Placing masked glassware on a new background can be a difficult task. Either the glass looks too transparent, with bits of the old background showing, or it lacks highlights, or shadows. The techniques covered in this tutorial are not limited to Octoberfest beer mugs. You can use these practical techniques for any type of glassware in composite Photoshop images.
Step 1
We start with a picture of myself holding a beer mug and a photograph of the Octoberfest scene. The picture was a snapshot I shot while I was visiting Munich during Octoberfest. Download the images to get started: Octoberfest image and Beer image. The crowd image has been blurred. This does two things: it fakes a depth of field and it protects the identity of the passersby.
Step 2
Every good photomontage starts with a good mask. Use the Path Tool and mask out the person, the beer, and anything that is behind the glass that isn't transparent. You should end up with three different paths: one for the guy, one for the glass, and one for behind the glass.
Step 3
Right-click on the path and select Make Selection. You will get prompted by a dialog box; make sure it's set to 1 pixel, Anti-Aliased checked, and Operation New Selection is checked. Once you press OK, it will make a nice crisp selection. Right-click the original background and press Command + J to make a new layer out of the selection. Do that with the person, the beer, and the behind-the-beer path.
Step 4
You should have four layers in your document: the beer layer should be on top, the inside beer should be next, the person should be afterwards, and then the original picture in the background. You can delete the background layer if you want to, or hide it.
Now it's time to place the Octoberfest picture behind the person. One thing that becomes obvious is that the beer mug isn't transparent. It still has the old background on it.
Step 5
The trick of making it look realistic is to make two beer mug layers. One is for the shadows only, and the other is for the highlights only. Set the Blend Mode on the top beer to Multiply and the bottom beer to Screen. At the moment, the composite image still looks too dense, but the secret is in the next step.
Step 6
With the beer multiply layer selected, click the Blending Options dialog box. You should have the Layer Style menu box open. On the bottom you should see the Blend if Gray box. Move the white triangle to the left. Option-click on the triangle, and it will split into two halves. This gives you more control to create smoother transitions. There is no cookie-cutter solution for this step. Use your own intuition until it looks good. Every glass behaves a little different.
Step 7
Do the same thing with the screen layer, except move the black triangle to the left. Once you're done, you will have convincing transparent glass.
Step 8
The problem now is that the multiply layer is too intense. You can see this on the layer behind the hand. Make a selection of the inside beer path in the Paths Palette. Go back to the Layers Palette. Then invert the selection by going to Select > Inverse. Create a new Layer Mask on the multiply beer layer. This solves the intensity issue.
Step 9
You may need to go back to the multiply layer and screen layer and tweak in the Blend If box. In some cases, there is too much transparency in the beer mug. In those cases, make tweaks through the Blend if dialog box. Since every glass is different, there is no exact value that applies to all glassware. Just try playing with the arrows until you get something satisfactory.
Sometimes you need to make minor touch-ups. If so, then make a selection of the beer and lightly brush in some areas through the Layer Mask.
Final Image
The last step is a simple technique used to make the image look good. Create a new layer named Vignette. Use a big, soft, dark-colored brush. Paint the edges to create a vignette. Set the Blending Mode to Linear Burn. Play with the Layer Opacity until it looks good. I set it to 80 percent. And there we have it, a composite image of me holding a beer mug at Octoberfest.
Related Posts
Keep reading with more great tutorials and articles!
Enjoy this Post?
We'd love your vote!
Plus Members
Source Files, Bonus Tutorials and
More for $9 a month for all TUTS+
sites in one subscription.
User Comments
( ADD YOURS )Andrew D April 5th
Very nice, I like the final result!
( )Constantin Potorac April 5th
Hah! Nice work. The thing is I actually had some projects as your tutorial here. I used a different technique. Thank you for sharing
I am in love with PSDTuts
).
Where else can you get so many and so great tutorials? You tell me. :p
( )Satyarth April 5th
Really useful!
( )Michael McKelvaney April 5th
bit random, but great all the same.
( )psdtut rocks!
Ben Griffiths April 5th
Great tutorial, nice to see the finer points of merging pics together
( )jerry April 5th
wow
( )Ars'lan April 5th
I were wondering about how to apply transparency of glass with background nice one dude!
Can you please write one for foggy and washroom glass too!
( )Ali April 5th
very realistic, nice one
( )giackop April 5th
yeah that’s great..
( )Cain April 5th
Lol, I was just thinking of making a tutorial like this one. Nice pasting in.
( )Shane April 5th
Nice tutorial with a realistic outcome. Makes me want a beer.
Thanks for posting.
( )Enes Kaya April 5th
man, this looks funny, thank you
( )Tama April 5th
I can’t uderstand what’s the point in this…
( )goldenthunder April 5th
mmm makes me thirsty heh ; ). great effect, this is way cool, even though I’ve never needed this, I’m sure I will eventually and this is a great tutorial! Thanks!
( )Colin Stein April 5th
fuck yea! i wanna see the foggy bathroom mirror too!
:: runs to make/try and fail ::
….maybe
( )Mark April 5th
Class
( )Chris Titze April 5th
Hey Ars’lan and Colin Stein,
( )To make it a foggy Bathroom mirror just play with the Blend if dialog untill you get the right opacity right. The awesome thing is that you can adjust the highlights and Shaddows seperately using the Blend if dialog box in the Layerstyle menu. Maybe you can make a selection and blur the image-area that is beneath the glass to make it look less in focus.
And also thanks for the comments
Lamin Barrow April 5th
I have learnt a lot from this tutorial. Thx Chris
( )appox April 5th
Very nice.
