how to......

[carrbowl]

Hope I can explain this... I want to take a photo, find the center and move outward. At a certain point I want the photo to fade and gradually fade into 100% opacity so you see nothing. Copy and paste it onto another layer. Is that possible ...CS3....please very simple instructions...beginner in your hands...

[Jezebel]

If you're wanting to do what I think it is - this is very simple. I'm using Photoshop 7 so there will be some slight differences in the technique I'd imagine... but it's going to be pretty darn close.

Get your starting image:



Click the channels tab (if you don't see it, go to Windows -> Channels) and create a new channel.



Select the gradient tool, and make sure it's set to use a radial gradient (assuming you want a round gradation). Click the center of your image and drag outwards. When you release the mouse button you'll be left with a round b/w gradient.



Hold down CTRL while clicking the layer. This will select the gradient. Go to Select -> Inverse to turn your selection inside-out. Click back to the Layers tab and make sure you're on the layer with your image. Hit Delete. You should be left with an effect like this:



Note - If your layers are flattened, the background color it uses it going to be the background color you have selected in PS. Otherwise it will show the layer you have below your photo.

I hope this helps. If you have a question let me know :D

[carrbowl]

Gosh...how easy can it be!! I was trying your method Beth..thanks so much...got to the point where the photo was suppose to come thru...it wouldn't. So I played... in CS 3 you just need the gradient tool..up on top, click reverse, click transparent, viola!! there you have it...thanks for the help!!

[carrbowl]

too good to be true...ended up all I was doing was putting a nice little overlay OVER the photo instead of deleting it...back to the drawing board...HELP anyone????

[carrbowl]

" Click back to the Layers tab and make sure you're on the layer with your image. Hit Delete. You should be left with an effect like this:"


When I do this on CS 3, it gives the photo a red tint??? Whats up with that??

[Jezebel]

Ahhh, I don't use CS3 so I'm not sure - hehe. :) Maybe whenever you're selecting a channel and you click back to your normal layer, it puts you into the layer mask mode. I imagine you can just click out of it at the bottom of your toolbar if that's the case (the button is a rectangle with a circle in the middle, looks kind of like a camera).

Another tip for the gradient thing I mentioned:

1. It's possible to "erase" your steps in Photoshop by using the history tool. After you've cleared the image, if you feel like the center has been softened too much, you can bring some of it back.

Say you've cleared the area around the image and it looks like this, but you want the center to be more clear:



First you have to check the place you want the history tool to "go back" to. Go to your History tab and check the box BEFORE you hit clear. That means everywhere that you sweep your history brush, it will reverse the image back to the state it was in before you hit clear.



Select the History brush from the tool bar. I recommend picking a big fuzzy brush with soft blurry edges. Click in the center of your image where you want the image to be "un-deleted".



You'll then end up with something more like this:




Another idea would be to drop the gradient tool all together and try this:

Go to the channels tab and make a new channel, except this time instead of using the gradient tool - use the circle selection tool. Make a circle in the center of your image (while you're making your circle your can hold down "shift" to make it a perfect circle, or you can hold down "space" to move it). Go to Edit -> Fill -> and for the fill color select white. You'll have a channel with a plain circle like this:



Go to Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur and drag the slider up the how much you'd like the edges to be fuzzed out. You could also try doing a Filter -> Blur -> Radial Blur, and check the zoom option. In this case I did both and ended up with this:



Follow the same steps as before (select/invert/delete/etc), and you image will look like this:

[carrbowl]

Beth, Thanks so much for your help. I still have PS 6 on my computer so I went back and got it right. I still had issues with the background being white instead of the color I wanted it on my original background...so I went with the oval marque tool and just feathered them by 100 pixels...it's not exactly what I wanted, but I have so much to do, I had to get going so I can get all 26 photos done; this week!!! Thanks so much for your help

[ramblinray]

If you edit your gradient layer by double clicking in the gradient box in the layer, it will allow you to edit the gradient itself. When the gradient fill edit box comes up, double click in the gradient field and it will allow you to edit the gradient itself, including color. I wish I could explain this better, but you can edit lots of stuff for the gradient itself. It takes some trial and error to get what you want, but it can be done.

[carrbowl]

Thanks Ray...I did figure that out and tried to do that. Thanks for the suggestion though...and it made me think of another way I might be able to make it work...thanks.