I need some help making a collage !!

making a collage is one thing I never seem to be able to do very well, I couldn't find any decent tutorials on it and so I put it out here appealing for help.

To probably give you an idea of what I want to achieve, here is a link that contains a pirated VCD cover from the movie "Bedazzled"

http://lizard.mine.nu/covers/bedazzled-back.jpg (may be slow!)

This cover is a good indication of what I want, I am trying to achieve something similar. Basically get a few pictures together and join them all up. Notice how even though two very different pictures are close to each other - the blend/fade? between the two seems to be really smooth (given the crap quality of the cover). I am refering to the images that create the main background image - not the 3 small images in boxes.

How can I achieve this in PS6? Changing the opacity of layers just makes everything look faded. Extract is too harsh. So what do I do :confused:

Thanks in advance for the help!!

Fading pictures into each other is all done in Photoshop using "masking".

You can create a mask on a layer in Photoshop by going to the menu on top of the screen Layer>Add Layer Mask. You will then be given the choice to "reveal all" or "hide all". Reveal all means the current layer you added a layer mask to will remain visible until you edit it. Hide all will make the layer you just added a mask to completely transparent.

You edit the mask and achieve the fading effect you want by using any of the brush tools or fill tools, such as the airbrush or gradient fill. When you're on the layer with the mask on it, and have the mask selected on the layer menu, you'll notice your toolbar now has black and white as the colors to choose from instead of other hues. Shades of gray and black will "fade"/change opacity of the portion of the layer you are editing. White will bring back portions of the layer you masked out. Using the gradient fill tool on a masked layer is a great way to achieve a soft fading effect without too much hassle.

thanks mrbogus

that did the trick - exactly what I needed to know but didn't !!!

That is one of the ways. Another is by using a channel with a gradient, and using this to remove overlapping/"needed to be faded" areas. Or, you can use the lasso tool, crop out each image, and place them where you want to.

So that's three ways you've been given so far. Enjoy.

SavageDawg
Akuta-Graphics