Free Lesson #4 – Hanging wallpaper in under 15 minutes!

This is our 4th Free Lessons for Photographers!  This lesson celebrates our 6k Fans mark over at the Maternity and Newborn Photography Prop Shop FB Page!!  The more fans we get, the more lessons we post!

Today I will teach you how to add wallpaper to any photo to take it from bland to beautiful!

First thing I do is open my image that I want to add the wallpaper to. Here is my original image, shot up against a cream color blanket.  I did this knowing that I was going to add a beautiful wallpaper in post processing.  I have already done my post processing to the image to make it look nice.  Everything, except for adding the wallpaper.

I now use my Magic Wand tool, and click on all the beige areas of the background…making sure to get every little area.

Sometimes, my Magic Wand tool will grab areas I don’t want, or miss some areas I do want.  So, I switch to my Lasso tool, and hold down the Shift key to grab the areas it missed, or hold down my Option key to release areas it grabbed that I didn’t want it to.  (I’m on a Mac BTW, key’s may be different for a PC).

I now do a Command J (or Layer Via Copy), which makes a new layer of only the areas that have been selected by the Magic Wand tool.  See?

I now choose the wallpaper I want to use.  I’m looking at the blue in her eyes, as well as the blue in the pillows, and I want to pick up those colors to make them pop.  So, I choose WP013 from the Maternity and Newborn Photography Prop Shops Wallpaper Textures – Set 2.

So, in my Layers Pallet, the bottom Layer is my picture of my little girl.

The next Layer above that, is my area that I selected with my Magic Wand tool.

The next Layer above that, is my Wallpaper I’ve chosen from the Textures Set.

 

I click on the wallpaper layer.  Now I do a Option, Command, G (or Layers > Create a Clipping Mask).

Whala!  I now have a beautiful wallpaper for the background of this image!

I look to see what I could do to make it better.  I decide that the wallpaper is too much in focus…and that I want to blur it a bit to make the image look like it has some depth of field to it.

I click on my wallpaper layer, and add a Gaussian Blur to it by going to Filter, Blur, Gaussian Blur.  I like what a level 4 does to it.  A higher number will give it more blur, and a lower number will give it less blur.  This is a personal preference.

Now, I’d like to add a little bit of depth and warmth to the image…so I decide to add another Texture to it.  I choose Color, Color and More Color – Set 6 Texture # CC&mC188 (this Texture set is not yet available at the store, but will be going up soon!) from the Maternity and Newborn Photography Prop Shop‘s Texture Sets.  Here it is.

You can see that it is square, so I have to resize it to cover my image…so I do a Command T and stretch it to fit on, and cover the image completely.

I now change the Blending Mode of this Layer to Multiply, and bring the Opacity of the Layer down to 40%.  I then erase at 100% over the areas I don’t want the Texture on…such as the little girl…and I even take it off of the pillows because I like the beautiful color in them already.  I erase at 50% over the chair she is sitting in as well.

Mmmmm…I like this a lot!  I know my client will buy a nice, large image of this…and I would suggest a Gallery Wrapped Canvas!

And here’s one more from the same session that I did using the same technique.

For questions on this Lesson, or additional information, please contact LaurieL Photography by emailing lauriel@laurielphotography.com