Tutorial Pie

Create your own currency! This tutorial looks at blending modes and using the stamp tool to edit a photo and merge it on a coin. The final image will look something like this:

Step 1 - Creating the document.

Create a blank white document (Ctrl->N). Call it “Coin”, the size is up to you. Find yourself an image of a coin on its face of reasonable size. I used the one below. Copy & paste this into your new document (Ctrl->C, Ctrl->V).

Step 2 - Using the Clone Stamp Tool (S) to remove the image in the middle of the coin.

The next task is to remove the image in the middle. I decided to leave the text around the edge to give a more realistic effect. Select the Clone Stamp Tool (S), hold the Alt key down and click on a section of the coin that has no text or image on it. Release the alt key and with the bush carefully rub the image out. You can go and alter the size of your brush in the top left hand corner. Essientially the Clone Stamp Tool (S) is taking one area of the coin and appying it to another. Keep repeating this process intil the image has been removed. It doesn’t matter to much how reaslistic the surface you just removed because you will be placing an image over it.

Step 3 - Finding a suitable image for the coin.

Find an image of whatever you want on your coin, preferably with a clean white background (Making it easier to cut out). I chose the side view of a girls face, shown below.

Step 4 - Cuttting out your image.

Use the Magic Wand Tool (W) and click on the white background. Hit delete to remove it. If you have chosen an image with a multi-colored background you may need to use another tool for removing it. I suggest using either the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) or creating a path. If you don’t know how to use these please take a look at the previous 2 christmas tutorials (Christmas Frame & Hat).

Step 5 - Resizing your image to fit the coin.

Select the image your using and copy & paste it into your Coin document (Ctrl->C, Crtl->V). Right click the image and select Free Transform. Resize your image to fit the coin.

Step 6 - Appling settings to your image to make it look realistic.

Ok this is the easy bit. The settings I used may vary depending on what images you are using but the principle is the same. Apply all these settings to only the image that is being placed on your coin.

-Lower the contrast of your image. Image->Adjustments->Brightness/Contrast. Lower the contrast bar leaving the brightness the same. For the image I used I set the contrast to -50. This will give it a more dull effect, suiting the coins surface.

-Change the saturation of the image to -100. Image->Adjustments->Hue/Saturation.

-Change the blending mode to Soft Light. Again this depends on your image. Sometimes Overylay & Luminosity works well. To actually change the blending mode double click on your layer. Select Blending Modes and choose Soft Light or whatever. By changing the blending mode your image will blend into the coin.

-Add a small dropshadow. Double click the layer->Dropshadow. I suggest using the same settings as I did, which are shown below.

-Add an Bevel & Emboss. My settings are shown below.

The last two settings will help give the effect that the image is raising off the surface of the coin. Like the text.

Final Product

This process can now be repeated to create different coins with different images!

Beneith is another example I did by deleting the face image and pasting a car image in its place:

Have fun!