Fun with Photoshop Shapes
29
Sep
2007
Fun with Photoshop Shapes
Posted by Shawn
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This tutorial will show you how to use digital photos and Photoshop shapes to make a personalized baby mobile. This idea comes from an office card that I made for a collegue who recently had a baby boy.This tutorial is written for intermediate users of Adobe Photoshop.
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Select subject background from photo - Open a digital photo in Photoshop, and using suitable selection tools, select the subject from the background. I generally use a combination of the wand, and custom brushes in the quick mask mode. This is your Photo layer.
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Select the Custom Shape tool - Select the Custom Shape tool from the tools palette. Click and hold on the shape to the right of the pen tool and select Custom Shape.
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Select and place desired shape - Select desired shape, by expanding the shape menu and double clicking on a shape. For this tutorial I’m using the snail shape from the “Animals” shapes. After double clicking the desired shape, click and drag anywhere on the image to add the shape. This is your Shape layer.
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Position Layers - Move the Shape layer under the Photo layer.
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Adjust shape to the photo - Make adjustments to both the scale and position of the shape so that a good part of the photo appears within the contour of the shape.
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Crop photo to shape - Select the Photo layer, then control click on the thumbnail of the shape layer. This gives you a selection of the shape on your photo layer. From the Select menu, select inverse and then from the Edit menu select Cut.
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Add layer styles to shape - Select Layer Styles from the Layer menu and apply various styles. Here I use a stroke, color overlay and inner glow, but I suggest that you play around with different styles to achieve various results.
- Copy Merge and Paste - With both layers visible, select all then select Copy Merge from the edit menu. Open a new document with the desired dimensions of your final image. Here I am using A4. Then paste and name a new layer.
- Repeat process - Repeat the proceeding steps using different pictures, different shapes and different layer styles.
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Arrange shapes and customize - Arrange shapes and customize with a background image and some text. The background shown here was actauly drawn and imported from Adobe Illustrator.
