Newbie with a problem

I’ve got a problem.  I’m a complete newbie to Photoshop, or any other image editor for that matter. In fact I’ve only just abandoned film and chemicals! I’ve got PS CS2, a training video and a number of books from the library to browse through before deciding which to buy.

What has become immediately clear is that getting to grips even with the basics of Photoshop will take a considerable time.  But I do have an urgent request from my nearest and dearest to produce a replacement of a photograph that is of the wrong dimensions for the frame she has in mind.  I could of course cheat and get a photo friend to help out – but most of them are pretty new to Photoshop themselves!

I don’t have the original film negative. The print image has been scanned to 360dpi and saved as a tiff file. It depicts a subject standing on a tiled floor with vertical blinds behind.  I can’t just crop it.  The composition would suffer and neither the composition or the aspect ratio is right. Basically I need to make the whole image wider by adding approx 15% of the blinds and tiles to the left-hand side and about 10% to the right.  The exposure of the blinds and tiles is pretty even but both are light colored. In the past I’d probably have made a few enlargements, preferably from the original negative, cut and pasted the extra material to the sides and then spent hours with an airbrush to try and achieve as seamless a finish as possible before re-photographing the doctored print and producing a print of the correct dimensions from that.  Messy, and probably the joins would still be visible – if subject to too close an inspection!

The question is; how do I best do the same result in Photoshop?    I would like to keep the existing colors although I could produce a good image by changing to a dark, plain background instead of light colored blinds and removing the tile edges so as to have a plain shiny floor.  Initially, however, I’d like to have a go at "adding" extra blinds/tiles to the left and right.  What would be the best Photoshop techniques to use to do this?
Regards,

Bill

I’ve got a problem. I’m a complete newbie to Photoshop, or any other image editor for that matter. In fact I’ve only just abandoned film and chemicals! I’ve got PS CS2, a training video and a number of books from the library to browse through before deciding which to buy.

What has become immediately clear is that getting to grips even with the basics of Photoshop will take a considerable time. But I do have an urgent request from my nearest and dearest to produce a replacement of a photograph that is of the wrong dimensions for the frame she has in mind. I could of course cheat and get a photo friend to help out – but most of them are pretty new to Photoshop themselves!

I don’t have the original film negative. The print image has been scanned to 360dpi and saved as a tiff file. It depicts a subject standing on a tiled floor with vertical blinds behind. I can’t just crop it. The composition would suffer and neither the composition or the aspect ratio is right. Basically I need to make the whole image wider by adding approx 15% of the blinds and tiles to the left-hand side and about 10% to the right. The exposure of the blinds and tiles is pretty even but both are light colored. In the past I’d probably have made a few enlargements, preferably from the original negative, cut and pasted the extra material to the sides and then spent hours with an airbrush to try and achieve as seamless a finish as possible before re-photographing the doctored print and producing a print of the correct dimensions from that. Messy, and probably the joins would still be visible – if subject to too close an inspection!

The question is; how do I best do the same result in Photoshop? I would like to keep the existing colors although I could produce a good image by changing to a dark, plain background instead of light colored blinds and removing the tile edges so as to have a plain shiny floor. Initially, however, I’d like to have a go at "adding" extra blinds/tiles to the left and right. What would be the best Photoshop techniques to use to do this?

On Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:19:36 GMT, "kermit"
wrote:

I’ve got a problem. I’m a complete newbie to Photoshop, or any other image
editor for that matter. In fact I’ve only just abandoned film and chemicals!
I’ve got PS CS2, a training video and a number of books from the library to
browse through before deciding which to buy.

What has become immediately clear is that getting to grips even with the basics of Photoshop will take a considerable time. But I do have an urgent
request from my nearest and dearest to produce a replacement of a photograph
that is of the wrong dimensions for the frame she has in mind. I could of course cheat and get a photo friend to help out – but most of them are pretty new to Photoshop themselves!

I don’t have the original film negative. The print image has been scanned to
360dpi and saved as a tiff file. It depicts a subject standing on a tiled floor with vertical blinds behind. I can’t just crop it. The composition would suffer and neither the composition or the aspect ratio is right. Basically I need to make the whole image wider by adding approx 15% of the blinds and tiles to the left-hand side and about 10% to the right. The exposure of the blinds and tiles is pretty even but both are light colored.
In the past I’d probably have made a few enlargements, preferably from the original negative, cut and pasted the extra material to the sides and then spent hours with an airbrush to try and achieve as seamless a finish as possible before re-photographing the doctored print and producing a print of
the correct dimensions from that. Messy, and probably the joins would still
be visible – if subject to too close an inspection!