( )Kajuah April 5th
@Tama, the point is to take one image and make it blend with the other as if it was naturally taken as a picture.
I have to say the outcome isnt what I expected. The last frame looks very unnatural; where the hand is seen through the mug it looks as if it doesn’t blend properly….otherwise nicely explained..the outcome just doesn’t look real enough for me, though.
( )Kajuah April 5th
Looking again it’s the edges that are too highlighted around the fist on the other side of the glass where the inside beer layer would be. It looks really good and realistic, however, in step 5. I’ll work with it and see what I can get to combat that.
( )tim April 5th
giackpop please SHUT UP!
your comments are the stupidest!
( )Terry April 5th
awesome …
good use of the overlooked blending options…
( )Bry April 5th
wonderful!!!
( )Joefrey Mahusay April 5th
Really nice tut.
( )jo April 5th
doesn’t look very realistic.
( )btw what is there in the beer? an icecube? you certrainly don’t get an icecube in your beer in germany..
Bas April 5th
@jo — No, it’s where the handle touches the glass. It causes a distortion which makes it look like an icecube.
( )Nodster April 5th
Jo
I think that is the magnified image of the bottom of the handle as seen through the glass.
( )jo April 5th
ah ok, got it
( )Baris April 6th
Great Tutorial for German Dudes..:D
( )bavarian April 6th
ouch.
this is definitely not realistic.
that’s what the beer-glasses look like in bavaria, germany.
( )–> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Masskrug.jpg
Saswata April 6th
I was definitely looking forward to a tutorial like this one… tanx chris T!!
( )Daniel April 6th
Interesting…
I have to try it out later
MfG Daniel
( )b00m April 6th
realistic and nice
( )Chris Titze April 6th
LOL Bavarian you got me!!
( )For the sake of the tutorial I used one of those american bottle sized glasses. Good Catch though. I’ll be a lot more carefull next time.
tripdragon April 6th
What is up with the black gradient ? That makes it oof setting
( )Waterhouse April 6th
Damn good, always asked myself how to achieve this effect…
( )nonetheless, In my opinion the division between hand and background is too sharp-edged. You could either select by alpha channel, or, at least, blur the lower section of the hand a bit…
excellent tut, though, Thanks a lot!
Arnaud April 6th
Thx is very usefull !
( )LOSWL April 6th
Thanks, I always wondered how this effect was done!!
( )Don G. April 7th
I think the overall tutorial is good, but there is one detail which is plain wrong.
The background viewed through the glass should be warped as the curves of the glass distorts what is seen through it!
( )Chris Titze April 8th
Don G. you’re absolutely right.
( )This tutorial is meant to be the basic building block when it comes to dealing with transparent objects with highlights. I thought that too many steps might clutter up the tutorial. I hope to encourage readers to use this method, think about it, and improve it. Maybe try using the transform warp tool or maybe the distort>displace filter might work to fake the light refraction. Or create a more feathered mask so it blends with the background better.
I hope you enjoyed the tutorial non-the-less. And thanks for the comment.
ryaninc April 8th
This is great! I like the recent photograph tutorials on PSDTuts. The effects and logo esque projects are awesome, don’t get me wrong, but I like learning how to modify photographs, too. Good stuff!
( )web design cheltenham April 8th
niceeeeeeeeeeeeee effect very professional I am doing a website for a bar at the moment and will defo be using this effect. cheers
( )Daniel April 8th
Hi,
nice tutorial… I never realised the problems of masked glassware.
Keep Goin’
Daniel
( )Sebamueller April 9th
Nice but…im from Germany and Octoberfest is wrongly spelled.
“Oktoberfest” is correct
Sebamueller
( )Mark Abucayon April 13th
wow, that was awesome…. great job there you know. two thumbs up!
( )godonholiday April 14th
Nice tutorial, i think the area at the bottom of the glass is getting some unfair comments here. I think if you look at the two images you started with then this is a very good job. If the image of the guy with the pint had been better then no one would be saying anything.
You just need to apply the lessons learnt in this tutorial to better quality images.
once again, a great tutorial!!
( )modemlooper April 15th
looks very photoshopped. person in front is too sharp for the background. woulda fuzzed out the shoulder a bit, give it more depth
( )Rygar April 26th
There is no way that the guy isn’t at that beer festival! Also enjoyed the shadow effect around the edge.
( )Abhisek April 29th
@Rygar, I second that!
( )Vampvess May 9th
Nice method. It is hard to change the Blend If Grey there.
( )Other is ok.
Thank you.
whatimagination June 10th
Ah, very nice. I just saw this and used the technique in an ad I’m working on.
Thank you.
( )Youssra July 3rd
Very Useful
( )Serkan Gürkan August 11th
Yes its amazing..
( )Alex B. August 15th
They’re all wearing coats. And you’re just in a shirt. :-\
( )su February 26th
This is a great tut. I really liked the end result except something was bothering me about it. If you look, the frost of the beer mug isn’t consistent to how cold beer would be in a glass mug. The frost is on the inside mug layer but on the bottom it is missing the frost. It is a minor detail and may not matter.
( )Dakeiys April 19th
I saw a defect on the inside of the elbow, it’s not all cut out so it has a bit of white from the backround you cut the guys out of, other thatn that it is a great tutorial. I’ve made silly mistakes like that too:)
( )Keep up with the tutorials:)
Helena Clifford September 16th
I like the glass and the beer, but the guy holding the glass Doesn’t like Clifford.
( )