The London Lounge

Alright... this is the time for many of you who have asked me in the past whether they can be of any help with the AA/Esky posts.

Well... I have good news: a detailed AA post is in the works and is mostly done. I need somebodys help (who is proficient in Adobe Photoshop 7) and can guide me through some of the basic procedures. Actually.. I already know the very basic ones and have used them in the past but this time I wanted to do a few new things so I will need help with that.

You can either PM me or offer your help here. For example to start with I need to know how to attach (join next to each other) different jpeg images such that they produce one image.

Moreover, I know there is a feature in photoshop that lets you diffuse the edges or the boundries so they are blended together and appear one neat image... the question will be how to do that?

Any members who know this can either PM me or post the answers here. Just tell me a step by step process and I will follow. Hopefully, the results will be great and this upcoming edition of AA series will be even better than the past ones.

Any help in this matter is appreciated.

sincerely
etutee

Etutee,

It would be my pleasure to lend a helping hand.
Your posts have been such a delight to read.

1) (join next to each other)

This could be done in two ways.
I believe you refer to stitching an image and not just placing several within the same canvass?
If you would like to e mail the images to me at zegnamtl at yahoo dot ca
I will do the work and return mail them with step by step instruction of what I have done.

zegnamtl wrote: This could be done in two ways.
I believe you refer to stitching an image and not just placing several within the same canvass?

Actually, if I can do both it will be great.

zegnamtl wrote:If you would like to e mail the images to me at zegnamtl at yahoo dot ca
I will do the work and return mail them with step by step instruction of what I have done.

Sadly, that is not possible because images are around 20-22 MB each. My e-mail providers won't let me attach a file that big.

Thank you for your reply.

sincerely
etutee

Dear Etutee,

Stitching is a bit more complicated than laying down multiple images on one canvass.
Forgive me if I over simplify, but I have no idea what your proficiency with PS is.

I understand that if you have other intentions, a 20 meg file is desirable, but if the web is the only venue, cut the images down to a few megs in image size. 72 dpi at 8x10 is over kill for most web site's needs. Are they 20 megs because the are PSD files? You could convert them to a jpeg and compress them at 5 while in the save as process and knoock a 20 meg PSD down to a 500k jpeg.

To canvass them, size the images to the desired size:
Image / Image Size
Once all the images are size equally
Creat a new Canvass
File / New
Select the final size you wish to have
Keep it at 72 dpi, if the rez settings change,
the placement on the page changes with it.
You may choose to set the canvass background color if you wish,
or paint it any color you wish from the color picker.
If you are "butting" the images together this will not matter as it will not show.
Save the new canvass right away.
Visually, divide the page how you see the images being placed,
then get the Marquee tool in the upper left corner of the tool bar
Set down a row of marching ants by using the marquee tool to form the box in the are you wish to lay the first image down.
Flatten the image.
This is done under Layer / Flatten image.
Save the first layer.
Repeat the process until you have the images as you want them.
If you make a mistake, you may go into History and back up one step at a time.
the default history setting is 20 steps.
If you wish to increase this (and you should)
you will find this under Photoshop / Preferences / General.
I set mine to about 50 and this most often comes into play during heavy use of the clone tool, layers or multi step up rez work.
Once the images are down. you may want to crop the image to get clean lines.
Using Show Rulers will help you line up the edges well.
If you do not flatten, you will not be able to save the work as a jpeg, only as a PSD or Tiff file.

This a crude sample I have done quickly here.
You are not locked into showing a space, I did this to save time on the sample.

zegnamtl wrote:Flatten the image.
This is done under Layer / Flatten image.
Save the first layer.
Repeat the process until you have the images as you want them.

Dear zegnamtl,

Thank you for your reply. I am good up till the above mentioned step of flattening the image. After that I am at a loss as to how successfully merge in two images. I can lay the first one down, select the size of the canvas but when I try to add on the images... they are akward with abrupt edges that clearly looks like two very different images have been imposed on top of each another... rather than the pleasing belnding effect you demonstrated in the sample pictures.

I have also e-mailed you 3 pictures. Kindly see if you can merge them together somehow and explain to me what you have done.

My photoshop knowledge is Very very basic.

sincerely
etutee

Etutee wrote:Sadly, that is not possible because images are around 20-22 MB each. My e-mail providers won't let me attach a file that big.

Thank you for your reply.

sincerely
etutee

You might want to try a internet service called dropload.

Kind regards,
Don

If these are scans, one side of each is probably brighter than the other. This would make them look "butted" as you described.

Lay down your first image. Paste the second image in a new layer (happens automatically). Go to the top of the Layers palette and reduce the opacity of the second layer to about 50%. Now you should be able to see your lower layer through it. Adjust until your stitch is perfect. Now try to find where (if at all) the tonal, hue, and saturation values seem similar. Select away the portion of the upper layer which is past the area where the layer similarity occurs. Then increase the second layer's opacity back to 100% and see how good your determination was. If it was reasonably close, select the entire second layer and work with your adjustment tools (brightness/contrast or hue/saturation) to get the second layer same as the first.

Then and only then, flatten.