The question is; how do I best do the same result in Photoshop? I would like to keep the existing colors although I could produce a good image by changing to a dark, plain background instead of light colored blinds and removing the tile edges so as to have a plain shiny floor. Initially, however, I’d like to have a go at "adding" extra blinds/tiles to the left and right. What would be the best Photoshop techniques to use to do this?

What you want to do can be done in Photoshop, but it’s a complex project that requires skill to accomplish. I’d look to other solutions.

The simplest is to place the image – in the present ratio – on a canvas of the dimension that will fit the frame. ("Canvas" being the Photoshop term for the print size) You may have to reduce the size of the image to get a good balance of white space around it.
In effect, it is the same as mounting it in a frame that is larger than the picture with a matte filling the rest of the frame.

—
Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida

On Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:19:36 GMT, "kermit"
wrote:

I’ve got a problem. I’m a complete newbie to Photoshop, or any other image
editor for that matter. In fact I’ve only just abandoned film and chemicals!
I’ve got PS CS2, a training video and a number of books from the library to
browse through before deciding which to buy.

What has become immediately clear is that getting to grips even with the basics of Photoshop will take a considerable time. But I do have an urgent
request from my nearest and dearest to produce a replacement of a photograph
that is of the wrong dimensions for the frame she has in mind. I could of course cheat and get a photo friend to help out – but most of them are pretty new to Photoshop themselves!

I don’t have the original film negative. The print image has been scanned to
360dpi and saved as a tiff file. It depicts a subject standing on a tiled floor with vertical blinds behind. I can’t just crop it. The composition would suffer and neither the composition or the aspect ratio is right. Basically I need to make the whole image wider by adding approx 15% of the blinds and tiles to the left-hand side and about 10% to the right. The exposure of the blinds and tiles is pretty even but both are light colored.
In the past I’d probably have made a few enlargements, preferably from the original negative, cut and pasted the extra material to the sides and then spent hours with an airbrush to try and achieve as seamless a finish as possible before re-photographing the doctored print and producing a print of
the correct dimensions from that. Messy, and probably the joins would still
be visible – if subject to too close an inspection!

The question is; how do I best do the same result in Photoshop? I would like to keep the existing colors although I could produce a good image by changing to a dark, plain background instead of light colored blinds and removing the tile edges so as to have a plain shiny floor. Initially, however, I’d like to have a go at "adding" extra blinds/tiles to the left and right. What would be the best Photoshop techniques to use to do this?

What you want to do can be done in Photoshop, but it’s a complex project that requires skill to accomplish. I’d look to other solutions.

The simplest is to place the image – in the present ratio – on a canvas of the dimension that will fit the frame. ("Canvas" being the Photoshop term for the print size) You may have to reduce the size of the image to get a good balance of white space around it.
In effect, it is the same as mounting it in a frame that is larger than the picture with a matte filling the rest of the frame.

—
Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida

I’ve got a problem. I’m a complete newbie to Photoshop, or any other image editor for that matter. In fact I’ve only just abandoned film and chemicals! I’ve got PS CS2, a training video and a number of books from the library to browse through before deciding which to buy.

What has become immediately clear is that getting to grips even with the basics of Photoshop will take a considerable time. But I do have an urgent request from my nearest and dearest to produce a replacement of a photograph that is of the wrong dimensions for the frame she has in mind. I could of course cheat and get a photo friend to help out – but most of them are pretty new to Photoshop themselves!

I don’t have the original film negative. The print image has been scanned to 360dpi and saved as a tiff file. It depicts a subject standing on a tiled floor with vertical blinds behind. I can’t just crop it. The composition would suffer and neither the composition or the aspect ratio is right. Basically I need to make the whole image wider by adding approx 15% of the blinds and tiles to the left-hand side and about 10% to the right. The exposure of the blinds and tiles is pretty even but both are light colored. In the past I’d probably have made a few enlargements, preferably from the original negative, cut and pasted the extra material to the sides and then spent hours with an airbrush to try and achieve as seamless a finish as possible before re-photographing the doctored print and producing a print of the correct dimensions from that. Messy, and probably the joins would still be visible – if subject to too close an inspection!

