Steps to Photoshop Figure/Ground Exercise

1) Choose a ground. This can be a wallpaper sample, a landscape photo, an artist’s sketch, but make sure it is a medium or large size image. Save as a jpg on your desktop.

2) Take a picture of yourself against either the white or black background – whichever provides the most contrast to your clothes and skin tones. Use PhotoBooth to take the picture or your phone if you can send the image to the computer.

3) Drag both the ground and figure to Photoshop.4) Remove the background from the portrait photo using

the Polygonal Lasso tool. There are other ways to remove backgrounds, but this is an easy one for beginners.

5) Copy and Paste the selected portrait onto the ground.6) Position it where you want it. Crop if necessary or make

duplicates = double self portrait.7) NOW, I want you to make the figure ground relationship

more complex. At least slightly ambiguous and reverberating. HOW do you do this? You can draw on/over the portrait. You can select and paste some of the background so it overlaps.

8) See what you can do! If new to Photoshop, you will be partnered with a classmate who has more experience.

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