Photoshop NooB question

[Helevitia]

Really stupid simple lame question...

How can I manipulate the actual picture on a jpg instead of actually minipulating the enite jpg. hmmm, reading what I wrote doesn't make sense. Let me try agan...

Let's assume I have a jpg that is 1024x768 and it is a picture of an apple. When I try to manipulate the apple, the entire picture gets manipulated instead. For instance, what if I wanted to give the apple a shadow? How can I do this? When I try something like that, the entire pictuer gets a shadow, not the apple. I know, lame question, but I can't figure it out.

Thanks,

Dave

[WyWyWyWy]

1. Press "Q" on keyboard to enter Quick Mask mode.
2. Select paint brush.
3. Paint the area you want to manipulate. (you can use filters like Blur)
4. Press "Q" again when you finish to exit Quick Mask mode.
5. Now you have a nice selection
6. You might need to inverse the selection.
7. Manipulate it

[SuRGV]

I think you also can do:
-Select the edge of the apple (Magnetic Lasso Tool is best for me)
-With that selection you can do many things. You can also copy and paste as a new layer to have more options.

I'm not very good at Photoshop though

[NocturnDragon]

You could also use
Filter --> Extract
(depending of what PS version you have)

[Gurm]

Magnetic lasso or magic wand are your best bets to select just the apple.

- Gurm

[Maggi]

depending on the color of that apple, you could possibly duplicate one of the color channels and do a level adjust for generating a mask that could be used to restrict picture manipulation ...

eg. the apple is green,
- look at each individual color channel (RGB) and choose the one that shows the highest contrast between apple and background (most likely the green channel)
- duplicate that channel
- adjust the levels and gamma (image > adjust > levels) so that the apple's shape will become white and the background black
- load selection (selection > load selection) from the just generated alpha channel
- start manipulating the apple

[Helevitia]

Thanks for all of the tips I will check it out when I get home tonight and report back.

Dave

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by Maggi
depending on the color of that apple, you could possibly duplicate one of the color channels and do a level adjust for generating a mask that could be used to restrict picture manipulation ...

eg. the apple is green,
- look at each individual color channel (RGB) and choose the one that shows the highest contrast between apple and background (most likely the green channel)
- duplicate that channel
- adjust the levels and gamma (image > adjust > levels) so that the apple's shape will become white and the background black
- load selection (selection > load selection) from the just generated alpha channel
- start manipulating the apple

Could you dumb that down a bit, i'd like to give this method a shot, but need a step by step.

[Helevitia]

OK, I figured it out with some help from all of you. I used the magic wand(which doesn't work very well unless the borders are clearly defined), then I 'cut' the image, then I created a secodn layer and pasted what I cut. This allowed me to create an inner shadow on pic which is now my avatar Thanks again!

Dave

[Kooldino]

Magic wand is great...just mess with the tolerance levels.

Or use the magnetic one as it "helps" it.

[SuRGV]

Helevitia ,
So it wasn't an apple ?