how to fix up a macross picture?

[boinger]

Hello:

I'm trying to paste together a picture with microsoft paint for a dvd project, but it's not quite the way I would like it.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Edited October 12, 2007 by boinger

[miriya]

Open this up in Photoshop and feather the shot of the zentraedi shot to make it blend in.

[Toboro]

I think I might be able to help you through this but you will need a copy of photoshop. First off if is it two seperate images? Try using a second layer in photoshop and set the way it is applied to lighten. This should make it so that the heavy black of the ship layer isn't darker then the space bg layer. Next go ahead and select the spaceship layer and use ctrl L to alter the levels. You want to change the levels tool so that you are altering each color channel seperately. This allows you to dial the colors in so that it looks more in tune with the color space of the bg. You have something weird going on with the area of the earth where the ships are close to. I'd suggest repainting it a bit along with the moon. After all that I'd use the clone tool to add areas of stars into it so its not just dead where the ships are. Grab from all over the picture and add them there. I only had a couple minutes but here is what I would do.

[EXO]

you can just completely remove the black space on the top layer in photoshop. But the lighting would still be wrong. The Earth and moon is backlit by the sun while the ships are front lit. You'd have to darken certain part of the ships to make it work and since the sun is directly behind them the angles of the shadows would be different. And it looks like you pasted the ships over and over but the perspective is all over. Even though they're in space they would all still be heading in the same direction so they should all still line up. Finally, if you have bigger versions of thos ships, I' say don't be afraid to break one or two in the foreground. Have them coming in from the left and maybe even have a couple of tiny ones going in behind the earth just to show how big the fleet is.

[akt_m]

I tried, but i don't know if it is right.

[rdenham]

Can you post the Background image without the ships, then post the cluter of ships as a 2nd image?

[boinger]

Lots of good ideas, but I would need to spend some time learning photoshop. My intention was to use this picture to bridge the psx dyrl opening sequence to the opening blackout in the dyrl movie.

Thanks!

The zentraedi fleet was something I found on google images. It looks like someone scanned in the arii zentraedi box model art and took some screenshots of sdf tv. So, it's no wonder the perspective doesn't look quite right. Then I picked out a scifi screensaver that sort of looked like earth, pasted in the actual moon and copied over the extra moon and then used that is my working background. Thank you toboro for cleaning up the planet edge.

So, I tried again and looked for a sdf macross tv screen shot of zentraedi warships with videolan player. I found an image of the zentraedi fleet in earth orbit in episode 4 and copied and pasted and then touched up a few edges with microsoft paint. The sun falls on the zentraedi ships at the right angle, so I'm thinking I might stick to this one; it might need a few more zentraedi ships.

Edited October 13, 2007 by boinger

[Zinjo]

In photoshop...

First separate the ships from their existing background using the magic wand and then cleaning up the selections with the "quickmask" function (if you haven't used it before, there are plenty of tutorials online.

Transfer the selected ships on to a transparent background of the same size or larger.

Now add the ships to the image as a separate layer (this will allow you to play with the shadowing and highlights without affecting the background.

Since the sun is in the distance you will need to shadow the underside of the ships to match the light source better.

With each change make sure you create a new layer, so if you screw up you don't mess up the whole thing, just that particular layer, this is critical, because loosing something that has taken hours to create really sucks!

Play with it like that until you get the desired results you are looking for.

[Zinjo]

So, I tried again and looked for a sdf macross tv screen shot of zentraedi warships with videolan player. I found an image of the zentraedi fleet in earth orbit in episode 4 and copied and pasted and then touched up a few edges with microsoft paint. The sun falls on the zentraedi ships at the right angle, so I'm thinking I might stick to this one; it might need a few more zentraedi ships.

Make the dark sides of ships black like the background so they mesh better with the scene. They are too blue at the moment and look obviously added to the picture.

Soften the edges on the "sun side" of the ships to give the effect of the sun's glow and to take away the hard edges, which will also help to create the illusion that the ships were always in the picture.

Edited October 15, 2007 by Zinjo

[chrono]

with microsoft paint

:lol:

Woof! A little warning next time!! All sage advise folks.

[boinger]

Here's what I have so far.

I think in space, the lighting is hard and feathering is not really necessary. I used a different background planet picture and separately did each type of zentraedi ship with a shadow.

That's it for now. I have dyrl sutitling to do.

Thanks for helpful hints.

boinger