Adding images to Templates.

[NikGrey]

I must be going mad as I could do this a couple of days ago but now I cant !

Just need to get rid of the white bit, turn it transparent to get an image into it - there must be a simple explanation as nobody would make Mug templates hard to edit - would they?

2103

Paul fixed a couple for me yesterday but I need to do this myself - any pointers? I remember using Marquee, selecting an area and then pasting the image in but these irregular shapes are a different story :( I did it the other day - I have the image here, just cant do it now for some reason. Frustrating.

[Justin]

Did you use the magic wand tool by any chance? Guessing you're on Photoshop?

[socialgiraffe]

Hi Nik

Assuming you are using photoshop I have emailed you the file and below is what I did and what you need to do.

Open in photoshop
Change BACKGROUND layer to LAYER 1 simply by double clicking on the layer in the layers pallette
Select magic wand tool, adjust your tolerance to 32 and click in the white area.
Hit delete
Add a new layer and place this behind the the original image
open the face image
click and drag this in to the bottom layer of your first file
reposition and scale as you see fit

tad dah!

[Paul]

i think this white working area is set as a holding photo layer. so is not as simple as Simon's way of doing it.
you need to merge few layers first before you turn it in to transparency. if you willing to send me file i can do it for you.

Paul

[NikGrey]

Simon, the file you sent me does work but I can't replicate it here with your instructions - all I seem to be able to find with the magic wand (With the Background layer renames as LAYER and selected) are bubbles in the background.

Contigous and Anti-Alias are checked if that makes a difference?

Thanks Paul, I just dont know why I cant do it here - I have Two other images I changed a few days ago here, I didnt have a problem with those - something has happened here :(

I need to work out whats going on.

For some reason I can no longer select the outline of the white part to delete it !

[Paul]

have you got correct layer selected before removing the white?

[NikGrey]

Was determined to figure this out so I booted into Windows - I can remove the white by selecting the layer - Magic Wand at 32 and delete the white but I can't get the image (Dragged into this template and placed) to sit behind the black stroke on the same layer as the white.

I am in OS X again (Downloading Mavericks as we speak) and I can delete the white bit (Couldnt before - But I did have the Mac open for days as I didnt want to lose my work flow) - so maybe I did something wrong at some point.

BUT I can't get the image I want to sit behind the black stroke and above the background - Paul, If I send you this will you post how you did it please? this is driving me mad.

I just emailed you the file to sales@

[Paul]

template you send me has no "holding" layer. so you need merge few layers to be ale to remove white background.
i will show you how i do that so you can have a try ad see if you like it this way or not.

[NikGrey]

Thanks very much, I'm held up at the mo as I have a few like that :(

[Paul]

http://youtu.be/qumt4zNLTOo

[NikGrey]

Thanks Paul (Gave you a Rep credit) I will try this now.

I did notice you had 'Anti Alias' OFF in your video - what's the significance of that?

You remind me of myself, I used to make Tutorial Video's when people had questions - it takes a lot of effort to do so and for that I am truly thankful you made this one. it will help many others.

Also Thanks Simon, you made a file which worked for me - you must have done it a different way.
But I couldn't use that files as it was a crop of this one :(

[NikGrey]

.. Like a Dream.

That alone is worth the £10 Premium Membership for this forum.

I understand now :)

[Martinx]

Or you can use the wand tool to select the white area, open up the image you want to insert select and copy then return to template and then Edit > Paste Special > Paste Into.
This then creates a mask and you can do what you want with the pic without merging any of the other layers.

[NikGrey]

As we discussed when I bought a pack from you Martin, but these particular templates didn't work that way - I have it sussed now though :)

This is one of yours I know, but something happened somewhere !

[Joohlyauk]

I'm having trouble learning how to do this too so awaiting the instructions with bated breath!

[NikGrey]

It's in the video on the first page of this thread :)

[Joohlyauk]

Awesome, Pawel I have subcribed to you on youtube and also watched the bit I needed putting actual picture in. Priceless! Now I'm going to be busy! Many thanks! I'll be watching out for more tutorials

[Joohlyauk]

Thanks Nik, I've learnt so much from this forum, pretty cool isn't it :cool:

[Joohlyauk]

I'm having a right job putting the images in still but I'm trying and trying!

[arthur.daley]

I don't know if I am missing something here but it should be really simple in photoshop, not sure about Elements but i would expect that to be the same when running in expert mode.



Open image in photoshop

select white area with magic wand - set tolerance to 32 or thereabouts

delete selection (it still looks white at this point)

go to layers palette

highlight background

click on the eye to turn the background layer off (now you should see little boxes instead of white)

open face image

drag face image onto template

go to layers palette and drag face layer down the stack so it sits above the background and below your main image

select background layer and delete

job done

depending on your version of photoshop, save as a PSD to maintain layers - if CS2 onwards should be able to save as a multilayer tiff



This is exactly what i have just done with your image (which is a multi layer .psd file) and had no problems. I can only think that you were having problems in so much as you hadn't turned off the background layer and so kept seeing white instead of an empty space.

