Photos and Layering

Andy Pischalnikoff of Snap-A-rific tutored the audience on a certain aspect of digital photography: layers and the processing of a special-effects photo. With layers, one can do ghost effects, put one's own picture in other photos, blend elements together, and change entire backgrounds.

Digital photography is very different from 35-mm photography and can be just as enjoyable if one has the right equipment, the right tools, the right software, and learns how to use it.

Andy teaches very affordable courses through the Learning Exchange. Andy's beginning class starts at $39 and is for those who have not yet bought a camera, or have but it's still in the box. It covers the basics: what to look for in a camera, what to expect from the camera, file management, tips, tricks, haggling skills for the best prices on accessories, and so forth.

Using Adobe's Photoshop Elements Andy will also start a class on Photoshop Elements within a couple months. This six-hour class covers the basics appropriate to any photo editing application, but uses Elements to maintain familiarity with advanced topics covered elsewhere. Photoshop Elements, a very simple, inexpensive, and much more approachable version of the high-end Photoshop, can accomplish 95 percent of the tasks Andy has needed to do.

The classes are not hands-on. If the lectures included student computers, the cost would be a minimum of $150 for a three-hour course. Even the Photoshop conference training events are rarely hands-on and still costs thousands of dollars.

Andy started the lecture with a showing of his Web site mentioning that he has a small tutorial showing how one inserts digital photos into PowerPoint presentations. Other content at his site is well worth the visit.

Tonight's tutorial will take several elements and blend them into one image. The background is an image of San Francisco, there is a bottle and a woman, the woman's hands cast a shadow, a shadow has been cast on her head, the bottle has been wrapped around the woman's waist, and some interesting stuff is going on inside the glass. Andy wanted an effect of a lady in a bottle or perhaps coming out of a bottle.

The bottle photograph shows nice color, nice reflections, and a strong light hitting the top. The photograph of the woman is staged. Her arms are raised and she is oriented so that light is hitting her in a manner similar to that of the bottle.

Andy uses the lasso tool to make a selection area around the woman and makes a simple trace with a strong edge. To save time, Andy makes a gross selection and takes only a part of the woman's image—with more patience, the selection area can be trimmed right up to the edge. Next, the selection is copied and saved to a new image file using the width of the selection (1536 pixels) and a larger than required height (2500 pixels) because more is going to be added to this image later.

(Get Lots of Memory Andy comments on the need for as much memory as you can afford for image editing. Anything less than 256 MB will frustrate the artist; have 512 MB or more installed for smooth and quick editing.)

Andy then pastes the selected portion of the woman to her own layer.

A brief side explanation of "layers": it is like a sheaf of transparent film. Each page can hold an image, an effect, or a color. Once the layers are stacked as required, a final image with all elements and effects are seen. While editing, layers can be rearranged, dimmed, or switched off completely.

The bottle is brought up for editing and the actual image is made into a selection. This bottle selection is then pasted onto the image of the woman and ends up in its own layer at the top of the list, which has the effect of obscuring the woman. Andy drags the bottle item in the list of layers to the bottom, moving the bottle to the background. The bottle is then lined up with the woman to give the (crude) effect that she is coming out of the bottle opening.

The image of the bottle includes a cork in the opening that Andy cuts off and pastes into its own layer. It will be placed in the woman's hands later. Resize and move the image of the woman to make the merging effect better. The problem immediately evident is that if the bottle is now in the background and obscured, how can one resize the image of the woman accurately? Dim the layer holding the image of the woman so that the image of the bottle shows through. Activate the layer of the cork and move it into the woman's hands.

To finish the exercise, apply a shadow to the woman's hands (the cork is casting the shadow). A quick way is to create a blank layer, use the airbrush and spray a dark color over her hands and forearms, then reduce the opacity of that layer.

Next, copy a small selection of the bottle top to another layer and bring it in front of the woman's dress. Reduce the bottle top's opacity. This gives the appearance that the bottle glass, with its light reflections, is wrapping around the woman's waist.

Finally, toss in the background image.

