Yonksgirl

Hello!
I am a new member to the forum and have a question about trying something I am not sure can be done with photoshop. I am very grateful that this forum is available!!

I am using an iMac with a G-4 and super-drive; my version of Photoshop is v7.0.

As to my level of understanding, I would say that I am just a beginner
with a slight understand of tools.

Now to my question:

I have a neighbor who is importing African furniture.
The chairs are hand beaded with patterns and designs.
What he would like me to attempt is to replace some of the designs
with designs of his own-- like a blue-print for the craftsman to follow
for the next shipment.

Is it possible to 'remove' the original design, then lay the new designs in? And if so, how would this be done? Or a reasonable facsimile to accomplish this guideline.

Any suggestions and guidance would be MOST appreciated!!!

Thank you to all who respond,
the prisoner

Welles

Welcome to the forum, the prisoner. To answer your question, yes it is entirely possible to do what you have been asked. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to give specific advice without seeing a specific example, both of the image to be modified and the new design. If you could post those, we can surely help. (Also you should tell us if the image you will be working on is for screen or print.) One guesswork approach is using the clone tool to eliminate the old design and apply the new design by placing it on a new layer and perhaps using a blend mode to 'apply' it to the furniture.

I see you are using an iMac. Just out of curosity, what model? iMacs didn't have G4s and super drives until the first flat screen monitor versions. Are you lucky enough to have a 17"? How much RAM do you have installed and how much space on your hard drive? Also which OS?

I ask partly out of curiosity but also out of the practical consideration of the needs of Photoshop. It can use all the RAM you can throw at it and as much screen real estate (but hey, I've worked successfully on a Rev A iMac 384mb RAM and 1024 x 768). Then, with just one hard drive, you should know that Photoshop writes temporary files to the hard drive, quite a lot of them, depending on the image manipulations and size. In using your hard drive as a scratch disk, PS looks for the largest contiguous block of empty space and writes to that first, then the next and so on. What that means is that defragmenting your hard drive will help the performance of PS so it doesn't have to constantly be looking for fragmented scratch files. OS X, which I assume you are running, fragments the heck out of a drive. Normally it doesn't matter but with PS it does unless you have a specific partition or hard drive for a scratch disk. It doesn't mean you can't run PS, just that the performance will suffer.

Anyway, try to post an image if you can get the OK and we can try to give specific help.

Rick

as Welles said post us an example and we will help, it can be done [shhh]

Yonksgirl

THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!

1st: No, I am using a 15" flat screen and my OS is Panther (upgrade).
How do I check how much RAM I have? And know also that I have a LaCie d2 117GB external hard-drive. I have been thinking of putting PS on that, but have not done so, yet. Do you think I should? Do you think it would help to partition it? I am using it mostly for storage at this time-- it still has 73.73 GB available. So I could run PS there AND have storage for jpegs...ones that I am working on,then burn to disk.

2nd: I have heard about defragmenting, but know NOTHING about how to go about it or why it might be necessary--could you elaborate?
I know that I have a lot to learn; But I am willing! I would like to have the best set-up possible to use PS to the best of my ability, knowing full well that PS is SO extensive that perhaps no ONE person may be able to fully master it!

3rd: Yes, I will get the images as soon as possible and, with your help and understanding, post them for your assistance! Never have posted
an image in a message board before.
Also, I was familiar with the clone stamp. but lack full knowledge of its use....

Thank you again, Welles and Rick for such a QUICK response!!! :}


--the prisoner

MsOz

If you have photos of the furniture, to do what you want,
1. To remove the existing beaded pattern, try the Stamp Tool with a brush size slightly larger than the existing beads. Pick an area very close to the bead as a "cloning spot."

2. To create a new pattern, make a new layer, pick your brush size, and open the Brushes Palette. Uncheck "Shape Dynamics" and click the Brush Tip Shape option above it. Set the spacing to about 110%-125% (You will have to space to taste).
Now you can draw out the beaded design.

3. To give it a more "3d" effect (I do not know if the beads are inset or on top of the furniture), double click the bead layer in your Layers Palette to bring up the Layer Styles Palette, and double-click the Bevel and Emboss layer style. Adjust to taste.

Hope this helps!

Welles

Hello again, the prisoner,

Apple Menu > About this Mac. That window will tell you Processor and Memory info but there is a More Info... button which launches the System Profiler which is an application to display Hardware, Software, Network and Log information. Open the Hardware sub menu and you have all sorts of information available. For example, click on ATA and you will see your hard drive displayed. In the right bottom panel of the window is specific info including how much space is used and how much available.

About the RAM. If you have only 256MB of RAM installed, which was how that computer shipped, you should add a 512MB module costing about $120 or so. You can find it a bit cheaper. RAM will make all the difference in how PS runs.

