[turborave]

OMG!! how did you do that? How did you put those wheels on that car??? How did you drop that car? How did you change the color of that car?!?!
I decided to make a guide on how to do these basic things in Photoshop 5. Hopefully we can reference people to this when they ask these very common questions. I hope this comes out as good as i want it to.
Some basic Preferences you should have set in Photoshop:
Under "Display and Cursors" you should have "Painting Cursors" set to "Brush Size" and "Other Cursors" set to "Precise"

First One:
How do you put "X" wheels on my car??
First: Find a decent shot of your car and a decent shot of the rims you want to put on your car taken at basically the same angle.
Here are the two cars we will be using. Notice that the two photos are of a similar angle. This helps alot to make the swap look real.

Car 1

Car 2
There are many ways to select something in photoshop. For this Job the best tool for the job is the Elliptical Marquee tool (hotkey "M", if that doesn't change it to the circle tool, press and hold down over the tool until the tools pop out and then select the Circular tool)
OK, lets select the Turbo Porsche wheels from the red car.

Position your cursor over about the center of the wheel and hold down the Alt key while you select. This will make the selection originate from the center of the wheel instead of from the corner which is the default option for selecting. This makes it easier to select the wheel.
Now, hit Ctrl + C to copy the wheel to your clipboard. Now, switch your focus to the destination car, or the car who's wheels you wish to change. With the other car up, press Ctrl + V to paste the wheel into a new layer in that image. If you dont have the Layers window up, do so by going under the "Windows" menu and select "Show Layers". You will now see two layers, "Background" which is the car itself and "Layer 1" which is the wheel. If your two files where of generally the same size the wheel will be in correct proportion to the other car. If the two files had different resolutions or image sizes, the wheel will look either too big or too small. This wheel's size can be scaled under "Edit" -> "Transform" -> "Scale" or by using the Hotkey "Ctrl + T".
You should now have something that looks close to this:

Now, move the wheel into position over the old wheel using the "Move Tool" or Hotkey "V". If you selected some of the tire when you selected the rim, you can trim it off by make the Background Layer not visible by clicking on the "Eye" to hide it. you can then use the "Eraser" or Hotkey "E" to trim off the surrounding tire around the rim. Use the "Paintbrush" Option of the Eraser Tool and use a medium sized Brush, 20 pixles or so. Zoom in on your work to make it easy on your eyes and also hit "Tab" to temporarily hide the toolbox and any other non-document windows that are on the screen. Press "Tab" again to get them back.
With the tire trimmed around the rim and it positioned in the right place your window should look close to this:

Now that the rear tire looks pretty good we can concentrate on the front tire. Notice that for the front tire we will have to scale the rim down and transform it a bit.
Switch back to the "Move" tool (Hotkey "V") and with Layer 1 active, click on the wheel and hold the "Alt" key. Drag a copy of the rim off to the side and release the mouse button. This will make a new layer and a copy of the rear wheel. You will notice in your Layer manager that there is a new Layer named "Layer 1 copy"
Your Document should look like this:

Now, move the wheel into roughly the correct position over the front wheel. Press "Ctrl + T" to enter Transform mode. Use "Alt" to transform based on the center of the wheel. You will need to scale the wheel down, and rotate it a bit to the right to achieve the proper perspective for the wheel. To accept the transformation you have done to the wheel, simply double-click on the area inside the transformation box. Placing the cursor outside the transformation box enables you to rotate the rim. You will notice a curved, double-arrow-ended, cursor when you are in rotate mode. Always remember you can use "Ctrl + Z" to undo a operation you do not wish to accept. You can also use the "History" feature that Photoshop 5 offers to go back several steps.
Your document should look like this now:

You can now flatten all your layers if you like what you have and Save it as a new file. To Flatten Layers click the small arrow to bring down the menu, and select "Flatten all Layers"

This is basically how you change rims on a car using Photoshop. You may come across some variables that are not covered in this explanation. You will need a basic knowledge of computers and a slight knowledge of Photoshop to do this.
Coming soon: How to lower a car...
and... How to change colors of a car.

[Modified by turborave, 1:37 PM 1-2-2002]

[Modified by turborave, 1:35 PM 2-20-2002]


Modified by turborave at 9:25 AM 12-14-2004

 

[turborave]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (turborave)

here.. fixed up the brakes... used the Brush tool to remove the caliper from the rear. Flipped it to fit the front and tweaked it using "Free Transform" to match the area between the spokes.

edit:

[Modified by turborave, 12:08 AM 1-10-2002]


[Modified by turborave, 1:36 PM 2-20-2002]

 

[turborave]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (turborave)

Part 2: How to Lower a Car.
How i slam my car and make it look dope?
Well, it all involves selecting the top half of the car around the fenders and moving it down. How do you do that? Like this:
Lets use my car again for this example. This is a good picture to use because there are nice shadows around the bottom edges of the car. This makes it easy to move when we are ready to and there isn't much touch up work to be done.