The question is; how do I best do the same result in Photoshop? I would like to keep the existing colors although I could produce a good image by changing to a dark, plain background instead of light colored blinds and removing the tile edges so as to have a plain shiny floor. Initially, however, I’d like to have a go at "adding" extra blinds/tiles to the left and right. What would be the best Photoshop techniques to use to do this?

I’ve got a problem. I’m a complete newbie to Photoshop, or any other image editor for that matter. In fact I’ve only just abandoned film and chemicals! I’ve got PS CS2, a training video and a number of books from the library to browse through before deciding which to buy.

What has become immediately clear is that getting to grips even with the basics of Photoshop will take a considerable time. But I do have an urgent request from my nearest and dearest to produce a replacement of a photograph that is of the wrong dimensions for the frame she has in mind. I could of course cheat and get a photo friend to help out – but most of them are pretty new to Photoshop themselves!

I don’t have the original film negative. The print image has been scanned to 360dpi and saved as a tiff file. It depicts a subject standing on a tiled floor with vertical blinds behind. I can’t just crop it. The composition would suffer and neither the composition or the aspect ratio is right. Basically I need to make the whole image wider by adding approx 15% of the blinds and tiles to the left-hand side and about 10% to the right. The exposure of the blinds and tiles is pretty even but both are light colored. In the past I’d probably have made a few enlargements, preferably from the original negative, cut and pasted the extra material to the sides and then spent hours with an airbrush to try and achieve as seamless a finish as possible before re-photographing the doctored print and producing a print of the correct dimensions from that. Messy, and probably the joins would still be visible – if subject to too close an inspection!

The question is; how do I best do the same result in Photoshop? I would like to keep the existing colors although I could produce a good image by changing to a dark, plain background instead of light colored blinds and removing the tile edges so as to have a plain shiny floor. Initially, however, I’d like to have a go at "adding" extra blinds/tiles to the left and right. What would be the best Photoshop techniques to use to do this?

I’ve got a problem. I’m a complete newbie to Photoshop, or any other image editor for that matter. In fact I’ve only just abandoned film and chemicals! I’ve got PS CS2, a training video and a number of books from the library to browse through before deciding which to buy.

What has become immediately clear is that getting to grips even with the basics of Photoshop will take a considerable time. But I do have an urgent request from my nearest and dearest to produce a replacement of a photograph that is of the wrong dimensions for the frame she has in mind. I could of course cheat and get a photo friend to help out – but most of them are pretty new to Photoshop themselves!

I don’t have the original film negative. The print image has been scanned to 360dpi and saved as a tiff file. It depicts a subject standing on a tiled floor with vertical blinds behind. I can’t just crop it. The composition would suffer and neither the composition or the aspect ratio is right. Basically I need to make the whole image wider by adding approx 15% of the blinds and tiles to the left-hand side and about 10% to the right. The exposure of the blinds and tiles is pretty even but both are light colored. In the past I’d probably have made a few enlargements, preferably from the original negative, cut and pasted the extra material to the sides and then spent hours with an airbrush to try and achieve as seamless a finish as possible before re-photographing the doctored print and producing a print of the correct dimensions from that. Messy, and probably the joins would still be visible – if subject to too close an inspection!

The question is; how do I best do the same result in Photoshop? I would like to keep the existing colors although I could produce a good image by changing to a dark, plain background instead of light colored blinds and removing the tile edges so as to have a plain shiny floor. Initially, however, I’d like to have a go at "adding" extra blinds/tiles to the left and right. What would be the best Photoshop techniques to use to do this?

Regards,

Bill

Doing the clone thing will work, but it’s trial and error to get things to look right. You can also select an entire area via the marquee tool and duplicate that. That might work for replicating (widening?) the blinds. And you could also add a vignette effect so the expanded blinds will fade to white, obviating the need to duplicate content to the edge of the canvas.

"kermit" wrote in message

I’ve got a problem. I’m a complete newbie to Photoshop, or any other image editor for that matter. In fact I’ve only just abandoned film and chemicals! I’ve got PS CS2, a training video and a number of books from the library to browse through before deciding which to buy.

What has become immediately clear is that getting to grips even with the basics of Photoshop will take a considerable time. But I do have an urgent request from my nearest and dearest to produce a replacement of a photograph that is of the wrong dimensions for the frame she has in mind. I could of course cheat and get a photo friend to help out – but most of them are pretty new to Photoshop themselves!

