Checkerboard

U
Posted By
usenetzen
Mar 14, 2006
Views
241
Replies
4
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Closed
This might be a silly question…

The other day I cut a selection to a new layer and turned off the background layer to look at the selection alone. It struck me that it made a very cool image all by itself, floating on the checkerboard background. I played with drop shadows, etc and really liked what I was looking at.

Is there any way to add that checkerboard background into the picture? Obviously if you flatten the image you get a white background.

I suppose I could use a screenshot or create a new background from scratch… but I wonder if there’s an easier way.

PS/CS2, BTW.

Glenn
Photo gallery at http://faczen.smugmug.com
Reply via the web portal at www.faczen.com
or email usenet at faczen dot ca

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A
a
Mar 14, 2006
The simplest way would be to create your own custom pattern and fill a background layer with it.

"Guns/Zen4" wrote in message
This might be a silly question…

The other day I cut a selection to a new layer and turned off the background layer to look at the selection alone. It struck me that it made a very cool image all by itself, floating on the checkerboard background. I played with drop shadows, etc and really liked what I was looking at.

Is there any way to add that checkerboard background into the picture? Obviously if you flatten the image you get a white background.
I suppose I could use a screenshot or create a new background from scratch… but I wonder if there’s an easier way.

PS/CS2, BTW.

Glenn
Photo gallery at http://faczen.smugmug.com
Reply via the web portal at www.faczen.com
or email usenet at faczen dot ca
MH
Mike Hyndman
Mar 14, 2006
"Guns/Zen4" wrote in message
This might be a silly question…

The other day I cut a selection to a new layer and turned off the background layer to look at the selection alone. It struck me that it made a very cool image all by itself, floating on the checkerboard background. I played with drop shadows, etc and really liked what I was looking at.

Is there any way to add that checkerboard background into the picture? Obviously if you flatten the image you get a white background.
I suppose I could use a screenshot or create a new background from scratch… but I wonder if there’s an easier way.
Glenn,
You need to make a pattern.
Try this;

Create a new document, say, 300 pixels by 300 pixels and a resolution of 300 ppi. This will make a "box" one inch square.
Hit control+R to show the rulers if not already displayed. Then click on a ruler to change the units to percent.
Drag a vertical and horizontal guide out to the 50% marks. You now have a square divided into four smaller squares.
Hit D on the keyboard to set the fore/background colours to default (black and white) then X to reverse them.
With the rectangular marquee tool, drag a rectangle over the top left "quarter" and hit control+backspace to fill it with black. Do the same with the bottom right quarter. You now have a square consisting of a black/white on the top with a white/black on the bottom. Then, got to Edit>Define pattern and give your pattern a name (chess?) or accept the suggested.
Then open a new document, any size in inches, with a resolution of 300ppi. Then go to the Paint bucket tool (G) and on the Options bar, change the fill from Foreground to Pattern. Then open the pattern picker (right of fill type box) and find and select the pattern that you made earlier. Fill your layer with this pattern.
It is actually quicker to do this than it is to explain it and you can use any colours you like to create the squares.
You can use any resolution you choose provided that the resultant image is an inch square (when creating your pattern) Just make sure that the doc you use it in is the same resolution and the dimensions are inches, it keeps things simple 😉
see http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1oe9rg7sIO2JYLHeti sZx1HYBa8VD this is the above applied to a 10* 8 @ 300ppi.

MH
U
usenetzen
Mar 15, 2006
Thanks for the great hint! I cheated a little. OK, I cheated a lot.

I went to the site you referenced, copied the checkerboard, opened it in photoshop. Now the background I want is soft, small grey squares, so I reduced it to 10%, created a pattern from it as you suggested, then filled a 3000×2000 px new document with the pattern. Then I copied it to a new layer (ctrl-J) and reduced the opacity of that layer to 25% and applied a 1-pixel gaussian blur (looked right). After discarding the background layer and flattening the image, I saved it and now I have my desired checkerboard background!

Now to go down to the studio and set up the light tent to do some test product shots. The hard part, of course, is cleanly selecting the products out of the background.

I’ll pop back later with a finished image so you can see what I was trying for.

Thanks again!

Glenn
Photo gallery at http://faczen.smugmug.com
Reply via the web portal at www.faczen.com
or email usenet at faczen dot ca

Mike Hyndman wrote:
Glenn,
You need to make a pattern.
Try this;