Here is the car as is before any selecting or lowering. This car has the stock suspension.
To select the part of the car we need to lower it we can use the "Polygonal Lasso" tool, Hotkey "L" The Polygonal Lasso tool is the second one in the bar of tools for that Hotkey. Also found in there are the "Lasso Tool" which allows you to draw freehand the areas you wish to select, this requires a steady hand or a drawing tablet to use effectively. The "Magnetic Lasso" tool i can actually say i have NEVER used. I just checked it out real quick to see what it was about and it appears that it selects the areas around where you are dragging based on pixel similarity. Anyway, the "Polygonal Lasso" tool works as follows. When you have the tool activated and click once and then move the cursor else where and click again, it allows you to put a straight line between those 2 points. The only curved sections you will be dealing with in this operation are around the wheels and around the bumpers.
So, start at one end of the car and click along the contour of the car as shown in this image:

Note: you can click out side of the area of the image using the Polygonal Lasso if you have the document maximized. This helps when selecting the area at the edge of the picture
Now, using the "Move" tool again (Hotkey "V") to move the top portion of the car down and match up the arc of the tire and the arc of the fender to get a proper "dropped" look.
Tip: you can press Ctrl + H to hide the selection marquee, just dont forget you hid it! This makes it easier to see where you are moving the top of the car to.
Your image should look like this now:

Press Ctrl + D to deselect the top area of the car. If you matched the arcs of the fender and the tire up correctly, you should see a bit of white (or whatever your background color is). This can be touched up using the "Brush" tool (Hotkey "B")
Here is a close up on the rear wheel showing the white area from moving the top down:

With the "Brush" tool, Press the "Alt" key to temporarily change the tool to the "Eyedropper". Select the color near the white areas and then release the "Alt" key. Use a small sized brush to color in the white areas.
After the white areas are colored in, you will notice that you have a white strip (or whatever you background color is set to) at the top of the image. To get rid of this strip, simply "Crop" the image. To use the "Crop" tool (Hotkey "C") draw a box around the area you wish to keep and then double-click inside the area.
Here is the image ready to be cropped:

Here is the finished product:

[Modified by turborave, 1:37 PM 2-20-2002]


[Modified by turborave, 12:55 PM 9-11-2002]

 

[matt007]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (roman16v)

Copyright symbol for Times New Roman: Alt-0169
Then put your name after it, if you wish

 

[speedn16v]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (matt007)

Also, while in the text mode you can set the transparency of the text by hitting the 0-9 keys.
I crop my images to 400x 600 pixels. This way they are a reasonable size to view on screen, and it is in the same proportions of the 35mm frame.
By doing this I can also have my name and copyright in the exact location on each image. To do this create a "blank" image. Create the copyright text in the font/color/transparency you want. Then use the grid and drag it to the location you want. Save this image in .psd format, so the layer information will be saved.
Now when you have your image you want to insert the copyright into, you can just drag the layer your text is in (from the blank image) into your photo.
Dave.
'90 GLi
'97 Jetta GT

 

[turborave]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (DirtyJerseyGTI)

i guess all you people are on the edge of your seats about the "How to change the color of my car" how-to right? well... if i am not too busy today (read playing golden sun on my GBA all day) i see what i can whip up.. i'll be using the 25th Anniversary GTI as the example car since i already have that set up in a PSD file...
to study ahead and be good lil pupils learn how "Quick Mask" works, Hotkey "Q"

 

[turborave]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (stolenmomentz)

Part 3: How to Change the Color of a Car.
How do i make my silver car purple? How do i make my red car black?
I would say that this is the most time consuming of all of the 3 photoshop exercises. This procedure takes a steady mouse and a good knowledge of the brush and eraser tools. I highly recommend reading the Help file on "Using Quick Mask Mode" in Photoshop, it explains it very well.
Also, have these settings in your preferences: Under "Display and Cursors" you should have "Painting Cursors" set to "Brush Size" and "Other Cursors" set to "Precise"

Let's change the color of the 25th Anniversary GTI. This is an excellent picture to use because the lighting is good and the background is clearly defined from the car itself.
Here is the car before any alteration:

The operation you will spend the most time doing is selecting the area of the car that is the body color. There MANY ways to select something in photoshop, selecting using "Color Range", "Replace Color", or the "Magic Wand" are just some of the ways you could start this off. I feel that the most reliable way to select the parts of the car that you need is through "Quick Mask". What is Quick Mask?? Well, it allows you to enter a mode that enables you to make your selection with the painting and erasing tools of Photoshop. The area that is not selected will be colored over with a red shade, you are not effecting the actual color of the car, but just painting in the selection. You can toggle in and out of Quick Mask mode by using Hotkey "Q". Before entering this mode you must have your foreground color set to "black" and your background color set to "white" to do this, click on the area circled in red below:

