Hey just wondering how I would go about puting a background for a mini using photoshop ? Well actually I use photoshop CS, duno what the difference is though. I usually take my mini with a background of the color I want but it isn\'t always easy to find the color, and it dosn\'t render as good as it would with the background coming from the computer.
Background
- Thread starter frenchkid
- Start date
Are you talking about a picture background or a gradient as in the blue to white fade.
Either way it\'s fairly simple: Use one of two methods either use the magic wand to select the background colour and then select the inverse. Or use the magnectic Lasso to cut around the figure (takes practise)
Copy the image to the clipboard and then open the gradient in another file, add a layer and then paste the image to that layer. Merge down and save.
Hope that it helps.
Either way it\'s fairly simple: Use one of two methods either use the magic wand to select the background colour and then select the inverse. Or use the magnectic Lasso to cut around the figure (takes practise)
Copy the image to the clipboard and then open the gradient in another file, add a layer and then paste the image to that layer. Merge down and save.
Hope that it helps.
I have a background or 2 saved (made using the gradient tool) and I do pretty much what DR said, click the magic wand on the background, select \"inverse\" and then just use the move tool to move it over to the background. One thing to add is that sometiems you might get a less than perfect outline of your figure with the magic wand, so you might need to adjust the tolerance setting.
Another thing I learned about this is always do the select on the biggest possible file size from your camera (don\'t cut to 600 wide before you do it) so you have more pixels to work with. Then once you have the select around the mini, shrink it 1 pixel, then feather it back out 1 pixel, then shrink down the file size. This will soften the edge around the mini some, at least I\'ve had promising results doing so.
-Eric
-Eric
Something that helps with this is to take the orignal photo in front of as plain and contrasty a background as possible. It makes accurate selection by the magic wand a lot easier. For example, if you used somethiing like a plain white sheet for teh original background, anything along those lines. Actually, it could be any color, not just white, as long as it\'s as neutral and monochrome as possible and a color unlike one in the mini. For example, you wouldn\'t want tot take a picture of your wood elf in front of a green sheet, etc.
Frustrated Father
New member
I end up using a bright pink stock paper for the background when I\'m taking pictures. First, this helps light it up a bit with the lights I have coming through the diffuse light box ... ok, ok ... its really a milk just cut in half rather badly, but it works.
Anyhow, then into photoshop and its a very simple process of selecting it and reversing the selection, cutting and pasting into the gradient. Bright color like that is easy to select and you don\'t have to mess with it over and over.
Anyhow, then into photoshop and its a very simple process of selecting it and reversing the selection, cutting and pasting into the gradient. Bright color like that is easy to select and you don\'t have to mess with it over and over.
Originally posted by Trevor
All that sounds like way too much effort, and as Homer says \"If somethings too hard its not worth doing\".
Just print out a blue fade and photo your minis against that, instant blue fade
Yup, that\'s what i do, but then the giants don\'t fit the paper so you have to crop the picture a bit
Have a look at Adobe\'s website: hereOriginally posted by Gin1906
Hi, guys!
ok stupid question of the day, you keep talking about photoshop, (now imagine that I dont know a whole lot about computers
Gin
That\'ll give you an idea of what it is like and the (gulp) cost!
It was originally designed for Mac\'s and the quality shows through. It is the Industry standard for photographic image manipulation.
Originally posted by Trevor
All that sounds like way too much effort, and as Homer says \"If somethings too hard its not worth doing\".
Just print out a blue fade and photo your minis against that, instant blue fade
Well that\'s what I usually do, but I wanted to have a black backgroun for mallus since he dosn\'t show up good on white and I didn\'t have anything that would do othe trick appart from my black t-shirts. And adding a black background looks much better than using the t-shirt
Then it\'s even easier.Originally posted by frenchkid
Originally posted by Trevor
All that sounds like way too much effort, and as Homer says \"If somethings too hard its not worth doing\".
Just print out a blue fade and photo your minis against that, instant blue fade
Well that\'s what I usually do, but I wanted to have a black backgroun for mallus since he dosn\'t show up good on white and I didn\'t have anything that would do othe trick appart from my black t-shirts. And adding a black background looks much better than using the t-shirt
All you need to do is on the left hand menu bar (at the bottom ) change the background colour to black, and then select the background colour with the magic wand and hit Delete.
Voila! Instant black background.
Try it a few times with practise images to get the feathering and selection right.
War Griffon
New member
I seem to recall Spacemunkie saying something about this in another thread but I can\'t remember which one however I did make a copy of how he said to do it so if nobody objects here is what he said to do using photoshop I suppose it will be simular in others if you search about for the correct bits. I tried it myself and it really is very simple although I found that depending on the origonal background/setup you use for lighting etc you might need to vary the feathering.
Origonally posted by Spacemunkie somewhere
USE PHOTOSHOP!!
Shoot the mini on a light, neutral coloured background. Select the bacground with the magic wand (hold SHIFT whilst clicking to get it all, and you may need to manually add/remove bits to the selection using the lasso tool - SHIFT/ALT). Remember that you can alter the Tolerance of the wand....
Feather the selection by 0.5 - 2 pixels using Select > Feather on the menu bar.
Invert the selection (Ctrl/Shift and I) and hit Ctrl J to paste to a new layer.
Select the Background layer, and use the gradient tool to fill it....
Blue to white looks nice
Origonally posted by Spacemunkie somewhere
USE PHOTOSHOP!!
Shoot the mini on a light, neutral coloured background. Select the bacground with the magic wand (hold SHIFT whilst clicking to get it all, and you may need to manually add/remove bits to the selection using the lasso tool - SHIFT/ALT). Remember that you can alter the Tolerance of the wand....
Feather the selection by 0.5 - 2 pixels using Select > Feather on the menu bar.
Invert the selection (Ctrl/Shift and I) and hit Ctrl J to paste to a new layer.
Select the Background layer, and use the gradient tool to fill it....
Blue to white looks nice
Fizl
Secret Crocodile
For those of us who don\'t have/can\'t afford photoshop, does anyone know how to do something similar in Gimp? I may work for a software company and know how to do a fair few things with PC\'s but when it comes to photo editing I am a complete blonde (and I can say that cos I am blonde ).
Shaz
).Shaz
Legacy Account
Active member
When you\'re using the Magic Wand, hold Shift to add to your selection, and keep clicking on all the bits of the background until you get \'em all.
If it selects some of your mini, hold Alt, and use the lasso to to deselect \'em.
Depending on your background and mini colouring, set tolerance to 15-25.
If it selects some of your mini, hold Alt, and use the lasso to to deselect \'em.
Depending on your background and mini colouring, set tolerance to 15-25.
I feel so \"old fashioned.\" I do backgrounds the simple way.
1) Go to the graphic editor and make a background.
2) Print out the background on color printer.
3) Fold the background so background acts as backdrop and floor
4) Put under/behind mini
5) Take photo.
(That must be why I never score high. I mean it can\'t be because of my mediocre painting skills right? )
1) Go to the graphic editor and make a background.
2) Print out the background on color printer.
3) Fold the background so background acts as backdrop and floor
4) Put under/behind mini
5) Take photo.
(That must be why I never score high. I mean it can\'t be because of my mediocre painting skills right?
)