Adobe Photoshop CS5 One-on-One

Figure 3-21.

Figure 3-22.

1. Open two image files. Locate the Lesson
   03 folder inside Lesson Files-PsCS5 and
   open the files ManlySaw image.jpg and
   Ad composite.psd, both shown in Figure 3-21. The
   former was shot by me of me, manly sawyer that I
   am, and the latter is a composite I created using a
   background image captured by Fotolia photogra-
   pher Catherine Jones. The goal of this exercise is to
   select the saw and place it into the unquestionably
   masculine background I’ve created for it.

PeaRl Of WISDOm

How did I manage to shoot what is clearly my own left hand
from this angle and distance without some serious contortionist
moves to keep my left elbow out of the shot? No, I’m not an
incredible arm-extending robot; I used a simple Photoshop
trick. I shot the image with the saw pointing straight up, as
in Figure 3-22, which allowed me to extend my left arm high
in the sky, lean back, and release the shutter with my right
hand. Then I rotated the image in Photoshop by choosing
Image→Image Rotation→90° CCW. If you’ve installed dekeKeys,
you can alternately press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+ (�-Shift-Option-
on the Mac) to perform such a maneuver. The result is an
image capture that should be impossible for a nonrobot such as
myself, yet was actually quite painless.

Completely

plausible angle

Amazing robot-contortionist

angle

Selecting Regions of Continuous Color 75