Hi! Ok, someone on a message board I moderate on asked how to make a composite image from two images to be used as a desktop background.

Here are the source images:

http://www.rytekmotorsports.com/neo-anime-big.jpg (1600x1200) http://www.yourwallpaper.com/pop/movies/matrix/matrix03-1024.phtml (1024x768)

He wanted to make the "matrix-1024" image the background and have Neo in the foreground.

Someone replied to his post with these instructions:

1) resize Neo to 1024 x 768 2) make a new layer
3) copy and paste matrix background into Neo picture 4) send that layer to background
5) "add layer mask/reveal all" from layer menu 6) select Neo layer and select all white parts with the magic wand 7) fill the selected area with BLACK , the matrix background will appear

8) apply a little Blur to the Neo Layer to blur edges 9) voila!

So I decided to try this and I was able to get the wallpaper image created. However, my version of "Neo" has a white line outlining him whereas the person who posted the instructions produced a version with NO outline using PhotoShop.

Instructor's version: http://www.unibas.ch/gaybeggars/neomatrix.jpg

My version: http://www.pixhost.com/pixt/tomdkat/neo-wallpaper.jpg

Why does my version have a white outline around Neo where the instructor's version doesn't?

Thanks...

Peace...

Tom

Sven Neumann wrote:

Hi,

Tom Williams writes:

Why does my version have a white outline around Neo where the instructor's version doesn't?

You are not yet finished preparing the mask. Parts of the white background of the neo layer are not being masked out properly. Did you apply the blur to the layer mask? To me it looks as if a larger blur radius could help. After blurring the mask, you can use the Levels tool to finetune the selection.

Thanks for the info. I must not have applied the blur to the layer mask properly. I'm still new to layer masks... :)

Peace...

Tom

Hago Ziegler wrote:

Hi Tom,

I tried it too:
A part of the result you can find at:

http://www.hagoschaos.de/h/freunde/neo-anime-big-teil.jpg

No white or grey outlines at all.

On neo-anime-big.jpg, without resizing: 1.Add Alpha-Channel
2.select white regions with magic-wand, sensibility:~45 3.grow selection: 1
4.now resize, then
5.copy the result and paste it into the matrix...jpg

that's all.

Regards, Hago

Cool! Thanks! I see how the 'Grow Selection' can really be useful. :)

Question: is there any benefit to using an Alpha-Channel instead of a layer mask, in this case?

Peace...

Tom