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Digital Photo Tricks and Fun

new:  added hints and tips for Corel Photo Paint 8 and similar programs

Superimposed Images on a Photo

One of my favorite trick shots was of a friend when I did three images of him on a photo.  He wished a music cd cover of him playing several different musical instruments and singing at the same time. The CD was a "one-person-band" type cd.  It turned out much easier to do that than expected.

Corel Photo Paint 8 allows one to cut out a section of a photograph.  So, we took the photographs and for each, then cut out the rectangular area of the person in it .. with just a little overlap on background items to the next photograph.  Then we saved the new 3 narrower photographs - each with a person.  Photo Paint 8 also allows one to "stitch" two images together and then blend the areas where the stitching is.  So, two at a time, the photos were rejoined. The photo with the person on the far left was first joined to the middle.  Care was taken during stitching to ensure that the middle area between the two was at the right distance and joined about where it should  Then that new combined photo was again stitched - this time with the person on the right - watching for the same correct stitch area.  When done, of course it was time to zoom  in and use the paint brush and smoothing tools to correct the stitching area.

This whole thing was done with a very early digital camera which lacked the high pixels of the newer type.  So resolution was not the best.  However, the most amazing thing to me was . . .how easy it was.

Art Composite

An art composite is not so unlike the composite photo above.  It often combines "things" though as well as people and looks for an overall creative impact.  It also involves art - which at least for some of us combines "vision" with "luck".  "Luck", because unless you are an exceptional artist, it is sometimes hard to tell the exact impact of the art until you are all done with the finishing touches.  When done, if it "works" for you, then it is great.  If not, then time to try a different angle on the same theme or a whole new theme. 

Then came the picture.  rpsoft 2000 has software regarding productivity, music and blackjack.  So it made sense to find a productivity shot of computers, an artistic music photo, plus a blackjack table photo.  The blackjack photo actually in this case is a real shot inside a casino that I took myself.

As in the above example the photos had to be stitched together.  If you have unrelated photos that you are stitching together, it is important to do a few things before the actual stitching.  Since in this case they were not shot with the same camera at the same angle, one has to make sure they are somewhat compatible.  The pictures have to be about subjects that are at least close to the right size and perspective.  Then if stitching the sides, one might want to ensure that the photos are at least of similar height.  Do some masking and cutting and trimming to get them ready.  Then since the photos will become a composite, ensure that if you are going to adjust contrast or brightness that you do it on the individual pictures before stitching.  Since the pictures may have different needs for contrast adjustment, you will not be able to easily adjust them as a group picture later. 

When done with all of that, then you can begin the stitching as in the last exercise.  Stitch (using the photo-paint "stitch" routine) the leftmost picture (your choice) with the middle picture first.  Blend the centers as you wish.  Then stitch that composite resulting picture with the rightmost picture and again blend the centers.   When done, trim the outside of the composite picture with a rectangular mask, chopping off any portion that extended over where it should for a rectangle.  Since the final photo is an art form, whether or not to zoom in as before to 600% or so at the stitch area and fix that area is up to you.  Sometimes the blending of the photo-paint program such as Corel Photo Paint 8 leaves you with a great blending anyway.

With the composite picture (of the 3 photos) now in hand, the picture was ready to copy and then paste on the blue and red background.  Some time was spent to position it well.  After that was done, it was somewhat then easy to supply the last step - that of adding the company name.  It was easy using the text tool to add that to the composite, using white and a simple text done in italics.  When done, we were happy with the results.   While this was a bit of what we envisioned, unless you are a great artist, some luck helps.

More Simple Effects

So the emblem above was modified to a simpler one for internal pages.  The picture was modified to a two color only version, and done in blue.  Again we liked the result of the simpler web image that we now created - that also clearly was related to our main emblem.

NEXT PAGE - Making a complete photo image

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