Proportional comparisons in Photoshop

[Alicia Kornick]

Question for Garth:

Garth,

Back in February I posted a little boy I was working on and you did a side by side comparison in Photoshop of his face with a grid of lines on the features of the face.

My knowledge of Photoshop is rudimentary at best. Can you give me a brief lesson as to how to do this? I'd like to use this method on my next head and shoulders. I am still working on the underpainting, but I can see where this would save me hours of pain and suffering.

I know how to crop the head and bring both photos up together but how do you get them to the exact same proportional size and get the line to go across both photos. I've played with the image size of both photos tryihg to get them the same. Do you do it by pixel size?
I'm assuming that you merge both photos into one.

I'm being lazy. Rather than spend several hours in front of the computer playing in Photoshop and getting frustrated, maybe you or someone can give a quick tutorial.

I'd like to propose a new category on this forum to Cynthia. We could label it "Dummying down Photoshop for the technologically challenged artist". I think that I'm probably not the only one out here.

Alicia

[Michele Rushworth]

There are lots of easy online Photoshop tutorials, complete with examples and diagrams. Wired Magazine used to have a lot of good stuff, check it out or look around elsewhere 'til you find something that is at the level you want.

Photoshop is one of those things that's hard to explain without trying it (kind of like riding a bicycle) but is such a powerful tool that it's worth taking the time to master.

[Alicia Kornick]

Thanks Michele, I'll check it out.

Alicia