Fildily Little Thing

[Crokey]

How do

 

Could somebody suggest how I could get rid of these little black lines around the Metal part of this exerpt of something I'm working on, to get it to look more natural

 

 

What it is, is a metal clasp over a piece of Amber (well that's what it's supposed to be), I've tried all sorts of smoothing and sharpening and blurring and it just goes carp. Or could you even suggest a way of redoing the metal part to make it look more realistic (but not too shiney) and for it to blend in better with the 'Amber' background.

 

The following programs to do this can be suggested PSP8, PSPX, PhotoShop CS

 

Help and insults welcome

 

GC

 

PS Before you ask... no you can't see the whole thing, I just want pointers to help me out

[Guybrush Threepwood]

I personally think this tutorial makes awesome and realistic metal.

I use a rather primitive method for removing black edges, which is just lasso'ing around the black part and deleting it. Somehow that always comes up with a pretty smooth edge (if you have a steady hand).

I'm sure there's tons of other ways to remove it though.

But if you want that metal to look more realistic, you should maybe repaint the whole thing. Because now you have this ugly white-ish metal at the top-left, which basically makes the black lines much clearer. And it doesn't exactly look like the way a shadow would fall to me.

[Mercie]

Use the levels modifier... THere you can take the darkest parts of the image and select them without changing the lighter parts. The yellow, grey, and white should remain cinstant, but the black will be lightened.

 

Adjustments > Levels > Drag the two arrows on the far sides of the little levels diagram. I forget which is which\

 

You can also copy the image and paste it as a mask. The black will be the most selected, but then for a nice fix, you nned to modify the black.

Edited February 21, 2006 by Mercie

[Crokey]

@Guybrush: The little tut for the metal effects is good, but I think I've been using PSP for too long as I can't get used to Photoshop. I've tried lasooing the black bits out but then the white it leeves behind makes it look more messy, so I tried filling in the white with the coresponding colours next to it but again it looks messy.

 

@Mercie: I've tried altering the layers but they end up changing the whole image colour which is detremental to the whole 'canvas' as it were.

 

Here is a bigger exerpt from the piece

 

 

As you can see on the upper part it does look more garish, it's a combo of two images the 'metal' part is on top of the amber part and it's the pasting of the 'metal' part on top which is making the cr*ppy outlines which I'm trying to avoid. I'm trying to get the effect of the 'metal' bit being embossed/bezeled (3D-a-like), but it ain't working.

 

I might have to rip it up and start again

 

GC

[Mercie]

Alright, this is going to bother me untli I can get a solution... Look for an edit in a fre hours.

 

*cracks knuckels*

 

Nuckels? Knuckles?

 

edit :: Hmmm, I don't know what color they are supposed to be, but using the boundary.png, I was able to do what I wanted to the selection. In this case, I chose to lighten the area.

 

Extract the black:

 

 

Remove what you don't want to modify...

 

 

Paste as a mask (See image masks in the help, it's nice to read). Change the selected area. Even this is not all to great. I'm sure there is yet another better way to do it.

 

Final:

 

Edited February 21, 2006 by Mercie

[Crokey]

Thanks Mercie

 

That pointed right in the direction I was wanting, what I did was as you suggested I got rid of the black, then deleted all the bits that I would want to keep leaving behind the edges. I then tried to lighten them then paste them on top of the end product but for some reason there was still some bits showing through (for some strange reason), so I went back to the outline and softened it a little and then pasted it on top it looked like one extreme to the other but I used the soften paintbrush (PSPX) on a fine scattered small size and lightly went over it and it looks a treat now. The only thing probably left now is a little texture on the flat section in the middle to add contrast.

 

 

So once again Thanks

 

GC