I’m trying to make a collage of passport stamps from my outgoing passport.
So far I’ve managed to create this in Adobe Fireworks CS6 by loosely cutting the stamps out from photos and then using the
Interpolationblend mode. As a proof of concept it’s great, however I’m not very happy with it as a finished piece.
As you can see the stamps are washed out and the cutting lines are clearly visible in places. Ideally what I’m trying to achieve is a clean blend of the passport page watermarks (the background) with the stamps nicely arranged and prominent.
How can I achieve this effect in Photoshop CS6? (or Fireworks?)
Edit:
Here’s an example of the raw photo image illustrating the complex background:
Edit, final version:
Here’s what I’ve come up with based on everyone’s feedback, in particular @Ryan. Thanks for everybody’s comments and suggestions.
I simply used the lasso tool with 100px feather, Darker Color blend mode and a Curves Adjustment Layer to improve the contrast.
Answer
Some will be easier than others but if you want to get really good results for this you’re going to need to spend a bit more time on it because of how complex the background is… rightfully so since its designed to avoid such things.
- Convert image file to Lab.
- Select a stamp using the lasso tool with a decent feather. 100px or so should work.
- Duplicate the selection (Ctrl+J)
- Turn off the original
- Use Blend-If on the appropriate channel to remove more/all of the background
- Use a Curves Adjustment on top of it to bring back the colors and contrast. Can do this by making all 3 channels steeper.
The biggest thing though if you don’t want to go to this extreme is to just use that feather when you do your initial cuts so you don’t have edges showing. If any are still showing after then just manually use a large soft brush to erase them.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : James Law , Answer Author : Ryan