AJ Miller
(K=43691) - Comment Date 3/20/2008
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Hello Anne. I use PSP9 - what is it you would like to do?
AJ
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Anne Grindle
(K=839) - Comment Date 3/20/2008
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I have one picture of my granddaughter lying on the grass, but the house is in the background and distracting. I wanted to do something about that, I was thinking of putting the grass all around her
The other picture is also of her and the background I don't like. She is sitting on a bed, I covered the headboard with a blanket, but the curve of the headboard is showing. I don't like it, everyone else does. I was thinking of maybe just making the blanket be all the way up the wall behind her.
I tried to do the clone thing with the grass for the first picture, but it didn't turn out the way I wanted. I haven't really used Paint Shop Pro other than to crop and straighten.
I appreciate any help
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AJ Miller
(K=43691) - Comment Date 3/20/2008
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If you don't want to upload the images to the main page, you could upload them here so I could take a look. I'm not into really heavy manipulation with PSP, but it sounds as though this might be straightforward...
To give an idea, have a look at
http://www.usefilm.com/Image.asp?ID=1246041
This shot originally had an ugly building in the background. You can still see it reflected in the water. A friend of mine has taken this one step forward and replaced the reflection also, but that was a lot of work because of the grass.
AJ
AJ
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Anne Grindle
(K=839) - Comment Date 3/20/2008
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That looks great. When I get home from work I'll upload them. Again I appreciate your help in any capacity
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Anne Grindle
(K=839) - Comment Date 3/21/2008
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AJ Miller
(K=43691) - Comment Date 3/21/2008
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Is this the sort of thing you had in mind, Anne? This is a quick run, and the background grass is a little blotchy. But that would be easy enough to sort out if this was along the right lines.
AJ
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Anne Grindle
(K=839) - Comment Date 3/21/2008
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Yes. That is exactly what I was wanting to do. How did you do it? I tried with the clone tool but it was really bad. I have a book I am currently reading on Paint Shop Pro, but just started it yesterday
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AJ Miller
(K=43691) - Comment Date 3/21/2008
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OK, here goes - I'll try to remember all the steps...
I started with the lasso tool (freehand selection tool) and selected an area starting on the left edge, a little way below the top of the grass. I went straight across to the head, around the head, to the right edge, up to the top right, across to top left and right clicked to get back to where I started. I now had an area selected around the head that included the house and the top of the grass.
I inverted the selection (selections menu, invert) then contracted the selection by 3 pixels (selections, modify, contract). Then I feathered the selection by 3 pixels (selections, modify, feather). (This is a little trick to avoid getting a hard edge around the head.)
Next I promoted the selection to a layer (selections, promote selection to layer).
Switch off the selection (selections, select none).
OK, this gets a little tricky now...
On the right side of the screen you should have a box that gives you info about your layers. You should now have a background layer and a promoted selection layer. Make sure the promoted selection layer is highlighted and click on the little eye next to it. A red cross will appear on the eye. Then highlight the background layer.
You can now clone the grass over the house. Blast away - you don't need to be accurate and you can go all over the head, because the head you are going to use is stashed away safely on the other layer. I used a clone brush set to size 109, hardness 50, step 50, and other options set to default. You may have to keep reselecting the area to clone from to avoid getting odd blotches (like I did) and hard straight edges. Do the cloning in short bursts so that if a bit goes wrong you can always hit the undo button.
Finally, when you are happy with your cloning, go back to your promoted layer and click the red cross on the eye. You should now be able to see the results. If you are happy, go to the layers menu and click merge, merge all.
Hope I didn't miss anything crucial there - if you get stuck do come back to me. Good luck!
AJ
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Anne Grindle
(K=839) - Comment Date 3/21/2008
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Thanks. I will try to get to trying this over the weekend. How did you learn to do all that?
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AJ Miller
(K=43691) - Comment Date 3/21/2008
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Well, it's not actually as complex as it looks. I think these are fairly basic principles that apply to most photo-processing software. I'm certainly no expert, but I did just what you are doing - asked on UF, read books and articles in magazines, asked people who regularly work with the software. I think you'll find that a procedure that someone follows in Photoshop is very similar in Paintshop.
Enjoy your experimenting - and remember, when it all goes wrong, it's much quicker the second time!
AJ
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