Create a new document, say, 300 pixels by 300 pixels and a resolution of 300 ppi. This will make a "box" one inch square.
Hit control+R to show the rulers if not already displayed. Then click on a ruler to change the units to percent.
Drag a vertical and horizontal guide out to the 50% marks. You now have a square divided into four smaller squares.
Hit D on the keyboard to set the fore/background colours to default (black and white) then X to reverse them.
With the rectangular marquee tool, drag a rectangle over the top left "quarter" and hit control+backspace to fill it with black. Do the same with the bottom right quarter. You now have a square consisting of a black/white on the top with a white/black on the bottom. Then, got to Edit>Define pattern and give your pattern a name (chess?) or accept the suggested.
Then open a new document, any size in inches, with a resolution of 300ppi. Then go to the Paint bucket tool (G) and on the Options bar, change the fill from Foreground to Pattern. Then open the pattern picker (right of fill type box) and find and select the pattern that you made earlier. Fill your layer with this pattern.
It is actually quicker to do this than it is to explain it and you can use any colours you like to create the squares.
You can use any resolution you choose provided that the resultant image is an inch square (when creating your pattern) Just make sure that the doc you use it in is the same resolution and the dimensions are inches, it keeps things simple 😉
see http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1oe9rg7sIO2JYLHeti sZx1HYBa8VD this is the above applied to a 10* 8 @ 300ppi.

"Guns/Zen4" wrote
This might be a silly question…

The other day I cut a selection to a new layer and turned off the background layer to look at the selection alone. It struck me that it made a very cool image all by itself, floating on the checkerboard background. I played with drop shadows, etc and really liked what I was looking at.

Is there any way to add that checkerboard background into the picture? Obviously if you flatten the image you get a white background.
I suppose I could use a screenshot or create a new background from scratch… but I wonder if there’s an easier way.
MH
Mike Hyndman
Mar 15, 2006
"Guns/Zen4" wrote in message
Thanks for the great hint! I cheated a little. OK, I cheated a lot.
Naughty, naughty 😉

I went to the site you referenced, copied the checkerboard, opened it in photoshop. Now the background I want is soft, small grey squares, so I reduced it to 10%, created a pattern from it as you suggested, then filled a 3000×2000 px new document with the pattern.

I’d have copied four squares only and applied the necessary to them ( opacity, colour, blur, etc.,) and then saved that as a pattern but you now know how to create a pattern.

Then I copied it
to a new layer (ctrl-J) and reduced the opacity of that layer to 25% and applied a 1-pixel gaussian blur (looked right). After discarding the background layer and flattening the image, I saved it and now I have my desired checkerboard background!
Try this, using the zoom tool set to minus, give your background image a few clicks to reduce the on screen size (you need room to adjust a bounding box in the next step). Then hit control + A to select the image and then Edit>Transform>Perspective (Ctrl+T) then widen the bottom to suite, using the grab handles. Then Edit>Transform>Scale and grab the top middle handle and drag it down to the middle of the canvas.You could then make a selection of the empty space above the chequer board and fill it with a cloud effect, Filter>Render>Clouds to which a perspective effect (as above) has been applied.
see http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1G5kkOm1GZ9Odcj7Zz uFITn1ttZBRj
Now to go down to the studio and set up the light tent to do some test product shots. The hard part, of course, is cleanly selecting the products out of the background.
Depends on subject (hair can be a bummer for example)and difference in background colour. The magic wand tool is very good at removing backgrounds if you get the tolerance right, possibly leaving small areas that can be cleaned up with the other removal tools.
I’ll pop back later with a finished image so you can see what I was trying for.
Please do.
Thanks again!
You’re welcome

MH
Mike Hyndman wrote:
Glenn,
You need to make a pattern.
Try this;

Create a new document, say, 300 pixels by 300 pixels and a resolution of 300
ppi. This will make a "box" one inch square.
Hit control+R to show the rulers if not already displayed. Then click on a
ruler to change the units to percent.
Drag a vertical and horizontal guide out to the 50% marks. You now have a square divided into four smaller squares.
Hit D on the keyboard to set the fore/background colours to default (black
and white) then X to reverse them.
With the rectangular marquee tool, drag a rectangle over the top left "quarter" and hit control+backspace to fill it with black. Do the same with the bottom right quarter. You now have a square consisting
of a black/white on the top with a white/black on the bottom. Then, got to Edit>Define pattern and give your pattern a name (chess?) or accept the suggested.
Then open a new document, any size in inches, with a resolution of 300ppi.
Then go to the Paint bucket tool (G) and on the Options bar, change the fill
from Foreground to Pattern. Then open the pattern picker (right of fill type
box) and find and select the pattern that you made earlier. Fill your layer with this pattern.
It is actually quicker to do this than it is to explain it and you can use
any colours you like to create the squares.
You can use any resolution you choose provided that the resultant image is
an inch square (when creating your pattern) Just make sure that the doc you
use it in is the same resolution and the dimensions are inches, it keeps things simple 😉
see
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1oe9rg7sIO2JYLHeti sZx1HYBa8VD this is the above applied to a 10* 8 @ 300ppi.

"Guns/Zen4" wrote
This might be a silly question…

The other day I cut a selection to a new layer and turned off the background layer to look at the selection alone. It struck me that it made a very cool image all by itself, floating on the checkerboard background. I played with drop shadows, etc and really liked what I was looking at.

Is there any way to add that checkerboard background into the picture? Obviously if you flatten the image you get a white background.
I suppose I could use a screenshot or create a new background from scratch… but I wonder if there’s an easier way.

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