You will notice that when you are in "Quick Mask" mode the title bar of the document will say (Quick Mask) in file name. To begin selecting areas of a car switch to the "Brush" tool (Hotkey "B") and zoom in on a portion of the car (Zoom - Hotkey "Z"). Here i have zoomed in on the rear and begun selecting the body:

To draw the selection you will need to switch brush sizes frequently and have good control of your mouse. To easily change brush sizes use the "[" and "]" keys to toggle between the brushes in the brush window. If you have the default brushes and have not edited them, use the top row of brushes. The second rows edges are too blurred to be right for this job. Another good technique to master is using "Shift" to draw a straight line between two points with the brush tool. To do this click once to set the 1st point of the line, then move your mouse to the second point and while holding "Shift" click again. This is good to use in areas like the side skirts or anywhere there is a straight edge on the car. You may spend anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes painting over all the color areas of the car's body. If you happen to paint in an area you don't wish to, use the "Eraser" (Hotkey "E") to erase the red shaded area. The eraser tools options should be set to "Paintbrush". The brush size of the eraser can be controlled the same way as the brush tool, by using the "[" & "]" keys. Once you have painted over all the color parts your file should look like this:

Then, exit out of Quick Mask mode "Q", you will notice you have a marquee selection that looks like this:

Now this selection is inverted from the selection you want to invert the selction press "Ctrl + Shift + I" or go under the "Select" menu and chose "Inverse"
Now your selection will look like this:

Now hit "Ctrl + C" to copy the area to your clipboard. Then, hit "Ctrl + V" to paste the selection back to the file. Notice that when you paste, it automatically creates a new layer with just the selected area in it. That layer should look like this is you turn the background layer invisible by clicking on the eye next to layer in the layer manager:

You can finally change the color of the car now. With Layer 1 your active layer, goto menu "Image" then "Adjust" then "Hue and Saturation". Play around with all the sliders, you should see the image update to your changes. Also try adjusting the colors with "Colorize" checked off. When you are satisfied with your new color, click "Ok". Layer 1 can be set to visible or invisible by clicking the eye next to the layer to see the color difference.
This is what your file should look like:

Now if you want to save this color change so you can post it, flatten the layers. If you wish to save this file with the layers intact to change the color again later, save it as a .psd file.
I hope all this is understandable. This is a pretty advanced operation. Practice drawing freehand with the mouse using the brush tool. This operation takes time and patients.

[Modified by turborave, 9:46 AM 1-8-2002]


[Modified by turborave, 1:39 PM 2-20-2002]

 

[quicksand]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (2002GTI)

quote:[HR][/HR]How would you simulate a picture on your car. It would have to have some transparence so that the picture actually looks like its on the car rather than over it. The pic Ive included shows what you do not want. Please include a tutorial on how to do it correctly.

So that the image actually looks like its on the actual car. [HR][/HR]​

I believe the easiest way wuold be to change the layer to "overlay" or "hardlight" maybe adjust transperacy a little. depending on the sticker. maybe curves to adjust the lightness of the logo.

 

[SinisterSyclone]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (turborave)

quote:[HR][/HR]my official tip on masking a red car... invert the picture first (make it a negative)... mask away.. when you are done, invert it again.[HR][/HR]​

First, thanks for the tutorial. It was a great help! http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif
Second, if you double click on the quick-mask box, you get an options window where you can change the color and opacity of the quick-mask color.

 

[turborave]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (wetnrg)

whats wrong with just changing the mode to grayscale? what does that do that you dont like? to get rid of noise you could blur it a little.. its under filters.. if you just want to get rid of noise on blue.. use selective color and use the picker you get to select the blue.. adjust the "fuzziness" slider to tell it how much variation in the blue you want it to select. then blur that.

 

[SurlyD]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (wetnrg)

quote:[HR][/HR]HI
i have a few requests for tutorials.. do you have a better way to turn a photo black and white besides grayscale ?
[HR][/HR]​

YES!
use "channel mixer" under image|adjust. check the "monochrome" box. then adjust r/g/b/constant to get a better picture. after you're done, you can play with the histogram in image|adjust|levels and the brightness/contrast. it's tricky to get the hang of, but once you're comfortable getting good b/w pics is second nature.

