Thursday, October 21, 2010

Photoshop Tutorial #1

A couple of days ago, I started researching how to combine images in Photoshop, in a way that the images are overlaid, and each image shows in the finished image. Here is what I figured out.

The first step is to select two photos to use, and make sure that both photos are the same size and resolution. Open both photos in Photoshop and decide which image is most important --- the one that you want to feature most prominently in the finished image. I know this sounds backwards, but that image is the one that needs to be the Background Layer in Photoshop. In my example, the dried flowers are my Background Layer.

Click on the other image, and using the Move tool, move the second image on top of the first image. At this point, the second image will totally obscure your original image, and the second image will be Layer 1. In my example, the photo of the trail marker is Layer 1.

Now, in the Layers panel, double click on the image for Layer 1, and a pop-up box will open. In this pop-up box, there is a field named Blend Mode. It defaults to Normal. Change it to Overlay. Click OK, and the magic happens!

Tomorrow I'll post an example in color, and I'll add some text to it.

6 comments:

Linda Steele said...

Thanks Karen,
I'm going to try it.

Susan said...

Karen, thank you for writing up this tutorial. I'm just learning PS and this is a great help!

Gerrie said...

Thank you! I like instructions of the KISS style. I think I can do this.

Wen said...

Always need photoshop help- the dragging bit is something I continually forget!

Wen said...

Always need photoshop help- the dragging bit is something I continually forget!

Karoda said...

i'm always fiddling with photoshop but i never can recall what steps i took to get to a final image...this i might be able to do and recall...thanks!