Photoshop Help - Magazine Cover

hi all

I have seen lately it is quite popular to add our own pictures into some magazine covers (eg. Time or some female magazines). How do they do that and if anyone can guide me through step by step.

anyone has any idea where to get the skeleton of the TIME Magazine cover. I am thinking of designing one for my hubby for valentine's day since he like to read TIME magazine. I know I am running short of time, so please help me.

Thanks.
seasonalblue

We've been doing this since The MAC Classic Colour.
Buy a mag, scan it, lose the backgound, toss your favorite self image, add Rachel Welsh,(sorry I'm an old dude), er, Sarah Jessica Parker (puke, choke) and you got GM or even Arnold Palmer, Greg or Moe "the pipeline" Norman and you have Golf Digest.
The main thing is to get the title font off the mag. the rest you can wing. Create your own sub-articles and special headlines: such as: "Ace in Extra Holes" or,"Holes in the System" or, Jessiac Simpsom finds the hole in her head".
Just be cereative and funny.

Hi, I did this in about 10 minutes.
The "Times Mag" font is Times New Roman, go figure.

Hi Seasonalblue,
The following was done in Xara X1 ... but the steps are the same. I'll e-mail you the background if you want it.

First create the background...

Next find a good picture and crop it.

Then add the picture to the background.

And LAST but not LEAST ... Embellish to your heart's content.

Hi rhilker & oklaEd

thanks for your reply. really appreciate you guys teaching this photoshop newbie.

oklaEd: I have "save as" your background for me to play around. hope you don't mind. the only thing is i seems not able to "crop" the pictures as professional as you. did you use the "lasso" tool to do it?

once again, thanks.

Hi Seasonalblue,
You are welcome to the background ... I threw it together for you. Like I said, I made this in Xara X1 just to show you the process. In photoshop you can use the polygonal lasso tool to cut and use the smudge tool to smooth the edges afterward. I'm sure you'll get the hang of it in no time. Send me an e-mail if you want the full sized background.

Good Luck,

-Ed.

The best tool that you could use is the "pen tool" in Photoshop CS. Just left click the mouse while pointing at the edge of you subject, then drag your mouse without releasing, then release after you have traced a portion of the edge. Continue with the procedure until you have traced the whole subject, making sure of course that you end your trace where you started to be able to close the whole selection. After that, right click your mouse to show the selection bar. Choose "make selection". Enter 1 in the feather radius pixel to smoothen your edges. Press ok. then while your selection is highlighted, click edit in your toolbar situated on top of the window then paste the subject to your backround in another window.

You have to practice tracing to have the best result. Don't worry you'll get the hang of it.