How About Some Tea? Photomontage

Step 1

Some time ago I was following Amazing Photoshop light effect in 10 Steps Tutorial by Fabio. I made a background (You can make it using Fabio tutorial - it will be used in this tutorial in step 1-6) and then I needed a coffee Cup. No problem - sxc.hu , few minutes and I found this nice Tea Cup. Because I don't like coffee, Tea is OK for me. Then I used Pen Tool (P) to extract it from background (You can use any technique You want to do it), and I placed it on my new brown background. I used Free Transform Tool (ctrl+T) to resize it for required dimensions. After this I realized that this won't be so easy as I thought.

Step 2

Again - Pen Tool (P) to save a day. Make a path over this part, create a selection, hit Delete and don't Deselect!

Click to enlarge

Step 3

It still doesn't look nice. Let's make a gradient to fix it. Use Gradient Tool (G) and drag it over our selection. You will use Ctrl+Z few times before effect will satisfy You i think. Now it looks better, isn't it?

Tip: Try to experiment with gradient settings if You following this tutorial using different cup. gf

Step 4

The cup is ready, but how about a spoon placed in it? I found one on sxc.hu, You can download it from here. I used Magic Wand Tool (W) to separate it from background, then I placed it on new layer in my Tea Cup project (You may name this layer "spoon"). Next thing was rescaling it using Free Transform Tool (ctrl+T), then I flipped it horizontally (Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal), and used Distort (Edit > Transform > Distort) to fit it a little more.

Tip: You can place this spoon as You like, try to improvise, my spoon position isn't only one and true way to place it.

Click to enlarge

Step 5

Spoon is on position, but there is few more things to do until it will look ok. Click on spoon layer on Layers Palette holding Ctrl key to make a selection. Select cup layer, and use Ctrl+J combination to duplicate this part of cup (You may name this new layer "cup over"). Move this layer on the top, and lover its Opacity (I used 82%). Now use Eraser Tool (E) to erase two parts of "cup over" layer (1, 2).

Click to enlarge

Step 6

Select spoon layer, and add Vector Mask to it. Then click on "cup over" layer holding Ctrl key to make a selection (make sure that spoon layer is still selected, and that You are actually on its vector mask). Use Gradient Tool (G) with standard Black to White gradient and drag over selection starting from the bottom. You may now deselect (Ctrl+D)

Tip: If Your selection is larger than this shown on picture bellow, just take Elliptical Marquee Tool (M) (or any other selection tool), and holding Alt key subtract from this selection until only the part that is on image bellow is selected.

Step 7

The cup is ready, but we have to check if it really is "copy and paste on any image" ready. Place all cup layers (should be three of them: cup, spoon, cup over) on a group (I named it "cup and spoon"). Now open a new image of Your choise. I picked one from sxc.hu and You can get it from here. Because I want to make this example funny, we have to make two more steps before we place Tea Cup on this image. First, make a selection like on image bellow and using Ctrl+J duplicate this part of image (You may name this new layer "golf over"). Now select background layer again and take Clone Stamp Tool (S). Using it erase golf ball. You don't have to be super precise, because "golf over" layer is masking everything.

Step 8

Now we can place our cup. Drag and drop "cup and spoon" group to our new image. As You can see - the grass behind the cup is visible. Place "cup and spoon" group between background and "golf over" layer.

Click to enlarge

One more thing

As You can see, following tutorials may give You nice ideas. In my case that was Tea Cup play because i needed one to finish tutorial writed by Fabio. When You are reading tutorials, try to be creative, don't be afraid to change something... experiment. Of course I finished tutorial from abduzeedo.com - here is my result.