Placing photo in a shape 1

[11design]

I would like to place one photo in a shape. The shape is similar to a water drop and I would like my photo to be on the bottom part (sphere). What is the best way to do it or do you have different tutorials I can read at the internet. I am trying to search but probably I am not using the right keywords...

 

[11design]

I was just working in Photoshop and I thought would be eaiser to undrstand my shape if you see the symbol used for Blur Tool. This is the shape I want to place my photo.

Thanks,

 

[jimoblak]

Select the shape. Go to the layer with the 'photo' and create a 'layer mask'.

 

[11design]

I must be doing something wrong. I follow your steps and nothing happens. When I create the layer mask appears a white rectangle next to the picture (on the layer) but the picture doesn't appear into the drop or in 3D (like a sphere). Is there any step missing? I have Photoshop 7.0 using PC.
Thanks,

 

[jimoblak]

There should be an active selection of the shape before you create the layer mask. Active selections are identified by 'marching ants'.

If you are looking to bulge the photo on the Z-axis (convex), try the spherize filter.

 

[11design]

Hi jimoblack,

I did everything (or I think I did) and the results were not the ones I expected. I ended up with my photo into the shape but the photo was cropped. What I wanted was to have the photo placed inside the shape and "filling" the shape accordingly. Then, afterwards if I want to go down or up with the photo adjustments, in this case the photo would shrink on the top of the drop and get larger at the bottom. Other idea I had but I didn't know how to do it was probably spherizing the photo and then adding two anchor points (one on the left and other on the right simmetrically) then take the top center anchor of the sphere and pull up. Basically I will spherize my photo and create a drop with the photo spherized. I couldn't place an anchor point. Do you if this or something like this works??? Why I couoldn't place an anchor point? If not please let me know whether I followed your previous directions correctly or not. Thank you,

 

[11design]

One more wuestion related to this one. Now what I want is to place a triangular photo inside an hexagon. The point is that when I am trying to place and fit the content everything is distorted. Is there any way for me to place the photo, like behing the shape, and then move the photo till is in the right place with the shape locked??

 

[Nohjekim]

A simple way to do this if you are having trouble with masks is to place your shape on a layer above the photo.

Now select the area outside the shape, "Select", and “Inverse".

Now just use the paint bucket to fill the area with White. Now you can move the layer around until the cropping is what you want.

When you are happy just flatten the image and crop off any excess. At this point you can create a clipping path if you don't want the import the white background into Indesign or what ever you are using.

Mike