Last month, I showed you how to make a transparent background, this month, I’ll show you how to remove a foreground object.
You’ll learn how to turn this:
To that.
Don’t worry, like most of the effects I’ve shown you so far, it’s very simple to do, and is an amazing time saver.
Step 1. To keep things simple, I’ll just use the same beach picture.
Step 2. Choose the Lasso tool, and draw a circle around the object you want to remove. Be sure to get a bit of the background into the selection.
Step 3. Go up to Edit – Fill, and choose Content Aware from the drop-down.
Click ‘Okay’ and the object should have disappeared, and now should be replaced with the background. Click back to the Lasso tool and Deselect, and you can now save your new foreground object removed picture.
And that’s it! Told you it was easy.
It does get a little trickier if there’s different parts to the background. For example, if you’re trying to remove multiple objects from a more complicated image, it may get ‘confused’ and remove an object in the sky by replacing it with ground, and an object on the ground with sky. This is slightly annoying, but you can always undo and redo this effect as many times as needed until you get the object out. I actually had this problem while I was working on my newest book (The Haunted Corpse) cover.
This was the original image:
And this is my cover:
I got the moon and birds out without much issue, but the lady standing to the very right of the castle was a different story. Because I’d replaced objects in the sky, every time I tried to replace her, it kept replacing her with clouds, instead of with trees. It took a while, but I finally got it. If that happens to you, I recommend removing the objects one at a time. So, remove an object from the image, save, re-open, remove the second object, save, etc. It takes longer, but it will keep photoshop from getting confused. (Hopefully)
Next month, I’ll show you the opposite, how to remove backgrounds from the image.
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This month, we’ll be keeping with the word effects, and I’m going to show you how to make a carved/chiselled effect on wood, metal or concrete.
There’s two ways I’ve found to do this, so I’ll be showing you both. They both take roughly the same amount of skill, but one of them works better for making the words looked carved into a variety of backgrounds, and the other is more specific to the three backgrounds listed above.
This is the first way, which looks best on either a wood, metal or concrete background, using the Times New Roman or another similar font.
This is the second way to do it, and as you can see, it easily works on a non-wood, metal or concrete background, and doesn’t need to be done using the Times New Roman font.
Way #1:
Step 1. Get a metal/wood/concrete background. You can do so by either finding one on a royalty-free image site (such as Pixabay.com) or, you can right-click and save the two pictures below to use as the background for this tutorial.
Step 2: Once you have the pictures, open PHSH and make a new document. Drag the pictures to your work document and resize if necessary. Once that’s done, type a phrase or sentence you want to change. For the purposes of this tutorial, I’ll just use ‘Carved’. Also, to keep things simple, I’m just going to use the Times New Roman font, and made it 150pt size. (My canvas size is roughly 25cm x 17cm)
With this way to do it, you’ll want to make sure that your font colour is just plain black.
Step 3: Right-click on the Type layer (‘carved’ word) and go to the Blending Options.
In the Default Blending Options (the panel that opens right when you click on it), go to Blend Mode, and select Screen from the drop-down menu.
Step 4: Once you select Screen, you’ll notice the word disappeared. Don’t freak out, it’s still there (as evidenced in the Layers panel), we just can’t see it right now.
Next, go to Bevel and Emboss, and copy the values listed below:
Style: Outer Bevel
Technique: Chisel Hard
Depth: 200%
Size: 12 (or 6 depending on how the finished product looks)
Angle: -45, 30 (be sure to uncheck the Use Global Light box)
Highlight Mode: Overlay, Opacity: 100
Shadow Mode: Multiply, Opacity: 75
Step 5: Once you’ve got that all changed, then go down the left-side list to Inner Shadow, and input these values:
Blend Mode: Multiply
Opacity: 100%
Angle: 120 (uncheck Use Global Light)
Distance: 16
Choke: 16
Size: 12
Once that’s done, go down the list again to Colour Overlay, and apply these values:
Black
Blend Mode: Overlay
Opacity: 55
Once you’re done applying all three of those effects, click Okay to apply them to the Layer.
You should notice the text changing while applying each of those effects, and once you apply the Colour Overlay, you should notice the word now looks like it’s carved into the wood.
And that’s it for this way! You can press on the Eye symbol in the Layers panel that’s next to each Layer, so you can see the effect on the teal metal and the concrete backgrounds.
Now that I’ve shown you how to do that way, I’ll show you how to do it the second way below. Be sure to save the above work so you don’t lose it!
Way #2
Step 1: Open a fresh document, and drag and drop any other background you want to use. (This time it doesn’t have to be a wood/metal or concrete picture) For this one, I’ll use a room with wallpaper and a chalkboard.
Step 2: Type the word/phrase you want to use. Again, I’ll just be using ‘carved’ for the tutorial.
Step 3: This time, go to Fill, which is in the top of the Layers panel, and change it to 0%.
