mrchunko

I am photographing three Corvettes in a semi circular composition, one red, another white, and lastly, blue . When I have my photo completed I want to photoshop in an American flag in the lower left hand corner. Is this a new layer in photoshop and how do I put them together when done? I’m very new to PS, but the idea of working in/in layers is something I understand.

Your input is appreciated.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

You can copy the flag (sized correctly) and paste it into the other photo. When you paste something into a photo in Photoshop, it automatically becomes a new layer.

blue-ultra Loc: New Hampshire

After you are finished with the size and position, don't forget to close the layers. Should be a breeze...

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Not close, but collapse or flatten.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

I never flatten the layers on my original file. If I want to convert to JPEG for the web or sharing, I do a "save as" and make a new file, leaving the original in layers I can change later if I decide to.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

As a separate layer, the flag size can be adjusted separately from the cars. It doesn't have to be sized before pasting it in.

I, too, save photoshop files as .psd files without flattening the layers. It allows me complete freedom to revise things later. The downside is that the files are large.

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

This might sound complicated, but its really not:

Your image with the 'vettes is open in Photoshop.
Now open your flag image, and either >Select >All, or using the Lasso tool, trace around the flag to select just the flag. You can be very precise in making a hard edged selection, or you can just come sort of close by making the selection just outside the edges of the flag. Your choice.) If making a 'sort of close' selection, you might want to feather that selection (>Select >Modify >Feather) by X number of pixels (try 5 pixels for starters, but depending on the size of the image, you might find feathering by 20 pixels or more a better choice).
Having made that flag selection, Copy that and return to your 'vette image and paste the selection onto that.
With the selected layer active, hit Control T on your keyboard and a bounding box will show around the flag selection. Using your mouse, you can drag the flag selection around and place it wherever you want it to go; likewise, you can 'transform' the size and the placement and orientation however you wish. When you get the flag where and how you want it, you might want to decrease the opacity of its layer.
There's no right or wrong way to do something like described above. Experiment until you get it to how you want it. When that's done, flatten (>Layers >Flatten) your composite and save the file with its own unique name.
Hope that helps.

catchlight.. Loc: Wisconsin USA- Halden Norway

Spend time on tutorials... this is a great way to do something special ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg7NvUv4o0c

traderjohn Loc: New York City

I started to watch this. The microphone placement started to make me insane.

zucco

What's the difference between "collapse" and "flatten"?
Zucco

Cheapshot Loc: California.

The PS menu says "Flatten." If you are looking for collapse...you might not find it. :)

Skiextreme2 Loc: Northwest MA

The wording. When helping someone to learn something, using the correct words helps them find the action they want to perform. How would you like to look for the word collapse in the layers menu of Photoshop? The exact wording would be "merge layers", "merge visible" or "flatten image".

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

I would approach this as a composite image in Photoshop. Your automobile images are on one layer and you would then place the image of the flag on a new layer above it. Scale the flag to the size you wish and move it to the location you wish. It would be best if the flag were on a transparent background so you can either remove the background in advance or find the flag in a "PNG" format with a transparent background.

Select the layer that the flag is on and you can change its layer "mode" from normal to perhaps "overlay" and change the transparency as desired. You can also create a "mask" on the layer of the flag and use the paintbrush tool selected with black color to remove areas by painting over it. Use white as a color with the paint brush tool to reveal areas of the flag image that you may have removed. You can also apply "effects" to the flag layer such as a drop shadow, bevel, glows, etc. should you want to give it some punch.

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

Here's a quick one that I put together that will hopefully give you an idea of what I explained earlier. I made this from an image of a 2018 Corvette on a white background that I found on the web (not my photo). First thing to do is unlock the layer (corvette) by double clicking on it. This will cause the base art-board of the image to be transparent. I used the quick select tool and selected the white background and then hit delete. This left the corvette on its transparent background.

I found an image of an American Flag and opened it. Again, double click on the layer to unlock it from its art-board. I lowered the opacity of the flag's layer for I didn't want it to be too pronounced.

I went back to the image of the corvette now removed from its background and did a select all, copy. Went to the image of the flag and did a paste. This put the corvette on top of the flag. With the corvette layer selected, I went to edit, scale and scaled the corvette and moved it into position.

Next, I created a mask on the corvette layer and painted over the front bumper shadow with black. The black hides the portions of the image.

Finally I placed text as a new layer and after typing I applied a style which gave it depth and a drop shadow.

Hope this helps in some way.

(Download)

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

Well done, indeed!