How Do I...

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

I figured I might as well leave the thread multi-purpose in the title, because this is NOT my native software, and at the moment I am a lot less than thrilled with it... and I'm sure I'm going to have a lot of these questions that start with those words.

That said!

Selecting, copying, pasting, just specific parts of a UV map. In Corel I can easily select, say, one piece of a UVMap, CTRL-C, and CTRL-V and just my selection will pop out on a new layer in the correct place on the map! So far, I have yet to figure out how this works in PS. I can do all of that, but as soon as I CTRL-V to paste onto a new layer... it MOVES. It doesn't paste into the position it came from. It moves up or down just slightly.

Obviously, with a UVMap, this is NOT workable. LOL

So how I do get the pasted layer/object to pop into place in it's original position and STOP it from randomly deciding to reposition itself?

Thanks!

 

[Miss B]

Well, what I always do, which might be tedious if there's a dozen pieces (or more) to the UV Map, but I usually just make enough copies of the main UV Map layer, and then delete all but the desired UV island on each of them.

So, for example, if you have a top, with a collar, right sleeve, left sleeve, front, back and maybe some trim, I would make 5 or 6 copies of the main UV layer. Then I click the "eye" on the left side of the main UV Map layer to hide it, and do the same with all but the first of the copies. Then I choose which of the islands I want to start with, and delete all the other islands on that first layer copy. I then hide that one, and unhide the second one and do the same leaving another of the UV islands showing in the second layer. I just continue to do this until all are done.

Then I unhide all but the original UV Map layer, and you should see them all in exactly where you need them, and you can check it out by dragging the main UV layer map to the top position of the layers, and reduce the opacity of it somewhat, to say 75-80%, and then you can see where everything is, or should be on the separate layers.

As I said, it's a bit tedious and time consuming if you have a lot of pieces, but after you've done it a couple of times, you'll find it the easiest way to do it, and have everything where it's supposed to be.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Thanks. I didn't even think to do it via erasure! LOL. Much appreciated, Miss B.

Tedious doesn't bother me. I've done enough Aery Soul map work, and I always make Step 1 my "isolating each piece" no matter what map I'm working with. I just couldn't figure out how to get them isolated on this, and didn't even think about going the erasure method with it.

 

[Miss B]

Yeah, just select the islands you don't want on each layer, and hit Delete. Works a dream.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Shoot, I'm not even wasting my time fighting with the selection. I just grabbed my eraser and started going eraser happy with it. Duplicate layer, erase all but the one I want. Repeat.

 

[Miss B]

There ya go! Easy peasy!

 

[Rae134]

yeah I work off of duplicate layers for that kind of thing. Another thing I do, if copying a bit from one doc to another the same size (and I want it in exactly the same position) is to make little marks of the top/side corner and bottom/side corner and copy the lot and paste into the new doc then delete those marks, that way it will put it in the correct place and not move. (off the top of my head I can't remember if photoshop has a "paste in place" option like illustrator and indesign does).

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

What do you mean by putting in marks, Rae? And do you put marks in on the original document, or the target document?

 

[Miss B]

yeah I work off of duplicate layers for that kind of thing. Another thing I do, if copying a bit from one doc to another the same size (and I want it in exactly the same position) is to make little marks of the top/side corner and bottom/side corner and copy the lot and paste into the new doc then delete those marks, that way it will put it in the correct place and not move. (off the top of my head I can't remember if photoshop has a "paste in place" option like illustrator and indesign does).

No, I don't think Photoshop has a paste in place option. Considering it's the same software company as Illustrator you would think it did, but then Illustrator is vector graphics and Photoshop is raster graphics, so that may be why not.

 

[Jeanne Harmon]

Easy. Select the part of the uv map you want and then press CTRL + J ---- instant new layer with your selection in the correct place.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

@Jeanne Harmon - Thank you! That helps a lot!

 

[Miss B]

Easy. Select the part of the uv map you want and then press CTRL + J ---- instant new layer with your selection in the correct place.

After all these years and versions of Photoshop I've been using . . . I never knew that! Thank you Jeanne.

 

[Bonnie2001]

I do it the same as Miss B and Jeanne. Layers are our friends, very versatile.

 

[Miss B]

Shoot, I'm not even wasting my time fighting with the selection. I just grabbed my eraser and started going eraser happy with it. Duplicate layer, erase all but the one I want. Repeat.

I just thought of something . . . unless you've already done so, make sure you go into each layer and select outside the island on that layer to make sure you've "erased" everything. Sometimes there could be a small bit here, or a small bit there, which isn't easily viewed unless you zoom in about 300% (or more).

 

[Jeanne Harmon]

@Jeanne Harmon - Thank you! That helps a lot!

After all these years and versions of Photoshop I've been using . . . I never knew that! Thank you Jeanne.

You're both welcome.

 

[Bonnie2001]

I just thought of something . . . unless you've already done so, make sure you go into each layer and select outside the island on that layer to make sure you've "erased" everything. Sometimes there could be a small bit here, or a small bit there, which isn't easily viewed unless you zoom in about 300% (or more).

Yes it can be easy to miss a bit. I usually select the island, invert the selection and fill it with a hard to miss colour (anything except white or black). Then I use the Magic Eraser, just click it on the new colour to delete everything including strays bits.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

I just thought of something . . . unless you've already done so, make sure you go into each layer and select outside the island on that layer to make sure you've "erased" everything. Sometimes there could be a small bit here, or a small bit there, which isn't easily viewed unless you zoom in about 300% (or more).

I do my final erase zoomed in drastically. Quite frankly, I find Adobe's selection tools to be severely lacking compared to Corel. Even the magnet lasso assumes that the end user can draw traditionally - not only can't I, but I have tremors due to nerve damage. As a result, Adobe's selection tools are nearly impossible for me to work with. It's easier to just broad erase, make a new layer with black or white to contrast the erasure islands (I put this beneath the layer I'm erasing on), and then zoom in to like 400% or something, and erase the bits that I missed.

Even the magnet lasso presumes that you can trace exactly the lines you want - and I can't. So it's of no use to me. I've actually started to get used to the UI in all the other ways, but the selection tools remain mostly useless to me because I just can not draw by hand. Thus, my constant use of the eraser for things, and the reason I was so highly amused at the fact that I'd never thought to just simply erase the bits I didn't want in order to isolate only the islands I wanted on a specific layer. LOL

 

[Miss B]

Hey, whatever works. For something like this I don't use the Lasso tool at all. I just do a broad selection around the item, make sure I'm zoomed out to 100%, and then nudge the island 1px to get the selection JUST around that island, and then 1px back in the opposite direction to get it back in place. Then I invert the selection and hit delete.

I've been doing it this way for so long, it just seems very natural to me. I only use the eraser when I'm zoomed in real close, and then only to get rid of a delinquent couple/three pixels on a final render that just seem out of place.

 

[Rae134]

What do you mean by putting in marks, Rae? And do you put marks in on the original document, or the target document?

Just brush marks on the corners of the layer that you are coping so it puts it in the correct spot

But I just looked and in my version of PS under "Edit" is a "Paste Special" that has a "Place in Place" option (Shift+Ctrl+V) which would be a better option than what I said LOL

 

[Miss B]

Ohhhh, is THAT what Paste Special means? Sheesh, I don't think I've ever tried that. Definitely going to have to check it out for sure.