Is there anyone here who can take this pic of Peter Falk and photoshop this piano tuning lever into his hand? (or any other that might fit better) Here’s another. I don’t have the necessary tools and/or skill to do it, and can’t eliminate the white background, which just covers his hand totally.
I’m sure there’s a way to make it look like he’s actually holding it, or at least close to it, but I don’t know how it’s done. If anyone here can do it, and then post it I would really appreciate it! 
haha! That’s awesome thanks!!!
Hi im trying to learn how to photoshop, and i thought id try this as a little test but could you tell me how to put the tuner behind the hand so it looks like he is holding it??
cheers James
There are several different ways of doing this.
Some people just use the eraser tool, others use the masking tools.
Me, I use layers. It’s what I’m comfortable with and allows a fair amount of leeway if you want to move things aound.
I did this by cutting out Columbo’s hand and dropping it onto a new layer.
Then I cut out the tuning tool and moved that onto a new layer.
Then I dropped the tuning tool onto the picture of Columbo and resized it ever so slightly using ‘Edit/Free Transform’.
Then I dropped columbo’s hand on top of the tuning tool and nudged it into the correct place so it lined up exactly with his hand on the background layer.
A screenshot of how I do things might help.
Looks like Munimutant has added a little shadow using the airbrush tool too.
He did a nice job.
Hope this helps.
+1 For using layers - that’s exactly how I would have done it. The masking tools confuse me!
Is your pic for illustration only or is that rotated 3D view some Photoshop thing I’m yet to discover? Also, rather than using the airbrush, you can use the “Drop Shadow” option in the “Blending Options” for the layer (in CS4 anyway).
Learning to Photshop is actually fairly easy, as long as you remember to create a new layer for absolutely everything. It gives you so much control on repositioning and tweaking things later on.
I twisted the pic for illustration purposes only.
When I put on shadows I prefer to things manually, unless it’s for something simple like the drop shadow on the square picture.
For putting a shadow on the handle select the tool layer.
If you hold Ctrl and click on that layer it selects the tool area and nothing else (you get your marching ants around it).
Then when you use your airbrush to paint on a shadow it’ll only darken the area inside your selected portion.
It’s always a good idea to use a new layer to paint your shadow onto as that way you can adjust the opacity to suit your lightness/darkness needs.
Don’t forget there are a bazzillion photoshop tutorials online and on youtube.
Thanks alot guys ill give that a try
I know little of Photoshop. SolidWorks is my thing. But what about reversing the original photo of the tool to get the shadow on the other side? That might fit better with the larger photo.
Good call.
Nice job! 
