Masks in Photoshop

fredjclaus · April 17, 2010

I'm toying around with Magazine cover Overlays I purchased for a Green Screen program. These files are in PNG format so I'm told they will work with PHotoshop as well.

When I go to copy a magazine cover into a new layer on a photograph I have the Overlay is too large. How do I shrink it down so it will fit to the same dimentions as the background layer?

pathfinder · April 18, 2010

Select the entire image, Edit>Transform>Warp or Free Transform. I find warp easier to do myself.

You may need to reduce the size of your image on your screen by ctrl-(minus) a couple of times, then ctrl-a to select the screen. You can enlarge the box the image is in by pulling down on the lower right corner first.

billtaichi · April 18, 2010

I don't recall how off the top of my head but if you bring the png in as a smart object you can transform it often as you want without it affecting the quality of the image.

BinaryFx · April 19, 2010

fredjclaus wrote:

When I go to copy a magazine cover into a new layer on a photograph I have the Overlay is too large. How do I shrink it down so it will fit to the same dimentions as the background layer?

I personally would use transform/scale, if you are only after a simple resize. This is interactive.

As billtaichi mentions, another way is to use this file as a smart object layer, which will keep a copy at the original size and allow you to transform multiple times using this copy and each time the transform will only happen once from the original stored copy. Of course, there is no free lunch and you are still subject to interpolation/resampling up and down, which will affect quality. The quality difference is that with smart objects one can go back to the original pixels in the stored copy. Smart objects increase file size, however they are often worth using despite the extra layered file size.

Yet another option is to resize the overlay image first, so that it is the same size as the target image, so that it will not need sizing.

Stephen Marsh

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
http://prepression.blogspot.com/

fredjclaus · April 19, 2010

Thanks everyone. I'll let you know how it works out.

Masks in Photoshop

Comments