I'd suggest running PS from your installed hard drive, not the external. Try using your LaCie as the primary scratch disk. This isn't an ideal setup as the external read/write is slower than the built in HD but it isn't a good idea, in my estimation to use your primary, unpartitioned hard drive for a scratch disk. Constantly writing and eliminating files on your boot drive should be avoided, if possible as that is the source of fragmentation. As you get seriously involved with PS, eventually you will partition your hard drive to have oh, a 20-30GB partition which is dedicated for a scratch disk. The partition or hard drive you use for Scratch Disk is chosen in the Photoshop preferences. Once you finish with a file, then copy it to your external for storage and trash the file on your main HD if you wish.

In the Mac operating system's file system, a data file over a certain size is stored in several "chunks" or fragments rather than in a single contiguous sequence of bits in one place on the storage medium, a process that is called fragmentation. That is because the hard drive is 'broken' up into allocation blocks for location reference points. This allows small unused sections of storage (for example, where old data has been deleted) to be reused. In the Mac OS files are fragmented and the location of the fragments for each file is kept in a file called the Directory.

Because fragmentation over time can slow data access (each fragment of a file must be accessed for the entire file to be read in), you may wish to buy a defragment utility so that the data on the hard drive can be reorganized. A good utility will allow you to defragment both the files first, and then the whole drive.

Now Panther does have built in defragmenting routines built into the system so if you don't need specialty 'scratch' space where temporary files are written, you don't need to worry about defragmenting at all. However, if you do use your primary, unpartitioned hard drive for a scratch disk, defragmentation can be a valuable tool to increase the speed of Photoshop writing and reading of temporary files.

If you did wish to get a utility which is the best general purpose set of tools for the Mac, I'd suggest TechTool Pro. It will rebuild the Directory and Optimize (defragment) the files on your hard drive. Another utility, DiskWarrior is a somewhat superior tool to do one job, rebuild the Directory but if Ijust bought one it would be TTPro 4.

One additional aside. Do you turn your computer off at night? Are you familiar with rebuilding permissions and running chron scripts? No? Hah, this little shareware utility is for you!

Macaroni
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16593

Yonksgirl

O.K. I have the photos and will attach them in the following post.

But first a few other bits.
I would like to thank MsOz for her response:
Thank you and I have copied them for my future
reference!

Also to add answers to some of the computer questions Welles requested:
below is the Hardware Overview:

Hardware Overview:

Machine Model: iMac
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (2.1)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 800 MHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
Memory: 512 MB
Bus Speed: 100 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.4.1f1

In the memory option it states
DIMMO/J12: 256mb (size) SDRAM (Type) PC133-333 (Speed)
DIMMO/J13: " " "

Not sure what it meant, so thought I should include it as well.
When I first clicked the "About this Mac", I saw
Processor 800 MHz PowerPC G4
Memory 512 MB SDRAM
So I presume I will be getting MORE RAM in the near future! (hehehe)

I think I understand what you (Welles) were referring to about using the LaCie
as the scratch disk...I have a friend involved in Final Cut Pro, and last Saturday night
he was talking about that...so I will find out more and how to do that! Thanks for the
info!
Anything else?

As to the fragmentation: will using something like TechTool Pro aid in the performance
of the computer overall, as well as in PS? In either case, you are the third person to
recommend it; my birthday is 2 mos. away! It's on the list.

I already do have DiskWarrior!

Yes. I do turn the computer off at night; is this a bad thing? I will check out your link
to versiontracker. Is Macaroni anything like MacJanitor? My knowledge about rebuilding permissions is strictly elementary: I know it is. So you were right, again!

I am posting two pics: one is of the chair; the other is a family crest that will be beaded
into the chair back. As I mentioned this is but a blue-print, but can go further, i.e. more
patterns similar to the ones on the chair now. At first these will be used "in print". Later there will be a web-site, so then they will be for the screen. But when that happens I will be
shooting the finished bead work. So I will be putting the crest onto the chair after taking
out the existing patterns. Most likely using the white beads to cover the patterns?

I had no idea there would be any difference using PS for print or screen. I found that most
fascinating!

If you need more info, or I forgot something, I will be happy to provide what I can.

Thanks again for ALL the help

the prisoner

Yonksgirl

Here is the photo of the chair!

Yonksgirl

Here is the photo to be inserted
on to the back of the chair.

retired_Wick3d

This is done in a whizz with Photoshop. First of all make sure that you have hi-rez images to work with. They need to be of better quality than the ones you posted if you want a good result.

I took the photo you wanted to insert. With the magic wand I selected the black background (which I assumed that you didn't want). Tolerance: 32 px and make sure that anti-alias and contiguous is checked. Click somewhere in the black area.

Goto Select > Modify > Contract and choose 1 px

Press Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection

Press Ctrl+C to copy the selection.

Open the image of the chair

Press Ctrl+V to paste

Place it where you like

Press Ctrl+T to transform it (shrink it?)


Hopefully this can be a start. There are many ways to improve the result.

Example made in 2 minutes (I took another chair since yours was too small)


/Moltas