Cut out, auto shape

[jillyb96274353]

I needed to cut around an image inside and out to make it asked a sketal shape. Place this onto another colour image so the colour shows through the sketal image

[Semaphoric]

Do you mean an outline?

[jillyb96274353]

Yes. I have drawn an image which has been made as a sketal shape in silver. The jeweller has sent me this image via email and I need to now cut around the outer edge and inside so it's a framework and then place this over the the type of shell that this will eventually be attached to. I am designing jewellery of endangered species, staying with a Hammerhead shark that will be over laid onto a Sony Oyster shell. 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

[JJMack]

It seems to me what what you want to do is create paths for different area of an image.  You will  be able to stroke those paths onto and empty layer like a line drawing like in a coloring book.  You use this stroked drawing many ways in a composit, Blend it, use it in a mask, use it as an overlay

[jillyb96274353]

Thank you for the advice. Is there a specific name for doing this and city's I find it in You Tube as a demo. ? Again thank you.

[davescm]

Hi

Are you able to post an image showing what you want to do and we can try and give you specific steps

Dave

[jillyb96274353]

Yes ofcourse. Can you attach photos to this website?

[Semaphoric]

You can attach images by clicking on this icon:

    

or you can copy it to the clipboard, and paste it directly into your message.

[jillyb96274353]

Images designed by myself, sent to jeweller in South America. Jeweller places on stones/shells. I need to readjust the images on the stones and place in the best position. Has to be exact and understandable as he doesn't speak English.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

[davescm]

Hi

You can only attach images to your forum post by going online. Any attached to emails do not make it onto the forum

Dave

[jillyb96274353]

[jillyb96274353]

[jillyb96274353]

[davescm]

Hi

With such smooth shapes the pen tool is the best to create a path which can then be used as a mask

so:

1. Use the pen tool to create a path in the shape of your object.

Draw with Pen tools in Photoshop

Then click twice on the mask symbol at the bottom of the paths panel  to create a vector mask

Then just put that layer - complete with mask - above your background layer and use Transform to size and rotate it to fit

You can go on to use layer styles and add a shadow to help it sit

I hope that helps to get you started

Dave

[Trevor.Dennis]

Adding to Dave's post, the Pen tool can a bit tricky to use, but is such an incredibly valuable tool, it is worth the effort.  Our regular poster Michael Hoffman has some useful tutorials on how to master it. There five videos in total, and the rest will appear in the sidebar if you view this on YouTube

This graphic might help.

The trick with your jewelry is to zoom way way in.  It does not matter that it will appear pixelated, but turn off the Pixel Grid in View > Show to prevent it getting in the way.

Make the outline with it set to Combine Shapes.

Then hit the escape key, and change the path option to subtract. Click on the path again, and make the first cutout.  Hit the escape key when done, and move on to the next cutout.  Being zoomed way way in will let you make smooth curves.  You might find that you can improve on the shape and curves when seeing it magnified this way.

When done go Layer > New fill layer > Solid colour this will make a new vector shape of the jewelry piece that can be scaled without losing image quality.

Use Free Transform to expand the shape so it fills the screen (assuming the canvas size allows it) and select the Direct Selection tool (white arrow) Drag across the shape to make the points active, and fine tune as required.  For instance I can see that I made the centre bottom curved bar too fat, and other alignments can be improved at this stage.

[jillyb96274353]

Thank you so much. I am waiting for a new touchscreen laptop to arrive and will try all these suggestions. I think this is the best forum I've ever approached for helping out problems. I'll be back  

[jillyb96274353]

Will let you know how I get on.... Jilly

[jillyb96274353]

The image of the humpback whale was drawn onto a scanned piece of stone by myself.   What came back was the sheet of all the animals draw and cut out in silver.  The last image of all the coloured stones is where the jeweller placed them which isn't correct. I want to cut out the silver images, scan in the plain stones and place them accordingly to send back to him.   Oddly I can do some of it on my smartphone with auto shape and mask but I have no idea what software the phone is using to do this.  As I already have photoshop I want to use that for all future work.   I hope this has made it clearer as to me what I am trying to achieve.   The jeweller is Ecuadorian and speaks no English so it has to be visuals. 

[Martin_Bns]

Hello, yes please post an image. I'm not getting the "sketal" term. Can you tell what you mean?
All my best,
Martin

[Guest]

You can add multiple shape masks to define multiple areas, and you can also animate the shapes with keyframes so that they follow a moving object, or follow an area while a camera pans. For information about animating shape masks