The use of layers in image editing provides for a wide range of effects that can enhance the artist's critical control of the artwork. The understanding and proficient use of layers is a prerequisite to mastering the complexities offered in sophisticated applications such as Photoshop Elements.

eBay
Milt Hull took the stage to show us what eBay is all about. He also invited Mike, his brother-in-law, to share his auction expertise at buying and selling. Some suggested items to look for were based on hobbies revealed by some members of the audience: Photoshop Elements and quilting.

eBay's site is really pretty nice—"The World's Online Marketplace"—you can search for anything you want, jump directly to specialty sites, and scan categories and subcategories.

Milt's first search for Photoshop Elements turned up a list of several auctions currently in place, and we looked at the first item, "new and never opened." A look at the specific page shows that there are 15 bids and the highest is currently $46.00. Milt went through the various parts of the page, describing what information each page element gives to the user. (The information displayed on the page is relatively self-explanatory.) Every auction page includes a link that offers new visitors to eBay comprehensive help.

The typical auction lasts one week, but Milt says sellers can pay a small additional amount to extend the auction's duration. Milt found the bid history interesting. He was able to track who made a bid and when (the amounts are hidden until the auction ends). A careful study tells Milt that some people prefer to make numerous bids until theirs is the highest, while others make one bid, their limit, and use eBay's proxy system.

Buyers and sellers register themselves with usernames—accounts include real names, addresses, and e-mail addresses. Sometimes sellers use their real e-mail address, as these are typically businesses that use eBay as their virtual storefront. Next to the username is a number that represents the net score of feedback from other parties. Positive comments add a point and negative comments subtract a point. Clicking on that number takes you to a page that lists the feedback comments.

Another nice tool eBay makes available is "Watch this item." As the auction progresses, eBay will send you e-mails detailing the current bid status.

Be sure to read the description of the item being auctioned. Carefully note what it does say as well as what it doesn't. Many times a picture of the item is displayed and occasionally an image is taken from the manufacturer's Web site. Either the seller doesn't have the means to scan a snapshot or the item is part of a business's inventory and they don't want to open the box. Just be aware.

Milt then searched for "quilting" and came up with a list of auctions where the title and/or description contained that word. Since "quilting" is rather broad, eBay returned a list that contained not only quilts, but also quilting lessons, books, and memorabilia.

Milt pointed out that sellers may place a "reserve price" on their auctions, unknown to bidders during the auction. This prevents sellers from sacrificing $3,000 items for ridiculously low bids of $50. On the other hand, because sellers are not obligated to release the item if the reserve price was not met, Milt feels that some sellers may abuse this aspect of an auction to require bids close to their normal retail cost—for example, a reserve price of $2,950 for a normal retail price of $3,000.

Mike took the stage and filled in some of the gaps from the previous discussions. He was asked if one can sell cars on eBay. Yes, but there are additional fees eBay collects based on the nature of the item. Real estate is another high-fee listing. Mike recounted several stories of friends who lucked into buying items locally at really low prices (liquidations, garage sales, etc.), then selling them on eBay, turning a nice profit in the process. The lesson here is that on eBay, the world is your market.

Mike explained the functionality behind "proxy bidding." Essentially, a bidder states the maximum bid desired but eBay places your bid at the next higher minimum bid. For example, you make a bid for $50 on an item currently at $20. eBay's minimum bid is $22.50. That will be your bid until someone else comes along and bids higher. Once that happens, eBay automatically makes another bid for you for $27.50. This goes on until $50 is reached.

eBay also provides for some excellent research on what similar items have sold for in the recent past. This gives some good indication of what sellers can set their reserve prices at, and what buyers can expect to pay. In the Search Results page, you can click the "Completed Items" tab (within 15-30 days).

For both buyers and sellers, Mike showed the summary pages that list the auctions you are currently participating in. He then took us to the page where one begins the process of listing an item to be auctioned. As Mike demonstrated, eBay has made the process easy. Mike also reviewed the various fees eBay charges for listing an item: opening bid fee, final bid percentage, reserve price option, listing options, pictures, and extended time option.

Don't be afraid to browse the auctions at eBay. Until you create your account, there's no danger of accidentally placing bids on items you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.