I don’t have the original film negative. The print image has been scanned to 360dpi and saved as a tiff file. It depicts a subject standing on a tiled floor with vertical blinds behind. I can’t just crop it. The composition would suffer and neither the composition or the aspect ratio is right. Basically I need to make the whole image wider by adding approx 15% of the blinds and tiles to the left-hand side and about 10% to the right. The exposure of the blinds and tiles is pretty even but both are light colored. In the past I’d probably have made a few enlargements, preferably from the original negative, cut and pasted the extra material to the sides and then spent hours with an airbrush to try and achieve as seamless a finish as possible before re-photographing the doctored print and producing a print of the correct dimensions from that. Messy, and probably the joins would still be visible – if subject to too close an inspection!

The question is; how do I best do the same result in Photoshop? I would like to keep the existing colors although I could produce a good image by changing to a dark, plain background instead of light colored blinds and removing the tile edges so as to have a plain shiny floor. Initially, however, I’d like to have a go at "adding" extra blinds/tiles to the left and right. What would be the best Photoshop techniques to use to do this?

If I understand your situation, you should be able to do this reasonably easily and effectively using the clone tool. (That’s the button on the tool-bar that looks like a little rubber stamp.)

You’ll need to be certain that the background you’re cloning from is fairly regular in terms of colour, brightness and contrast etc, but you’ve already said that’s the case, so we’ll assume we’re good to go.
Okay, so you first need to ammend your canvas size and shape. Go to *Image>Adjust>Canvas Size*, and alter the aspect ratio. You can set the direction of expansion if you want to keep the main subject off-centre for composition purposes.

Now, select your clone tool, and go to the top of the window, and set a reasonably big brush size with a soft feathered edge.
You want it to be big enough to paint smoothly and easily, but you want it to be small enough to fit within the existing area of background, allowing room for movement without encroaching onto other surrounding areas.
Now place your clone tool over an existing good area of background, hold down the alt key, and click with yor mouse/pen there.
This is the start point for your clone sampling.

Now, go to the point where you want to clone the background into and start to paint the background in.
The brush and sample point will always remain relative to each other, and you’re effectively painting with a pattern instead of with a colour. It’s as if you had a tin of tartan paint, LOL.

You’ll probably need to reset your sample point several times, and you need to be constantly aware of colours, tones, textures, brightness etc to make sure you get a good match, and you’ll brobably have to do it a few times before you get the hang of it, but it is a very effective method.
Hope this helps a bit.

In essence you need content-aware scaling, or you can stretch it proportionally rather than in a linear manner.

Is the picture really worth the trouble?

kermit wrote:

I’ve got a problem. I’m a complete newbie to Photoshop, or any other image editor for that matter. In fact I’ve only just abandoned film and chemicals! I’ve got PS CS2, a training video and a number of books from the library to browse through before deciding which to buy.

What has become immediately clear is that getting to grips even with the basics of Photoshop will take a considerable time. But I do have an urgent request from my nearest and dearest to produce a replacement of a photograph that is of the wrong dimensions for the frame she has in mind. I could of course cheat and get a photo friend to help out – but most of them are pretty new to Photoshop themselves!

I don’t have the original film negative. The print image has been scanned to 360dpi and saved as a tiff file. It depicts a subject standing on a tiled floor with vertical blinds behind. I can’t just crop it. The composition would suffer and neither the composition or the aspect ratio is right. Basically I need to make the whole image wider by adding approx 15% of the blinds and tiles to the left-hand side and about 10% to the right. The exposure of the blinds and tiles is pretty even but both are light colored. In the past I’d probably have made a few enlargements, preferably from the original negative, cut and pasted the extra material to the sides and then spent hours with an airbrush to try and achieve as seamless a finish as possible before re-photographing the doctored print and producing a print of the correct dimensions from that. Messy, and probably the joins would still be visible – if subject to too close an inspection!

The question is; how do I best do the same result in Photoshop? I would like to keep the existing colors although I could produce a good image by changing to a dark, plain background instead of light colored blinds and removing the tile edges so as to have a plain shiny floor. Initially, however, I’d like to have a go at "adding" extra blinds/tiles to the left and right. What would be the best Photoshop techniques to use to do this?

Regards,

Bill

You can do the same thing you did with your enlargements using PS.
Open your image and select Image, Canvas Size. Enlarge the canvas to the size you need.

