it show up as a layer in the photograph. Click on the move tool and then, under the VIEW menu, select FIT ON SCREEN. This will show you the corners of the skeleton and you can use these to size it. Keep in mind that you want to size your skeleton to match the person, not the frame. 10. Using the move tool, position the skeleton over the person. Then click and drag the layer with the skeleton down in the list of layers to be beneath the layer with the person. As long as you are still clicked onto the layer with the skeleton, you can move it and size it until it matches your person. You may find that you need to click on IMAGE / ROTATE or IMAGE / TRANSFORM to get your skeleton to match up with the position of the person and the shape of the frame opening. SAVE YOUR WORK! Now, decide if you like the original shot of the person framed the way the picture was originally taken, or crop it to make a stronger picture.
Here are some possible ways to crop this picture. Do you like any of them more than the original? 11. When you are completely pleased with the way it looks, SAVE YOUR WORK. You want to keep a copy of the exercise as a PSD (Photoshop Document Format), but you also want to create a copy for posting on the web. Go to FILE menu and select SAVE FOR WEB. Follow the instructions for saving your work as a JPEG. Select MAXIMUM and 100 for Quality. When you click OK you may need to tell it where to save it in the file you set up on the desk top. At the end of your work session, save all your files back to your personal class folder on your Google Drive.
Here a few tips on how to handle some problems you may have with your original photographs. Did you get something in your background when you shot the skeleton maybe even the pole the skeleton was haning on? You might use the magic wand to select those sections, delete them and then use the clone stamp to fill it with the surrounding colors. If you plan to make the background surrounding the skeleton black, try using the quick selection tool to isolate the skeleton from the background. Remember that holding down the SHIFT key will add to your selection and holding down the ALT key will take away from your selection. Zoom in so that you can really see your edges. Use a combination of lasso tools if needed to clean up your edges. Once you have it isolated, use CTRL+I to inverse the picture and make the selection look like an X-ray, then use the inverse command under the selection menu to pick the background instead of the skeleton and fill the background with black.