Photoshop technique question
 

You've all seen what I'm trying to do: An "overview" photo or illustration, with one small piece of that photo blown up to show detail. And there's a circle and conical "zoom" business to demonstrate that a) this is an enlargement of the original and b) this is the spot that's enlarged.

How the heck do I do this in Photoshop? Getting the raw material is easy enough (just resize the image from my DSLR to be smaller, and leave the "detail" area at its original size). But how to montage it together to look snazzy?

I don't even know what this is called, so I can't do a good job of googling it. My efforts so far have been in vain. ("magnifying glass effect"? "blown up view"? etc.)

What if you load the file twice in different layers, enlarge the top layer and crop the area you want enlarged with a circle? I haven't tried it, but it might work (I don't have PS, just the GIMP).

I just tried this in the GIMP:

Open image
Duplicate Layer
Draw selection circle
Invert selection
Clear selection
Autocrop layer (deletes extra area of layer)
(This should leave you with the selected area overlayed over the original
drawing)
Use scale tool to scale the selected area
Drag it to where you want it
Draw circle over same area on original

Save original
Crop
enlarge
Save as new image
Open original
put new image as a layer on the original.

Yes yes, that is pretty clear.

My question is how to make the closeup view look like it's "zooming" out from the original. With a little conical translucent thingy.

I think this is not a photoshop technique question, but a graphic design technique question. You're asking how to draw something. Use the simplest geometrical shapes you can. Draw a circle around both things and then connect them with lines. Do a little translucent thing inside the lines (magic wand, then some kind of fliter?), or some enhancement of the colors in the enlarged portion to make it "pop" off the screen.

I think you just have to draw it, you know? Here's my crappy MS Paint example...is this what you mean?

Yes.. that's not bad. I probably can't get tangent lines that good if I have to do it by hand, though. Err, mouse. Whatever.

Use "snap to" then all you have to do is assign the endpoints and the elastic line makes the shortest distance between them a straight line.

I'll take a crack at explaining how I'd do the translucent thingy in Photoshop. Sorry it's a little lengthy, but hopefully it makes perfect sense...:3eye:

-Choose white as your foreground color.

-Draw a circle around the enlarged "inset" portion of your image, using the ellipse shape tool (not to be confused with the marquee tool. Hold down shift key to constrain to a circle). A new layer will appear in the Layers window that looks like a masked layer.

-Duplicate the circle layer in the Layers window.

-Scale down the duplicate circle, and drag it over to the area of your image that the inset depicts.

-Duplicate both the small and large circle layers.

-For each of these two new layers, double-click on the "mask" side in the Layers window. In the window that comes up, check "stroke" under Styles, and change the opacity to zero under Advanced Blending.

-In the Layers window, drag the new layers (that now show outlined circles) to the top.

-In the Layers window, click once on the smaller white circle layer to select it.

-Using the pen tool, draw a white-filled polygon connecting the two circles by clicking on tangent points on the circles. A new layer will be made.

-Hide all the layers except for the small white circle and the polygon, then choose Merge Visible in the Layers window options.

-Show all layers, then select the "mask" side of the large white circle layer.

-Go to the Paths window, and in the Paths options, choose "make selection."

-Go back to the Layers window. Click once on the merged polygon-circle layer. Hit the delete key.

-Adjust the opacity of the merged polygon-circle layer to the desired level.


You should end up with something like this:

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e3...acao/inset.jpg

Oboy. Gotcha. Not! (wiseass me) :bolt: But if I live long enough, I will get it!