Then use the Rectangular Marquee tool, hit m on your keyboard for this tool. Drag it around the area you need more of and then hit Ctrl-c on your keyboard or use Edit, Copy. Click outside the selected area to make the outline go away, click on v on your keyboard and then hit Crtl-v or Edit, Paste and there is a copy of your selection. Now use your mouse to move it into place.

This should give you a place to start. The joints may show but I’ll leave it to you to find out how to use the Healing Brush, if CS2 has that. I’m using CS3 on a Windows XP. If you’re using a Mac then I don’t know if the keyboard shortcuts are the same.

—
JD..

I’m going to try this too, as well as following Sam’s advice. A point I’ve read in more than one book that’s proving to be true is that there are often several ways of doing the same thing in PS!
Although improving the original print remains the main objective I am, just out of interest, going to have a stab at placing the subject, (clean well defined edges, no intricate fine detail) against a newly shot background!

"JD" wrote in message

kermit wrote:

I’ve got a problem. I’m a complete newbie to Photoshop, or any other image editor for that matter. In fact I’ve only just abandoned film and chemicals! I’ve got PS CS2, a training video and a number of books from the library to browse through before deciding which to buy.

What has become immediately clear is that getting to grips even with the basics of Photoshop will take a considerable time. But I do have an urgent request from my nearest and dearest to produce a replacement of a photograph that is of the wrong dimensions for the frame she has in mind. I could of course cheat and get a photo friend to help out – but most of them are pretty new to Photoshop themselves!

I don’t have the original film negative. The print image has been scanned to 360dpi and saved as a tiff file. It depicts a subject standing on a tiled floor with vertical blinds behind. I can’t just crop it. The composition would suffer and neither the composition or the aspect ratio is right. Basically I need to make the whole image wider by adding approx 15% of the blinds and tiles to the left-hand side and about 10% to the right. The exposure of the blinds and tiles is pretty even but both are light colored. In the past I’d probably have made a few enlargements, preferably from the original negative, cut and pasted the extra material to the sides and then spent hours with an airbrush to try and achieve as seamless a finish as possible before re-photographing the doctored print and producing a print of the correct dimensions from that. Messy, and probably the joins would still be visible – if subject to too close an inspection!

The question is; how do I best do the same result in Photoshop? I would like to keep the existing colors although I could produce a good image by changing to a dark, plain background instead of light colored blinds and removing the tile edges so as to have a plain shiny floor. Initially, however, I’d like to have a go at "adding" extra blinds/tiles to the left and right. What would be the best Photoshop techniques to use to do this?

Regards,

Bill

You can do the same thing you did with your enlargements using PS.
Open your image and select Image, Canvas Size. Enlarge the canvas to the size you need.

Then use the Rectangular Marquee tool, hit m on your keyboard for this tool. Drag it around the area you need more of and then hit Ctrl-c on your keyboard or use Edit, Copy. Click outside the selected area to make the outline go away, click on v on your keyboard and then hit Crtl-v or Edit, Paste and there is a copy of your selection. Now use your mouse to move it into place.

This should give you a place to start. The joints may show but I’ll leave it to you to find out how to use the Healing Brush, if CS2 has that. I’m using CS3 on a Windows XP. If you’re using a Mac then I don’t know if the keyboard shortcuts are the same.

—
JD..

What has become immediately clear is that getting to grips even with the basics of Photoshop will take a considerable time. But I do have an urgent request from my nearest and dearest to produce a replacement of a photograph that is of the wrong dimensions for the frame she has in mind. I could of course cheat and get a photo friend to help out – but most of them are pretty new to Photoshop themselves!

I think that’s it! Even a rough and ready first go shows that the colors, tones, textures, brightness etc are fine. The original lighting was lovely and flat and soft and there are no patterns on either blinds or tiles, all of which simplifies cloning immeasurably. There aren’t too many lines to bother about either and with fine tuning, a high zoom setting, and several practice sessions I’m sure this will be cracked.

What has become immediately clear is that getting to grips even with the basics of Photoshop will take a considerable time. But I do have an urgent request from my nearest and dearest to produce a replacement of a photograph that is of the wrong dimensions for the frame she has in mind.
I could of course cheat and get a photo friend to help out – but most of them are pretty new to Photoshop themselves!

Photoshop is the wrong tool for this. The right one would be after effects, or
Premiere. After effects was created just for this type project.