Simple tut for beginners: replacing heads using Vis Mask

[Thelonious]

First in this series will be a tut on using the Vis Mask to replace parts of one photo with another. Particularly useful for replacing heads. Used like this the Vis Mask behaves as a normal layer mask with no anomolies.

Later I will show how not to use the Vis Mask but I thought it best to start with something positive.

First the canvas has been prepared. The main image is on a layer. Lakshmi. Siva's head will be superimposed. First of all the cropped out head was sized to the correct size and position using the transform tool. and leaving the image with reduced opacity so you can see what you are doing.

Now you will see that the Siva head does not fill the layer. This can cause a problem with the vis mask so it is best to fill the rest of the layer with something. In this case I used white.

[This message was edited by Thelonious Hink on August 31, 2001 at 13:16.]

[Thelonious]

First in this series will be a tut on using the Vis Mask to replace parts of one photo with another. Particularly useful for replacing heads. Used like this the Vis Mask behaves as a normal layer mask with no anomolies.

Later I will show how not to use the Vis Mask but I thought it best to start with something positive.

First the canvas has been prepared. The main image is on a layer. Lakshmi. Siva's head will be superimposed. First of all the cropped out head was sized to the correct size and position using the transform tool. and leaving the image with reduced opacity so you can see what you are doing.

Now you will see that the Siva head does not fill the layer. This can cause a problem with the vis mask so it is best to fill the rest of the layer with something. In this case I used white.

[This message was edited by Thelonious Hink on August 31, 2001 at 13:16.]

[Thelonious]

here you can see both layers with the top layer semi transparent.

[Thelonious]

Here we select the top layer, Lakshmi her face will be made transparent to show through Siva's face underneath

To work on the Vis Mask for Lakshmi we must first select the Lakshmi layer. This makes a Vis Mask for the Lakshmi layer appear in the Masks palette. The Vis Mask is identified by the fact that it is in italics. It is called Lakshmi Mask.

You must highlight the Lakshmi mask then turn off the eye. When you highlight a Vis Mask and turn off the eye your stokes will still go to the Vis Mask, not the Lakshmi layer, even though they are both highlighted.

By painting with white you make the Lakshmi layer invisible. In the top picture I have painted out the face by painting with white while the Lakshmi (Vis) Mask is Highlighted.

In the bottom picture I have restored the eye part of the face of Lakshmi by painting with black which restores visibility.

This is the advantage of using the Vis Mask for this sort of thing. You can erase and restore as long as you like. You are not actually erasing the image layer, you are only effecting its visibility.

So you can keep trying out different things till you get it right.

Note: When the Vis Mask is Highlighted you can only work with black or white. If you select a color it will come out a shade of grey on the Vis Mask which will be semi transparent. this is good for soft transitions.

If you want to see what your Mask looks like you can turn on the eye and see your handiwork.

Filling the Siva layer with background first should not in fact be necessary. But you will need to see the other Vis Mask thread to find out why.

thelonious

[This message was edited by Thelonious Hink on August 31, 2001 at 22:48.]

[eky]

I like that you start with something that works with the vis mask because I've never used it in Painter before.

[athena]

Thelonious,

that is a great tutorial!

Thank you for posting it.