Preserved Topic: Photoshop help (Page 1 of 1)

I am new to this site. I am looking for some on line help in Photoshop. I would email photos of an instrument panel of an airplane and photos of an instrument to be placed on the panel. It would also require moving instruments on the panel to make room for the new instruments. This would be done on the phone and the person I am looking for would walk me through doing it. I will pay a qualified person for their time.
Steve Thompson
cheltonak@aol.com

That's a waste of money if you want my honest opinion Steve.
With a little effort it won't take long to learn the tools you need to do this yourself. And i'm sure there are folks here, myself included, that will be willing to provide textual instructions to help you progress.

There's only a couple tools you need to learn about to do what you need. And they aren't hard to learn.

To select & move the existing instrument meters around:

Gee, where to start... there's so MANY ways to do this!

MY first choice would be to use the QUICK MASK function, and scale a hard brush up to match the size of the meters. Click the brush once over the meter. Then exit QM mode where you'll see that a selection has been created. Press Ctrl+Shift+I to Inverse this selection. Now the meter should be selected. Then press Ctrl+J to copy the meter to a new layer.

NOTE: There's 2 squares with circles in them near the bottom of the Toolbar. Clicking the right icon enters QM mode; where you paint with brushes or use the selection tools to cover the areas you want to select. Clicking the left icon returns to Normal mode, where the 'real' selection is then created.

The Eliptical Selection tool. Position your mouse over the center of a meter. Then hold the Shift & Ctrl keys down while you click and drag the tool to create a circle the same size as the meter. Release your mouse button when the selection matches the meter's diameter. Then press Ctrl+J to copy the meter to a new layer.

The selecting can also be done with Polygon Selection tool. This method is best done when zoomed in real close to the meter's edges. Click your mouse at the starting point of the selection. Then move the mouse a small amount to the next point around the meter, and click again. Repeat this motion until the entire meter is selected. Once selected, press Ctrl+J to copy the meter to a new layer. This tool functions in a similar manner to using a needle and thread to 'sew a selection' around an object.

The selecting can also be done with the PEN tools too, but that may require more study than the marquee selection tools. If you're feeling ambitious though, have at 'er.

After all of the meters have been selected and copied to new layers, use the MOVE tool (the crossed arrows icon at the top of the Toolbar) and move the meters to new positions.

HINT: instead of manually clicking on each and every meter layer in the palette to activate it, just hold the Ctrl key down and click on the meter image you wish to move. This automatically activates that layer.

Now use the CLONE tool and clone the main panel over itself, so that all of the old meters are covered over. Now you can move the meters anywhere you like, and add the new meter also. If there are large enough empty areas on the panel, you can also select, copy, & paste the panel over itself... then blend the edges afterward.

NOTE: if the meters are countersunk into the panel, then your selections will include the cutaways as well as the meters. And if you're not concerned about moving any switches, then don't select them and don't clone the panel over them.

TIP: in this case it may be best to set the Feather option of the selction tool to 2-3 pixels prior to creating the selections. This setting is found within the Options Bar for the tool (top of the Photoshop work area).

I hope this provides some kind of starting point for you. If you have any questions or problems feel free to ask.