Scaling a background to 1:6

[Emily_Ann_11228 Profile]

Hi. I don't know if this is possible or not, but I will put it out here anyway.

I use my table top photography set-up to take photos of fashion dolls. Among doll collectors this is called 1:6 scale. Everything from the outfits I design to the size of the doll is 1:6 scale compared to human size.

I'd love to be able to lift a background from one photo to use as a background for my doll photos and scale it so that it is in harmony with the 1:6 scale object in the foreground.

It would be lovely, for example, to have a background of a famous city perfectly sized to match to doll in the foreground so that the entire composition looks as if it is seamless and real.

Currently, I do not see such things among the amateurs I know. Any layering or combining of photos is really awkward and often the dolls look too big in comparison to the layer onto which they are placed.

So scaling to right proportion and having a tool or guide or wizard to help achieve that would be sure to bring more people like me to your produce (if this is possible.)

Thank you for reviewing this request.

[admin]

We are currently working on a compositing tool that should make this process a breeze. For the moment, you have to do it in the create effect tool, here's what you have to do:

Load in your photo
Select create effect
Make a "New" selection and call it Background
Use the tools to select the background:
+ It will help if you shoot your dolls against a plain flat coloured background that is a different colour from them (i.e. blue)
+ To get the best result, use the Smart Brush with the gap between the inner and outer circles a bit bigger than the amount of fuzz round the edge of your doll (on clothes or hair). Try using the shift key to get into narrow areas.
+ Just draw all the way round the edge of your doll on the background.
+ Once you have completely bounded an area with a brush, the quick fill buttons should appear to fill in the rest of the area.
+ Try changing the display selection as buttons to see what your selection looks like. You should see soft whisps of hair in your selection.
+ You can use the Add to Selection and Erase From Selection brushes to improve your selection.
+ Press confirm Selection.
+ Search for the "Selection Separator" Node in the search box and drag it in.
+ Connect the Effect Input into the Selection Separator and double click on the Selection Separator and increase the quality.
+ Press Add Image, and choose your background
+ Search For the "Place And Merge" node in the search box and drag it in.
+ Attach the new Scale node into the bottom input of Place And Merge
+ Attach the bottom output of Selection Separator into the Top input of Place And Merge
+ Double click on Place And Merge, then choose "background" as the Area.
+ You can use the widget in the main window to move your background around.
+ To finish the effect, attach the place and merge into the effect output. I've uploaded a picture to show you what the nodes should look like (I've moved them around to make it clearer).

That's the basics! Some hints if you are trying to get it to look natural:

+ Shooting dolls infront of a plain background is the most important thing to easily get a good selection that includes hair.
+ Have your dolls feet and lower leg out of shot, as it will be much easier to get the result looking natural if you do. Once you see feet, your eye expects shadows which are more tricky to get right.
+ Use a slightly out of focus background to make it look more natural. (You can simulate this with a Guassian Blur node between the Scale and Place And Merge)
+ Try to get the lighting to match in foreground and background. Try adding a Tone node inbetween the Scale and Place and Merge to adjust the lighting.

If you post some results, I can see if there's any further I can do to help.

Tony

[Emily_Ann_11228 Profile]

Tony, Thanks so very much. I've saved these instructions and will take photos once my work schedule eases up. I have a table top studio with white, grey, black and purpole (icky) backdrops. The white always works best. I've also got a new Canon Power Shot XS150 IS which is perfect for an amateur. It's got some nifty effects like Toy Camera and Miniaturization. so photos with those effects will be fun to combine with Smart Photo Editor.

It'll take some time but I'll post whatever and whenever there's time. Just applying some of SPE's existing effects is going to be wonderful.