Photoshop Elements 3 Solutions: The Art of Digital Photography- P7: This book rocks! It is not just a revised version; this is a brand new edition. So much has changed in Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 that it is practically a whole new program, and Mikkel Aaland has completed quite an amazing undertaking with Photoshop Elements 3 Solutions. | Seamlessly Pasting One of the biggest challenges in composite making is pasting a selection seamlessly into another image so it looks natural without a halo or jagged edges. It s a lot easier when you are pasting a selection into a busy background as I did in the first example in this chapter but more difficult when you are pasting to an area of continuous tone such as a sky. I use one method with pretty good success. I ll demonstrate by selecting copying and pasting the Doggie Diner head from the image on the left in Figure to the shot shown on the right. 164 Figure The two components of my composite. CHAPTER 6 MAKING PHOTO-REALISTIC COMPOSITES Figure shows a close-up of what happens if I simply make a selection copy it and paste it into the street shot. Figure By using a simple copy and paste I get the jagged edges shown here. Now I ll try something different 1. I make a selection just as before using the Magic Wand selection tool N . One click on the white background with a Tolerance of 15 pretty much does it except I ll use the Lasso tool p to select some of the white areas in the Doggie Diner s hat that were missed by the Magic Wand. 2. I reverse my selection by using Select Inverse Ctrl Shift I Shift I and shrink it by 2 pixels Select Modify Contract . This tightens up my selection and reduces the chance that I ll copy unwanted background areas. 3. I add a 3-pixel feather Select Inverse then Select Feather as shown in Figure . Figure The Feather Selection dialog box 4. I copy Ctrl C M C and paste Ctrl V S V the selectionon on top of Telegraph Hill. I use the Move tool to position it where I want. Because I slightly shrank my selection and feathered it the edges of the Doggie Diner head now blend more naturally into the new background. 5. As you can see in Figure the paste is almost seamless. Where it is not I can use the Eraser tool with a combination of both hard-edged and soft-edged brushes to make it perfect. 165 Figure .
