Hi everyone :)

I'm a newbie and also REALLY new to photoshop 7.
I have a photo of my two children and I want to move them closer as there is too much floor space. Could some please tell me how to do this? with REALLY simple instructions? I'm so sorry but I only know the basics.
I've been told to use quickmask but after 3 days of playing around I think I have just confused myself (im so hopeless)!

Many many thanks

Kellie

As always, there are many ways in Photoshop to do this.

I used the pen tool to select the baby (In the tool options at the top, make sure it's set to 'Paths' and not 'Shape Layers' or 'Fill Pixels').

Then, after making the selection, hold down the left mouse button on the pen tool icon in the tool bar, and change to the Convert Point tool and fine tune the selection points.

Right click in the path and select 'Make selection'. (I used a feather of 0.5)

Copy and paste the selection (the baby in my case) and Edit > Transform to rotate and move the baby to the required position.

Do any required cloning of the carpet in the background.

Crop as required.

Hi there.. great kids!!

I used the magic lasso for the rough selection then the selection brush to fix up. Then converted the selection to a quick mask and applied a little gaussian blur. Converted to a regular selection and use Ctrl J to place on own layer.

Then I selected some background between the kids with the marquee and feathered a few pixels. Duplicated the selection to make enough background to cover what was needed. I merged an attached a mask to this layer to add or subtract background as needed.

I then rotated the baby a little and moved closer. With a selection brush I copied the arm and a little neckline and flipped and moved into place. Then I used free transform to fit somewhat. Now I could mask the edges and let some of the clothing from the original baby to show thru and blend where needed.

Then it was just trim with a mask back to the edges of the original picture.

Butch

woah, far too much I'm afraid!

Print's method is good of course but I remember what it takes to master the pen-tool ;)

Kellie, as you are a complete newbie, I'd suggest you use the magnetic lasso for this work in two easy steps:

Draw a magnetic lasso around the baby, feather it with one or two pixels, then move this selection (you will have to copy it on a new layer) closer to the left boy.

Then disable this layer, go back to the background and select the boys left arm with the magnetic lasso. As this arm will be above the baby you should feather it with a very small amount, otherwise the edge will become too blurry. Now invert the selection, go back to the second layer and click the add new layer mask icon at the bottom of the layer. The selection will be masked automatically.

Now there's just a bit of the babys head left on the background layer but you'll probably want to darken the background anyway to make then stand out a bit. I did this manually so it's not very good but if you do it properly (with some selections and stuff) it does the trick.

Oh and don't crop as silly as I did, both heads should be centered with the same distance to the borders ;)

Good thinking with the older boys arm Patrick... really makes the difference.

Butch

Hi Kellie

Welcome to Retouch Pro.

This is not an ideal photo to use. The children are lying on the floor and the photo has been taken from a low angle.
It would be far better to take two more pictures of them sitting up and from a higher angle.
Also I’m not sure about the scaling. Because I moved baby to the front I had to scale up. I hope I got it somewhere close.

I used a method similar to Patrick’s.
Rotated them round
Made a new background
Remade babies clothes
Changed the background colour.

Hope this helps.

Ken.

I used the lasso tool to select the entire 1/3 right side of the photo including the carpet. The left side of the selection ran vertically down just to the left of the baby's head. Then, copy and paste onto a new layer. Used the move tool to position to the left. Used a soft eraser to remove excess selection on the left side where needed. Resized using original aspect ratio. Copied top white border and pasted to the bottom.

WOW. A massive thankyou, thankyou, THANKYOU to all of you for your time!!! :)

These are great, now it's just a matter of doing it myself! lol

Cameraken, I know this photo isn't the best but its the first photo I have where I was able to get my son to have a pic with his sister since she ws born. (well not really becuz u can see my hand where i had to hold him lol), so it has some sentiment. :)

You guys are great, its so nice to have this kind of help available. :)

Hi Kellie

Ha OK.

I thought the hand was your son’s and that it why I left it in the picture
Looking again the hand does look too big. But it is easy to remove :pleased:

Ken.