If you have a plain jpeg, tiff or any file that is a single layer you can just select the white area and delete it and you will then have a hole in the image, dragging the face onto the template will create another layer which will be on top of the template image, drag it down in the layers palette et voila.


regards



Arthur

[Joohlyauk]

Hi Arthur, thank you, I have copied and printed this text out so I can go over it bit by bit. Yes the templates I have are either tiffs or jpgs. I'm going to keep trying until I get this right as it's driving me mad. Will post back later with update, thanks again, also, that's not my image in this thread, thanks, Jules:wink:

[arthur.daley]

trust me jules - it will work a treat and you will wonder what all the fuss was about ;o)

[Joohlyauk]

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bloomin marvelous! I am so relieved I can now do it. I think a few of my templates are dodgy and I won't be using them but most are fine. Yay! I found it hard to get rid of the marching ant line thingy after I'd deleted the white area, seem to do it by accident. How exactly do you get rid of it? Jules :rolleyes:

[arthur.daley]

to get rid of the selection line - on a PC its Ctrl+D on a Mac its the mac equivalent to the Ctrl key +D.

When you say you have some dodgy templates - whats the problem? If you want you can email me a few to look at - PM me for an email address.


Arthur

[Joohlyauk]

2122

When I delete the white area it doesn't take all of the bits of the square away. I had no problem with others.
I'd like to design my own. What software would you suggest? Thanks Arthur, Jools :redface:

[arthur.daley]

ignore the PM I just sent!!

failed to look at image on top of your last post!! Doh!!

[arthur.daley]

2123

Hi jules

Is the above the kind of thing you were trying to do -its a bit clumsy, well ok its very clumsy but it was just a very quick and dirty stab at what I think you are trying to do. Its well off center and I have taken out too much at the top of the box and excuse the font and text - its just there to illustrate a point and could just as easily be an image as text.

I don't think you want to completely empty the box - that would be a real pain to do as there are balloons and ribbons running through it.

So what i have done is to make an oval/elliptical selection with a feathered edge - feathered edge = not a hard edge but one that tapers from solid to transparent in the middle. In photoshop you either do this after you have made the selection - SELECT, FEATHER you then set the number of pixels to feather the edge by which is dependent on how big the image is and how long you want the 'taper' to be. You can also set the level of feathering in a properties box at the top of the screen when you select a selection tool - square, rect or eliptical etc.

Photoshop is always my first choice for this kind of thing. There are freebie image editors available but in my limited experience of them they are not really good enough for this. I have just purchased a copy of Photoshop Elements to see if it will do all the things i want without having to go to the major expense of a copy of Photoshop CS6. Unfortunately i haven't done that much with it yet and can't say for sure but I would expect it to be quite capable of doing the above when it is in expert mode.

So - is that the sort of thing you want to do or have I got the wrong end of the stick (me?? surely not!!)


regards


Arthur

[Paul]

Who is selling templates for mugs in jpg or tiff??

[NikGrey]

I don't think anyone is selling these - I have these also, they are floating about in the ether.

They aren't really any good to me until I learn how to put a frame in to take an image (I think you have a video on this Paul?) - these are just flat images at the correct size for Mug templates.

[arthur.daley]

I don't think anyone is selling these - I have these also, they are floating about in the ether.

They aren't really any good to me until I learn how to put a frame in to take an image (I think you have a video on this Paul?) - these are just flat images at the correct size for Mug templates.


you mean you want to 'cut' a hole in the flat image so that you can put an image into the hole so that it looks out at the world from behind the image you cut the hole in?

[NikGrey]

Yes, with a nice frame :)

[Joohlyauk]

I just realised that putting text on that one was the correct thing. I was trying to delete it all out to put a pic in.. what a dumn arse! I bought a bumper pack of templates off ebay from bubblebum for I think £19.99 They are brilliant. Hundreds in there so well worth it for me to kick start. They are either tiffs or jpgs but they do work in photoshop and I won't moan about my purchase. Hopefully I'll keep learning step by step and designmy own better and better myself.

Arthur, I just have a query about one I downloaded, infact it was Simon's I think with the Hen Night No Cocks design. How do I change the name to another? I've been looking all over photoshop. Your help would be grately received. It is in the download section along with Mr T's, Jools

[NikGrey]

This is the problem - sometimes layers have been merged so you can't edit them.
If it's a good, un-fannied with template you should be able to select that text layer (on the right in the layers panel) and then by selecting the Text tool edit the text but sometimes that cant be done which leads to red faced forum members :(

[Joohlyauk]

can't they be unmerged to show all of the layers? That's what I was trying to do :confused:

[arthur.daley]

As far as I am aware you can't unmerge layers once they have been merged. So if you get templates as single layer jpegs, tiffs or whatever thats exactly what they are, just a single layer. If it already has text in it you are a bit scuppered. You may be able to munge your way out of trouble by deleting areas or cloning things out but that is usually a lot of work. I'd hazard a guess that you can buy that same pack of templates as multi layer tiffs or psds so that you can turn the text on and off but it costs more.

Arthur

[Joohlyauk]

Wow, well that's another thing I've learnt. Thanks for the info Arthur :biggrin:

[NikGrey]

Joohlyauk - You might find THIS (http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum/showthread.php?8213-Adding-images-to-TIF-Templates) of interest :)