Step 3: Now, we’ll be going back to the Blending Options, and back to Bevel and Emboss. Change the values to:
Style: Outer Bevel
Technique: Chisel Hard
Depth: 100%
Direction: Up
Size: 10, Soften: 0
Angle: 145, 40 Degrees (Uncheck Use Global Light)
Highlight Mode: Screen, Opacity: 75%
Shadow Mode: Multiply, Opacity: 75%
Now go back down to Inner Shadow:
Blend Mode: Multiply (Black), Opacity: 90%
Angle: 145 Degrees (Uncheck Use Global Light)
Distance: 15, Choke: 30, Size: 15
And lastly, back down to Colour Overlay:
Blend Mode: Soft Light
Colour: Black
Opacity: 75%
Once you’re done that, click Okay to apply the effects. Don’t forget to save your work!
As they are now, both these effects look pretty much the same. The one (big) difference here, is the first way tends to not look right if you try to use a font that’s not close in nature to Times New Roman, and doesn’t work that well if you change the font colour from black.
This second way works for a myriad of different fonts and colours. It’s also faster to do, which can help save you time so you’re not spending too much time on one effect.
Another thing I’ve found works best using the second way, is changing the colour used in the Colour Overlay.
For example:
Looks fine on the chalkboard background, too. Although we’d need to rotate the text to make it match.
Here, I used way #2, but instead of using black for the Colour Overlay, I used red – giving the poster a bit more of a morbid feel by making the words look like they have blood in the dents.
Feel free to play around with different colours, angles to see which combination works well for what you need. Also, a quick side note: the Distance/Choke/Size values will most likely vary depending on the size of your font. Don’t be afraid to play around to see how the effect will look in different situations.
As always, don’t forget to save your work as either (or both) a PSD and/or PNG file. I’d hate to have you get the effect just right and then lose all that hard work because you forgot to save it!
Next time I’ll show you how to give a picture a transparent background. Keep your eye out for that July 29th.
In keeping with the theme from last month, we’ll be continuing with text manipulations (check out the basics here). Specifically, we’ll be going through the different kinds of Warping Text there is.
Now, there are 15 different options to warp text in PHSH, I’m going to go through all of them, but will try to keep it brief. You can play around with the settings yourself and see what you like best.
Like the Drop Shadow, Warping Text isn’t the hardest PHSH effect to learn, but can definitely come in handy.
Alright, let’s get into it.
Step 1: Make a new document/project. (Mine is 6in x 6in, for simplicity)
Step 2: Using the Type tool, add text to the document. For the sake of the tutorial, I’m going to just work with ‘warp text’. The Warp Text effect will work with whatever you type, so if you need to say add text to a book cover (or poster), it won’t matter.
To keep things basic, I’m also just going to stick with black text on a white background, and Times New Roman, but again, this effect will work with almost every font/colour/background.
Step 3: While still using the Type tool, right click in the text box, then select Warp Text from the options.
Step 4: From the Style drop-down menu, first warp option we’ll be using is the Arc. (If you’re using a different version of PHSH, the order of the effects may change, and/or you may not have all the effects listed)
Once you click on the Arc option, you’ll notice your text is well, arced. See those Bend, Horizontal Distortion and Vertical Distortion options? These are the things we’ll be using for all the effects in this dialogue box. And, depending on the values, they’ll change how the text looks.
For example, my default Bend value is +50. This made the text arc so wide that it’s now cut off from the document. To get it back on the document, I can either lessen the Bend value, or, I can click ‘Okay’ (if you’re happy with the warping done) and then I could easily just move the text layer over so it’s no longer off the edge of the document.
Because this is just a tutorial, I’ll ‘fix’ it by lessening the Bend. To do this, just click and drag the arrow along the line, and you should be able to see the text change with the changing Bend in real time.
See how the text is getting less Arced? If you go past the 0 on the scale, it will begin to Arc down.
Once you get the right Bend you need, you can move on to if you need to Horizontally or Vertically Distort the Warp. The Horizontal Distortion values will either squish, or enlarge one side of the text, while the Vertical Distortion will make the text look like it’s flying at, or away from you. (Like the scrolling text at the beginning of Star Wars).
I left the Bend at 0 for the following pictures so you can see each value by itself.
Now that you know what these values do, you can use them in conjunction with each other.
The below pictures are the text with a Bend + Vertical and Bend + Horizontal Distortions.
That’s how those values act with the Arc Style. If we choose another Style from the drop-down, the options will remain the same, but the way the text is warped will change.
To keep things simple, I’m just going to go down the list in order, and show the effect with Bend only. The Horizontal and Vertical Distortions do the same thing for each, and I don’t want the pictures to get too repetitive.
You can also change the options from being applied horizontally to vertically, at the top, just under the Style selection.
Feel free to play around with these on your own as needed, too. And, once you find a style of warping you like, don’t forget to save!
Next month I’ll be sticking with the text effects and show you how to make this:
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