Out From the Frame
by Steve Randles
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effect is a lot easier than it looks and I consider this to be for
beginner/itermediate users. The photo of the Rose was taken in portrait
mode and was not cropped side to side, but top to bottom to match.
The photo was then resized to 600 pixels along the longest edge.
To
get things nice and accurate your going to need to use your image
size as a starting reference so first of all, from the top bar
click on View/Rulers, this will open a ruler on the top and left
of your photo. Now click on Image/Image Size and write down the
size of your image (The Rose is 600px X 589px). At this size a
frame border of around 50 px is about right so using the image
size measurements and allowing for 50 pixels either side of your
photo we go from 600 x 589 to 500 x 489.
If
you now click on one of the rulers around your photo and drag
onto the photo itself, you'll pull a guideline onto it, do this
top and left and position the guide by dragging at 50 pixels into
the photo. Now click the rectangular selection tool and you'll
notice the toolbar change just under the main menu, on that toolbar
you'll see "Style" with a dropdown box next to it, click
on this and change it to "Fixed Size", a width and height
panel will be next to it fill in the new image size we worked
out above, for the Rose thats 500 x 489.
Now
click on the photo and a selection will be made on it (known as
marching ants) and by dragging align the left and top to the guidelines
you already placed. You now have a selection that is central to
your photo with 50 pixels all around it.Drag another guide from
the ruler on the left to the right side of the selection, if you
move it slowly you should see it snap ito place, do the same from
the top ruler and drag to the bottom of the selection. See the
image below to reference what we have done so far.
This
picture clearly shows the the cropped photo with rulers open,
it also shows that the rectangular selection tool is selceted
for use with its style set at "Fixed Size" and the measurements
added next to it. It also shows the two guides added at 50 pixels
inside the photo at left and top and the selection box on the
photo aligned with them.
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Now we'll add the inset line and frame and we'll use white and black
respectively. First of all set you colour pallete to black and white,
to do this just hit the "D" key on your keyboard and forground
colour will be changed to black and background to white, you'll
see this on the toolbar and in the image below, now click the little
arrow icon next to it and you'll notice the colours swap so that
white becomes your foreground colour. |
From the top menu click on Layer/New/Layer and in the new dialog
box that opens name it "inset line". Now click from the
main menu, Edit/Stroke and in the dialog box you should set it to
the following. |
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Now click Layer/New/Layer and call this one "Frame" and
then go to your black and white colour swatch again and change it
so that black is your foreground colour. Then click Select/Inverse
and then Edit/Fill and click okay on the dialog box that opens,
you should now have a black frame on top of your photo.
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Click on Select/Deselect.
Now
we are going to work the magic that makes the photo pop out of
the frame, read through this next part before you start it so
you have an idea of what needs to be done. First we'll set up
everything.
Select
the pen tool and make sure "paths" is selected on the
toolbar (as indicated in the picture below)
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Now we need to turn the frame layer off so we can see and work on
the rose underneath it, to do this go to your layers pallette, and
click on the "eye" icon next to the frame layer to turn
it off, as below. |
Now click once on the rose layer in the layers pallette to select
it, and we can start working on it with the pen tool.
When
your using the pen tool you will see there is a little "x"
next to it, just bear this in mind for a minute.
Okay,
we want to use the pen tool to draw around the part of the petal
that overlaps from the main picture onto the frame area, we can
see this even though we have temporarily turned the frame layer
off because of the guides we set up earlier. Click a start point
on one of the overlapping areas and by clicking the next point
along the overlapping area we can start to draw around it, dont
drag your mouse, just single click then move your mouse curser
and click again, when you get almost all the way round this piece
your final click shoul be on the point you started at and remember
that little "x" I mentioned above? well you know you
have the right point because that little "x" will now
change to a little "o", this lets you know you have
completed what is known as a "closed path". Make a closed
path around all of the areas that overlap the frame area from
the main picture and when you have that done (pauses for breath
- nearly there now) right click one of the areas and click "Make
Selection", another dialog box will open. Set the feather
radius to "0" and make sure anti-aliase is ticked (as
below, and click "OK".
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You should now see "marching Ants" around all of the selected
areas of the rose that overlap the frame area. You should also notice
that I have come inside of the guide lines to make sure the bits
of image that I copy and paste overlap the inset white line we made
earlier.
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Here comes the magic..
Click
Edit/Copy then select the frame layer in the layer palette by
clicking it once, click Edit/Paste then click the eye next to
the frame layer to make it visible again. Then go to View/Clear
Guides and you should have this..
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I suggest that now you save this as a photoshop file (.psd file
extension), then flatten the image (Layer/Flatten Image) and save
as a .jpg file.
A
little embelishment of my own to personalise it, and we have a
finished image.
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