any Photoshop pro out here?

Question

I have a problem. I have scannned in a piece of material in photoshop. I have
also done an
illustration in illustrator and brought it into Photoshop but i want to fill it
with the priece of
material so it will look like that the shoe is made of that material. How do i
go about it? Is it
something like mask off teh area outside teh shoe and something? I'd like to knw
the easy
and real way. Not the 'use lasso tool and go round the shoe an ddelete every
little bit of
material etc etc'. thank you. Please guide me. I really appreciate your help.
thanks.

Answer 1

Dependant on the texture there are a few ways you could do it. You could try the layer blending options (overlay or screen might help) though they may well change the colour of the texture. Like you've already mentioned, a mask in the shape of the shoe (or it's negative) would also work. Remember though, to put the shoe shape on top of the texture so as to preserve any extra details you may cover up (obvious, I know, but you'd be surprised how many people forget the simple things) If the shoe shape is a solid with no transparency then use the multiply layer blend option.
Oh yes, and another obvious but easy mistake, remember to draw out your mask on the texture layer, not the shoe layer.
Another way to do it would be to use the shoe shape as a template to draw a path round. Use the handles to adjust the curves to fit. Then in the path section of the layer window click on the small arrow top left and select "make selection" fromthe pull down menu that appears. Then either copy and paste the shape to a new layer or select inverse and delete the unwanted texture.

Answer 2

see up at bo -far
if you select the white area on you shoe background with the magic wand then bring that section on to your shoe layer you can cut out the shoe shape in the texture. then you can remove any unwanted bits with the polygonal laso

Its a bit more complexed if the texture is paterned or detailed
you can create the shadows by manipulating the original artwork from illustrator change it to B\W increase the contrast so that the shadows are strong then apply the texture on the top layer and reduce the opascity to suit,
the main problem is making the texture look 3d
which is advanced use of the distort tool and layers.
thats not easy and could take considerable time

Answer 3

try this:

Make the material the background on a seperate layer,
put the illustrator piece on the next layer.
Copy the background layer.
In the layers pallette drag the background copy over the illustrator layer, then delete the first background.
Hope this helps.