On December 24, 2004, Christine Cecelia Eckert-Klump and I were married. One of my sons attended and the other had to work. When my father sent the pictures he'd taken with his camera, for this one, he asked if I could put Christopher (the working son) into it.

 

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Step #1 - Choice

I figured that I'd put him between Chris and me, so needed a fairly well-lighted mid-shot (head, shoulders and chest) without anything else in that area. I looked through a number of pictures I had with Christopher in them, and decided that the following one could be used... 1) He hadn't changed that much over the last couple of years (Matthew graduated in 2002); 2) The lighting was pretty good and not too different from that above; 3) He was SMILING (he tends not to when pictures are taken); 4) I had a clear view of him for everything that would be visible in the above.

 

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Step #2 - Cutout

After selecting a picture, we have to cut out the one we want to add into the other. The polygon cutout tool gives us straight lines, so, in many places, these straight lines are VERY short. It's tedious, but you'll end up with something like the following.

NOTE: I couldn't find my version of Christopher with the shoulders down. It's possible I did it another way (it was a couple of years ago). However, if I were to do it again, today, this is how I'd do it - Cutting around his shoulders and head, and squaring off the bottom.

 

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Step #3 - Sizing

I didn't do this step until I was putting it in place. That's why I had a big gap to fill in.

1. Bring up both pictures in the same editor.
2. With only the cutout (Step #2, above) selected, resize it so it's the correct size... For example, make sure both boys heads are approximately the same size.
3. Pay attention to the actual size of the picture.
4. After the size is correct, lay the cutout over about where it will go, and note "landmarks" in the larger picture.

 

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Step #4a - Stencil 1

Using the "landmarks" in the large picture from the last step (be careful if you resize the picture for this - be sure to set it back to "normal"), using the polygon tool, cut a piece of the picture corresponding to where the cutout will go. Cut around anything that's to be in the foreground, and don't worry too much about the background.

NOTE: You can see the "fuzzies" from hair in this stencil. To REALLY clean it up, later, you MAY want to "fuzz" or blur the edges of heads a little to correct cutting these out. However, if you DON'T cut them out, here, the background behind them will show through.

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Step #4b - Stencil 2

From the above picture, cut out a rectangle the size of the stencil, and (wish I remembered how I did it), make a "mask" for the area. The idea would be to make the yellow part transparent, so it could be laid over the cutout picture, showing what was needed from it.

 

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Step #5 - Editing (Stenciled cutout)

I laid the "stencil", above, over the cutout picture of Christopher, making the yellow part transparent. Positioning it so Christopher's head was a little higher than Matthew's (Christopher is a touch taller), I made a rectangle of ONLY the part of Christopher that would be added to the larger picture, and changed the stencil's color to one NOT in his image (so I could make IT transparent, globally, for the picture, when I placed it).

NOTE: I COULD have skipped step 2 and worked with the full-size picture from which Christopher was cut, but it would have made sizing a bigger problem, and I preferred to work with a smaller picture.

 

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Step #6 - Paste & Size

For this step, I opened Picture #1 in MSIC, and inserted Christopher's cutout (Step 5), positioning it in relation to the edges of the cutout. I made fuchsia color transparent, and (because I'd basically skipped step #3, above), played with the size making Christopher's head a little higher than Matthew's, and about the same size, and lighted it up. As you can see, skipping step 3 caused problems.

 

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Step #7 - Cleanup

I "extended" Christopher's image, by transferring a few pixels from his shirt to the missing area. This step probably took the longest, because I had to be careful not to "over shoot" the shoulders and Chris' hair...

The full size final product I sent to Dad was well over 500K.

 

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Step #8 - Crop

And, I made a cropped version, printed it on photo paper, and it's hanging on our wall with other family pictures.

 

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Send comments/questions about this page to Bill Sanders at:

Go to OFPv2/Owner - Graphics Capabilities
Go to Adding Example #1 section
Go to Adding Example #3 section
 

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