Image modification - HELP!

Mrs_Bear

I don't know what to do!

I'm getting married on November 5th and I need to make the invitations myself to save money (on statutory sick pay of £45 a week!) Because this is Bonfire Night, I thought that a picture of fireworks exploding on the front of the invite would be marvellous...... BUT every photo I've found has (obviously, now I think about it) a black background.

I have tried to delete the black using photoshop but just end up with a messy picture. Is there a programme that would give me an option to click on a colour (ie black) and replace all of the black (not just in parts as with Photoshop) with white and then replace the centre of the exploding firework (which comes up white) with another colour?

Am I just incompetent?

I've found a lovely photo but I just can't make it look right for the front of the invite.

Any advice HUGELY gratefully received!

matL_2

The problem is most likely that because it's a photograph the background isn't 100% black and hence when you try and replace the black with another colour it only replaces the exact same colour(if im reading the problem properly). It probably needs to be done manually, zoomed in, unless anyone has any better ideas?


Mat

sco0ter

Photoshop does give this option... I will have a look and find out how its done, cant remember off the top of my head. I remember it gives a slider for colour matching so you can have it just remove the colour you click or make it more widespread to a colour within say 80% of a match.

Astaroth

There are a number of ways of doing it if you are using photoshop but it isnt easy to do - particularly with the topic you are going for.

To be honest though.... what colour background are you going to be going for? Fireworks will quickly lose their dramatic edge if it is on a light background.

Mrs_Bear

I know!

Thinking about it later I realised it wasn't going to be easy, that's why I thought if I could replace colours then it would still look good against the white of the invitation.

I suppose what I need to know is whether it is possible or should I give up and choose something else. If I could work out how to insert a picture I would show you what I have done so far, but as you all may have guessed I am not very good with stuff like this. And I'm probably not explaining it very well either. Sorry!

meclive

Upload the picture somewhere like tinypic (http://tinypic.com/) or imageshack (http://imageshack.us/)

Mrs_Bear

Ah... well I have had a look at that and they ask for a url.... nothing about shunting over a picture I have stored in My Pictures. Nor the ones I have fiddled about with!

Wombat

Load your photo into Photoshop.

Click Image.....Adjustments....Selective Colour

In the window that opens, click on the drop-down arrow against "Colors" and select Blacks.

Move all the slider controls to their leftmost position.

Click OK.

This should have changed the black background to white. It will also affect the other colours in the photo, however, and you may need to play around with the settings for a while to get it just right.

Mrs_Bear

Going to try that now! Thanks!

Astaroth

I understand what you want to do but it is going to take a lot of effort and will probably litterally have to be finished by hand and zooming in - before you spend a long time doing it I just wanted to make sure that it will work.

I have done a very quick and dirty one to show you what it will look like on a white background.... http://www.staffordfamilyhistory.co.uk/pictures/fireworks.jpg

(please note I do not own the rights to this photo so please dont use it)

If you really want a firework theme then you may be better going for gifs of fireworks themselves rather than them going off such as...

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/celebrations/special_days_holidays_festivals/fourth_of_july/1440878_fireworks_1.php?id=1440878

sarahlouise210

I agree that it will be easier to use a picture of an actual firework ..why dont you have pictures of you and your hubby exploding out of the firework? I made all my own invites - it is really fulfilling! I made labels for the wine bottles too.. they looked great!