The following is a tutorial that shows you how to have one photo show through parts of another photo to create an interesting effect. Here is the final effect we will be working towards:
Step 1: Prepare the two photos
Here are the two photos that we'll use for this guided tour of one simple way to create this effect using Photoshop.
Do whatever processing you want on the two photos. Here is what they look like at this point:
Step 2: Combine the right photo as a layer on the left photo
Use the Move tool to drag the right photo onto the left photo. Here is what you'll see at this point:
I've included the layers palette so you can see the order of the layers. The right photo (model) is on top of the left photo (clock).
We want to reverse this order. But we have to unlock the base layer first. So, double click on the bottom layer (clock layer) in the Layer's palette and then click OK for the dialog. It is now unlocked. Now drag the model layer below the clock layer which brings us to here:
Step 3: Make the white part of the clock face transparent.
There are several ways to do this, but the fastest is to just use the Magic Eraser which erases the selected color to transparent. In the following screen shot I have clicked with the Magic Eraser in a white area in the middle of the clock (note the settings I used and notated):
So now the model is showing through the transparent area. But you'll notice that there are some white areas still there in the numbers. Use the Magic Eraser to click on each white area within a number. Here is the photo after this is done:
Important Notes: Make sure when you click with the Magic Eraser that the Clock layer is the active or selected layer (see the layer's Palette in my example). We could have forced the Magic Eraser to select all White in the image, by unchecking "Contiguous". But if we did that then background would go transparent also. If you find other areas in the clock face that were not transparent, you can click them also with the Magic Eraser. In general, this process works very well when you have one color you want to erase and there is no more of that color anywhere else that is contiguous.
Step 4: Position and size the model layer
Select the Model layer and use the move tool to position it as desired. You can press Ctrl T and then Ctrl 0 and then resize the Model image if desired as well as move it. If you resize, you can use the shift key when dragging the resize handles to keep the photo proportional.
Step 5: Crop the final photo, sharpen, and save for the web. Here is my final shot:
Note of Interest: You'll see that my clock now blends right into the ShotCritic background, almost as if I made the background transparent (but I didn't --- since you'll see this is a JPG file). So your test is --- what did I do?
Cheers,
rfs
Transparency magic ...
Re: Transparency magic ...
But it looks to me as though you filled the white background with the same grey as the site. Or you created a new layer containing the gray and magic erasered the white!
