photoshop help

gagodfather

hello everyone!!!! i have a question about how to do something in photoshop. im trying to take some pictures of some fishing lures for a friend and put them on a solid white background but with the companys name or logo kind of transparent in the background. if you go to www.tacklewarehouse.com and click on a spinnerbait you will see what im kinda trying to do. i have photoshop elements 6.0. thanks in advance for the help:thumb:thumb:thumb

angevin1

There are tons of places to get tutorials on Adobe products. One of the easiest I think is at Adobe. Just visit the Adobe products and search for your products and then the user guides. Also It will link to that page from the Help menu I suspect in the Elements Window/console.

gagodfather

thanks for the info. im not sure what i would be looking for on their website could you please help with telling me what im trying to do is called.

TonyCooper

gagodfather wrote: »

hello everyone!!!! i have a question about how to do something in photoshop. im trying to take some pictures of some fishing lures for a friend and put them on a solid white background but with the companys name or logo kind of transparent in the background. if you go to www.tacklewarehouse.com and click on a spinnerbait you will see what im kinda trying to do. i have photoshop elements 6.0. thanks in advance for the helpthumb

What you want to do can be accomplished by using Layers. The photo of the lure will be your Background (main) Layer. The text or logo will be a new Layer on top of the Background Layer.

To create your text/logo Layer, make a new file of the same size and put in the text or a copy of the brand's logo. Select that, copy that, and then paste it several times to make the background of repetitive logos. Reduce the opacity to about 40% to get that transparent look. Select All of that file and Copy. Open the lure photo and Paste. You now have the text/logo Layer on top of the lure photo. Use the eraser tool to erase any of the text/logo that obscures the lure.

Flatten the image and save as a .jpg.

Art Scott

Do you have a light tent to shoot in? This would be your best bet and use 2 thin mono (2lb test or less) lines to suspend the lures..with the soft light produced by the tent
it should be 99% shadowless or totally shadow less....then use layers as described above to put the water mark where you want it.......the Photoshop /elements user forums should be able to explain how to do that.

travischance

gagodfather wrote: »

hello everyone!!!! i have a question about how to do something in photoshop. im trying to take some pictures of some fishing lures for a friend and put them on a solid white background but with the companys name or logo kind of transparent in the background. if you go to www.tacklewarehouse.com and click on a spinnerbait you will see what im kinda trying to do. i have photoshop elements 6.0. thanks in advance for the helpthumb

Why not use a .25 cent piece of posterboard found at the dollar store. Set your camera up on a tripod, manual focus at a small aperture (f11) and use that. I used a cardboard box about 16" tall by 16" wide as my setup for this shot.

pathfinder

Aww, Travis, it can't be that easy, can it?

You didn't even explain how to meter to get white to look white ( rather than grey...... )

travischance

pathfinder wrote: »

Aww, Travis, it can't be that easy, can it?

You didn't even explain how to meter to get white to look white ( rather than grey...... )

(I guess I did forget those details). I metered the Canon logo on the side of the camera (1/4 @ f11). Two desktop lamps were placed on on opposite sides with 60 watt reveal GE bulbs as fill. To blow out the white backdrop, I added a duplicate layer and used Overlay with an opacity of around 40%. I then brightened the image and applied an unsharp mask to the lightness channel. Total time spent capturing, editing and posting ~ 15 minutes.

The setup

racer

To add to what others have said, on the photoshop side, I use PS CS5 so I am not sure how this is in Elements, but I take it you want to add the fishing lure to a different background along with the logo. You start by making a selection to select the fishing lure. Start by selecting the white background and inverting the selection inorder to select the fishing lure. Then you want to feather the edges so you have a soft edge, and smooth transitions in the final image. In CS5 you would use the "feather" or "refine edge", and you would want to start with 2-5 pixels of feather radius. If you are changing the background, then using the light tent to get that perfect white background with no shadows is critical, inorder to make a clean selection. Use the same process with the logo, add it to its own layer and adjust the transparency to make it transparent. Have your background, add the transparent logo in a second layer, then your lure in a third layer
Here is a video that will explain making selections in Elements
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-photoshop-elements-9/using-manual-selection-tools/