The Axel Grungy School of PhotoShop

[Bwana]

The following information is provided by Axel Grungy, learn and enjoy!

As ive been doing more and more photoshops lately, (no job+bored) i figure i will show u all how to do some simple things to your cars in photoshop. Trust me its not hard. I grasp that most people who use photoshop know how the layers work, how to cut and paste images, and the basic tools.

First Lesson---Lowering your car

This is actually very very easy. It took me awhile to figure out how people did it, but then i wanted to slap myself . 1. Open up your picture in pshop.

2. Click on your Polygonal lasso tool. You may have to right click (hold click) to change it to the Polygonal lasso. There is a few other lasso tools, but dont worry about them. This one is the most precise.

3. Start your selection by clicking in the gray area left of your car. Cut straight in and follow the underside of the car. Dont include your tires and stay as close as you can to the body. Once u get to the end, which is usually the rear wheel well, just cut it off straight back into the gray area. Now u have to connect it back where u started. Just click up, across, and down to your starting point. Dont worry if its straight, it wont matter. You now have selected the body of your car and everything above it. Now all we have to do is move that part down.

4. Before u use the move tool, You have to copy and paste the body of the car. Go to edit->copy->paste. It should make a new layer with just the body of your car on top of the original pic. Check your layer toolbar and make sure you have that layer selected.Now select your move tool and press the down arrow key. It will move the body of your car down, lowering it. When you are satisfied hit enter and it will set it there.

5. Now the only thing left to do is crop the top of the picture off. You will notice the bottom image showing through. Use the crop tool and crop it off and you're done!!



Lesson Two---photoshopping wheels

1. The picture of your new wheels will have to be in the same general angle as the ones on your car. Especially if the wheels have a deep lip. Also make sure the pic of your new wheels is as big or bigger than your original ones. If its smaller and u have to blow it up, it will look pixelated.

2. Use your polygonal lasso again and cut out your new wheel. I usually dont include the tire.

3. Once you've selected that, copy and paste it onto your original picture. It will make a new layer on top of your original.

4. Now comes the somewhat tricky part. You want to select your Move tool again. Make sure you have the bounding box on, you'll see it at the top in the toolbar. This allows you to make the wheel bigger or smaller, you can rotate and flip it also. Just resize and flip the wheel until it looks right. I think this is the hardest part. You have to know what angle and size you need to get to make it look right. Play around with it until you're happy.

5. Most of the time You will also have to play with the contrast and brightness to get it to match the car. If you want u can also change the color of the wheel. Try experimenting with color balance, hue/saturation, and channel mixing.

6. finished product.new wheels and lowered.

Lesson Three---color changing

1. Color changing is rather easy too. First break out the polygonal lasso again and outline your car.

2. Once you've got your car outlined, you want to exclude everything u dont want to change color (headlights, windows, etc). Ok up in the top toolbar there will be your lasso icon, then next to it will be 4 icons with various boxes in them. You want the one that "subtracts from selection" so it will subtract your lights and windows. Carefully cut around your lights and windows, it will look like this. (i brightened up the color for visibility)

3. Now for the color change. Go up to the top and select image>adjustments>channel mixer. Play around with it and you'll get different colors. You can also do hue/saturation or color balance. Most of this stuff ive learned just experimenting and seeing what works.