 

[djKale]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (SurlyD)

You can also use image>adjust>desaturate, then adjust the brightness/contrast. That's a little more basic way of doing b/w. Then, for the noise, use the smart blur filter in conjunction with the blur/smudge tool.
If you scan an image from a mag, do it at a very high resolution then open a 72dpi document and drag the high res image into the 72dpi blank document. Now use the freetransform tool to shrink it down and use the smart blur/blur/smudge tool.
Also, a couple more shortcuts to remember.
1) Hold the spacebar and the hand appears so you can move the image around when you are zoomed in.
2) the brackets located above the "ENTER" key change the brush sizes.
3) Double click the hand tool to "fit on screen".
4) Double click the magnifying glass to go 100%
5) CTRL-ALT-Z, steps backward in the history pallete. CTRL-SHIFT-Z steps forward. The same as CTRL-Z and CTRL-Y in Flash.
Kale

 

[papasuki]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (turborave)

great tutorial. Here is another way of lowering. You can also use this way to change color or rims.
> Open the image in photoshop.
> Duplicate the layer so that you have two layers the same.
> Move the top layer down however much you'd like to lower the car.
> Creat a layer mask. This will allow you to paint out what you don't want showing (black hides, white reveals).

Here is how my layers pallet looked when I finished.

Here is the final product.

Layermask is always tweakable, which is one of the reasons I find it better then cutting part of an image.
You can also use this method for changing rims or changing the color of the car.

 

[j.Connor]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (JettaHoney23)

how do you clear out lights (i.e. M3 style) someone said magiic and then use enhance button but I don't have an enhance button at the top

 

[Luigidf]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (j.Connor)

Cut the light. Turn it into B&W, then clear the light. Then copy and paste over.

 

[VwG60Kid]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (The Red Baron)

i have been asked a few times for pointers so here is a couple....
i will be working from this image of an e30 m3

ok first topic "how do i get a colored car white/black and still have it look good?"
ok the key to this is the RGB channels (since chances are you are working for the web i dont see why anyone would be using cmyk but if you are... it works nearly the same)
lets take a look at the channels for this image
RED:

GREEN:

BLUE:

so basically you see that the blue channel has widest range of tones on the dark end of the spectrum (edit... i dropped in the green channel as well to bring out some of the higlights on the hood).. so i copy that channel go back to the RGB channel and then the layers pallet and paste the grayscale as a new layer.... the using a layer mask mask out everything BUT the car body... then go in and and adjust hue/saturation on the grayscale layer you made using colorize to make it blend with the lighting in the picture and any reflected colors from the scene... and finally adjust the levels so that the contrast is right...
same goes for white...

Can i change the color without masking"
In some cases yes... in some cases no... this photo you notice the red its really only present in the car itself.. so to change this car from red to say blue is only a few clicks away

in this dialog (ctrl-u) you see that i have selected RED from the drop down at the top and along the bottom selected the color range.. now if i adjust the sliders it only effect the colors i have selected... hence the easy color change
here are the results

but i gotta keep some secrets to myself...

[Modified by VwG60Kid, 4:05 AM 9-25-2002]

 

[kenny301]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (n2o)

the car colored with the b&w background is easy. here are the steps
open the file you want to edit
copy the image
change the image to greyscale
paste the original image in a new layer
use the erase tool to get rid of all the color stuff you dont want. it will only erase the top color layer and the b&w layer will stay put.

 

[Slapshotnerd]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (kenny301)

quote:[HR][/HR]ok, i have a question. what is the best way to add a border to a photo or a watermark? i really like the tinted lower border on the vwvortex pictures. i want to start posting more of my stuff on the internet and i need to identify it as mine. its probably easy to do, but i have very little experience with photoshop.[HR][/HR]​

i want to do both a border and a watermark. I think i understand the best way to do a border is to select the background color to the color you want, then expand the image by XX pixels all around to add the border. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to add a watermark... I think i want one that says "© 2003 Joe Smith" (if thats my name) and I want to fit it in the border (like some people have on here already), but haven't found the best way to do that just yet...

 

[The Red Baron]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (GT Eye)

I have a request:
Can someone tell me who to go about adding text to an image. This is specifically what I am trying to do. I have an image and I want to add emobossed text on the image but maintain the background.
Like I don't want the text to be a color, I just want it to be texture on the original image....understand?
any help much appreciated! http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif

 

[The Red Baron]

Re: VW Vortex Guide to Photoshop... (bfalchuk)

quote:[HR][/HR]Red Baron, that's VERY easy stuff. If you give me the image, the text you want put in there (tell me the words), and any color of type face preferences, and size (like how much of the image to cover, or how far across and up and down to span it), and I can do it in like 2 seconds.
Cool?[HR][/HR]​

much appreciated but I'd also like to know how to do it myself....
here's the image:

and I want "VWoT.org" across the entire image in Impact font, italics....
thanks, but also I'd like to know how to do it myself!