HELP! Need to combine 2 separate pictures into 1 portrait

[bruce edwards]

Hi I am learning a lot from SMC and have been doing ok with most things. But I never used Corel until a couple of months ago.
I need to combine the 2 attached pics into one pic for engraving on an 8 inch by 12 inch piece of black aluminum. At least they are both 300dpi. Can anyone help?
I am fine with single pictures....but getting rid of the backgrounds and putting the 2 together is frying my brain!!! :confused::(
Thank you in advance209182209183



Here's one I did on 8x12 black aluminum, no problem.

209187

[Dan Hintz]

The hairline is pretty tame, so I would suggest using one of the auto-crop programs (plenty to be had for <$50, some free) to remove the background in an instant... how you combine the two is more of a personal preference, though. If it were me, I'd fade one into the other rather than leaving a hard line between them.

[Ross Moshinsky]

Outsource the work. There is someone in India or China that will do that for $10-15.

[Martin Boekers]

Corel has Cutout lab in Photo paint, (I believe it is on the toolbar under effects)
this will help without buy any new programs.

Search YouTube I'm sure you'll see something that will make it easier.

I would advise spending some time with the tutorials that came with Corel and
hitting the videos pretty hard. Learning Corel is where you'll find the biggest
learning curve. The laser is easy, file prep is diffucult. Plus the file size you can
post here will not give the resolution you want for your final piece.

If your completely new to graphics you will need to learn about file types, resolution
and compression. That is imperative to getting a high quality product.

This forum does a great deal in helping folks, the best help we can give is to lead
you to where to go to help you learn.

There was something said once about teaching a man to fish.......

[Jeff Belany]

IMHO -- your best bet would be to go to one of the Photoshop forums (like Yahoo Grouos) and ask there. I think you can get a pleasing result but the 2 pix you have are never going to look like the example you show unless you find an artist to make a completely new piece and I would assume that will not be cheap. There was a post recently that had a site that had people doig a numbe oif tasks for $5. I looked at the site and there were a lot of Photoshop offerings. You won't get it for $5 but you might be able to make a contact with a talented Photoshop artist. Just a thought.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Larry Bratton]

Bruce,
PM sent.

[Hannu Rinne]

Here is something - not much, just a "test"...:o

Regards,
Hannu

[Dee Gallo]

Here is another solution, but your pix were 72 dpi and tiny! So, I would not use them as is. The faces have such differing colors that I did a little equalizing and had to add a little hair, head and shirt to the girl. Changing to B&W would be a better choice, which I see Hannu did for you.

cheers, dee

edit: yes, I changed it to greyscale and it looks better...also added some hair on his right..it looked too flat. To put the two faces together without a white box, I used PhotoShop and deleted the white background. Each face was on a separate layer so they could be moved around for placement. You can also adjust lighting, contrast, size, etc. on each one separately . This sample was more for layout just to see how the two faces would go together, I did not spend more than 5-10 minutes on it. If it were my own job, there are other things I would have done. I highly recommend you spend some time learning how to manipulate photos for the future, since it's a popular use of the laser. No matter which program you use, practice will make perfect.

[Larry Bratton]

He stated he was going to do this on black aluminum, subsequently the background needs to be black (assuming he wants it to remain black)

[bruce edwards]

Here is another solution, but your pix were 72 dpi and tiny! So, I would not use them as is. The faces have such differing colors that I did a little equalizing and had to add a little hair, head and shirt to the girl. Changing to B&W would be a better choice, which I see Hannu did for you.

cheers, dee

edit: yes, I changed it to greyscale and it looks better...also added some hair on his right..it looked too flat. To put the two faces together without a white box, I used PhotoShop and deleted the white background. Each face was on a separate layer so they could be moved around for placement. You can also adjust lighting, contrast, size, etc. on each one separately . This sample was more for layout just to see how the two faces would go together, I did not spend more than 5-10 minutes on it. If it were my own job, there are other things I would have done. I highly recommend you spend some time learning how to manipulate photos for the future, since it's a popular use of the laser. No matter which program you use, practice will make perfect.

Hi Dee that looks very good for just a few minutes of work. I did get rid of the backgrounds yesterday, just working on combining the 2 pix to make it look good. Yes I need more practice with Corel!

[bruce edwards]

Thanks to all for the advice and input. :) Will have to spend a few (hundred?) hours watching u tube videos about Coreldraw etc...