11/11/2004 12:34:40 PM

This is a beautiful pic. How is this accomplished? This would be my guess: cut out baby, place on flower pic. But what blending etc., did you do to make it look so ... beautiful.
P.S.: Kathryn, I emailed you by mistake, sorry. I meant to send that to Amy

11/11/2004 12:47:55 PM

When I cut out the baby, I left some space around her, I didn't cut it right to her outline. Then, I use the eraser tool, and erase the extra parts of the baby cutout that I don't need. As I get closer to her body, and things like hair, I just lower the weight of the eraser tool and erase lightly. You just play with the size and weight of that eraser until you get the right touch. On layer 1, the flowers, I selected and feathered areas of the flower that would be beneath and behind her and darkened them slightly to make shadows and hopefully make it more believable. Also, I make sure to adjust both layers for color and contrast to get them both kind of in the same color and light "zone". There are other ways to do it. Ask someone else and they will tell you something completely different!!!!

11/11/2004 1:12:26 PM

Thanks, Amy. I'm going to give this another try.

A.

11/11/2004 1:17:21 PM

Great job on this Amy! Congrats on your feature in Digital Darkroom.

11/18/2004 5:00:02 AM

You might try using a soft drop shadow on the baby.

11/18/2004 6:23:13 AM

wonderful work Amy! love the composition and what you have done here

11/18/2004 6:25:28 AM

Thanks for the comments---didn't know I was featured in the Digital Darkroom. I'll look for it.

11/18/2004 7:20:18 AM

I love what you have done with this photo. I am new at all this. What program is needed to do this with my digital photos? I use Photo Base 3 for my photos, but have some other programs on my computer that I don't use. Any suggestions? Thanks Kathy

11/21/2004 9:12:05 PM

Kathy--

I use Photoshop Elements--a watered down version of Photoshop 7 but still with LOTS of features. The adobe products for photo manipulation are the best as far as I am concerned. But, you have to do it all manually, which is good because it is all in your control that way. If you go to the adobe website, you can download a 30 free trial of either or both Photoshop Elements and Photoshop 7 (or 8, not sure which version). At any rate, they are much more powerful than most other photo manip programs. I would also recommend getting a book specifically about doing creative things with Photoshop--they have them out there, try Barnes and Noble or Borders.

11/21/2004 9:48:55 PM

Hi Amy, really great! This is my first comment to anyone in digital darkroom.. so I hope I am doing it correctly.

11/22/2004 7:42:04 AM

Ron, you meantioned the "drop shadow" -- I did selectively darken the areas under the baby, but how would I go about adding a drop shadow in Photoshop???

11/22/2004 7:52:47 AM

I'm pretty sure this is available with Elements.....select the baby layer, go to layers-layer style and select drop shadow. That will open up a dialog box. The best advise I can give is to play with all the sliders and directional (Circle with line in it) thing. A trick I recentally learned is that you can grab the preview drop shadow in the image and move it around!
The trick is to try place the shadow to copy the lighting on the baby.

Good Luck!

Ron

11/22/2004 8:01:14 AM

	flower baby with drop shadow © Amy M. Parish Fuji FinePix S602 ...

11/22/2004 8:33:19 AM

This is the fun part of photoshop...you have amazing control! The drop shadow for the baby HAS to be subtle.

Go back to the drop shadow box....in the "Blend Mode" you have some choices, the drop down arrow will change the drop shadow is strange and wonderful ways. You also can change the color of the shadow. Click on the color and change the color (maybe gray or sample the darkest part of the flower), play with that.

The thing is, it has to make the picture more believable or throw it away!

Ron

Ron

11/22/2004 8:52:53 AM

Beautiful pic, I like the drop shadow

11/22/2004 10:52:45 AM