Photoshopping Tips

Start at the bottom and work up.

As you can see the beach shack has been scaled and position in the existing context. I can now export this layered option from Photoshop to a one level or layer jpeg so the client can see what it is going to look like before it is built.

The image above was a Sketch Up model that was exported to Photoshop with real world textures and shadows applied. Go to the file pull down menu and find "place". Once you find the the image file the image will appear with a rectangle with an x. This image still has the ability to transform it and position it on the existing photo until you hit the green check. As you can see the image is way too big and its position is to far down the beach. I will pick the image and drag it to position with the mouse. I will hold down shift while selecting the upper right grip box so the image is being reduced or enlarge in proportion to its x and y axis.

The image above shows how we selected a rectangle selection copy and paste that selected area then apply it over the image with a new layer on top. This will allow the transparent wire railing of our proposed new beach shack to show the background context and not the existing shack. We also used the cloning brush to remove the existing stairs and add more sea dunes at the base. We want to clone out any existing structure out so it is not seen with your new design. This can and will take some back and forth as well as the design maybe evolving requiring more tweaking to the existing image.

The photo above is an existing beach shack as built.

We are going to explore how we can Photoshop a sketch up model and place it in the existing context. The trick is to use Photoshop elements 8 or higher to mask out areas of the existing structure that will not be visible so the new design will mask most but not all of the existing geometry in this case. We will use a selection rectangle and cut and paste the trees and background image and overlay them on top off the existing beach shack.

Eric H. Gjerde AIA

Architect