Preserved Topic: Can I "washout" a picture on PS for use as a background?

I'm trying to "washout" a b&w picture using PS 5.5, and can't seem to find a filter or color manipulation to do so. I'd like to make it light enough to use as a background, adding a logo or text on top of it. I'm using Deke McClelland's "Photoshop 5 Bible" as a reference, and I'm relatively new to PS. Does anyone have a suggestion that may help? Thanks a lot!

You have a lot of possibilities. Just go to "Image / Adjust" menu and start playing, heh You can start with Levels...

First of all, Welcome to the Asylum.
A few rules:
1) Shi is on temp. leave, but when she gets back, get black pills from her
2) No matter what anyone else tries to tell you, don't eat the pears
3) Stay away from the mop...it looks tempting...just leave it alone.
Now, on to PS
Like most color modification, there are 4 places that I would start. Here they are, in order of increasing difficulty (and control) They are all found under Image-->Adjust
They are Brightness&Contrast, Hue, Saturation & Lightness, Levels, and Curves.
I thought about trying to explain them and decided I really couldn't do a good job...so, I must say, RTFM and play. You will learn much more in 15min of experimentation than I could do in a 25 paragraph long-winded explanation.

Of course you could also simply set your picture on top of a 50% gray background and set opacity to 50% or so....
After you experiment, come back and show us what you got...
good luck

mobrul


<edit>DAMN! Beaten again...</edit>


[This message has been edited by mobrul (edited 06-06-2001).]

Thanks for the advice, Mobrul. I'll try it.

Try placing it on top of a white BG and lower the opacity.

you want to do more than reduce the opacity. You want to wipe out the contrast. Quickest, safest way I can think of is to create a levels adjustment layer above the image you want to "ghost". There are two sets of sliders: top and bottom. The tops set will place where black starts and where white starts, and the "gamma" - essentialy the midtones. These are used for setting black and white points in a flat image.

The bottom set of sliders will be more useful for you. Slide the black slider right, toward the middle - blacks start of gray up. Slide the white slider left, toward the middle: whites start to gray. Push them as far as your judgement says. You've got a very low contrast image now. Slide the middle slider in the top set to make the image lighter or darker.

A ghosted image, suitable for a background to type or another image or whatever.

The big advantage to using an adjustment layer is you can keep going back to it and making tweaks without totally trashing the imae they way you would if you made repeated drastic modifications to the pixels directly.

Note: you don't have to do this to the whole image. If you make a feathered selection before creating the adjustment layer you can ghost back just a portion of the background image - a classy way to knock back the area where a paragraph or headline type will go.

level adjustment layers will be the bestes bet. Steve is Smart. Listen to Steve. Although A white layer with a low opacity would be very easy.

um... Here! pears are good! but find your own supply.


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Must go with Steve here - best overall solution: easy, flexible, powerful.

(as max said, many options on the 'image » adjust' menu will do the trick...levels being but one of them).

Yup.

There's Steve being "level-headed" again.

HAH..... HAH..... ::cough::

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By lowering the opacity on a B/W pic while having a white BG layer "is" having the effect of lowering the contrast. The black and shades of gray are becoming lighter while the white remains seemingly unchanged. Using a levels adjustment layer to reduce the black output or using the opacity slider on the image layer (above a white BG layer) produces the same result. In addition, both methods are editable at any time without any damage to the inage. The one difference I can see is if you only wanted to apply this effect to a portion of the image. Then of course you would have to go with an adjustment layer. As mobrul stated, there are also several other adjustment layer types that will give you the same result.

As is usually the case when trying to achieve a particular result in PS, there is often times more than one method. I guess it comes down to personal preference.

Also, lowering the white output on a levels adjustment layer would come in to play only if you wanted your end wash out to be gray and void of any true white.

Thanks so much for all the helpful information. Everyone has been great.

NO!!! it's impossible
I tell you!!! it cannot be done!
THINK not for it cannot be done!!
THIS goes against the laws of nature!!
IS there but a sane person amung us?
As I was saying berofe, just NO!
BIG bad things will happen to you if you do!
WASTE not your time but everyone elses in stead!!!
OF cource you could just do it anyway!
MY hand will reach out and strangle you!
TIME for me to end this mockery!


hehe



[This message has been edited by Dracusis (edited 06-07-2001).]

I actually found a pretty good way to "wash out" a picture for background use. First, I hit it with the high pass filter, and dialed the pixels down quite a bit. Then, I went to Image, Adjust, Levels, and put the white on high and dialed back the black. Voila, a washed out background.