Brand Newbie here - Mercedes 190 owner...

[Jetmugg]

Hello - my name is Steve, and I'm a Photoshopchop newbie. In real life, I'm a 40-something engineer. The chop project I'll be most interested is my Mercedes 190D 2.5 Turbodiesel, which is a bit of a Frankenstein car in real life. It's put together from several Benzes of different years.

I have Photoshop Elements 8.0 on my computer - looking forward to figuring it out.

I've read a bit on this site, and done a straight down photoshop drop on a pic of my carr. However, I realize how VERY much there is to learn. One thing I need to learn how to do is a "differential drop", where I can lower the front more than the rear. Any quick suggestions on doing this?

Anyway,

[Jetmugg]

Here's a quick pic of the car...

[kennykro]

I would crop out the car, minus the wheels, using the pen tool, then rotate and lower the car to your liking. Lastly use the clone tool to fill in the white space.

Also to take it a bit further pay attention to what you see through the windows if possible.

[Jetmugg]

Thank you for the tip. I haven't found the pen tool in Photoshop Elements 8.0. Maybe I'm missing something, but the only messing around I've done so far is with the lasso tool.

Steve.

[Jetmugg]

OK, there is no pen tool in PS Elements, so I guess I'll have to learn some other techniques.

Steve.

[kennykro]

Thats right...I don't like elements very much, mostly because of that.

What you might be able to do is make a second copy of the layer and use the eraser and erase everything but the car. Quick tip for the eraser: If you erase one spot, hold Shift, and click another spot, it will erase a straight line between the two, hope that helps.

[Jetmugg]

Excellent. Thank you for the tip. I was thinking of another option, don't know if it's possible or not, but here goes...

I was thinking of doing the regular lasso technique to separate the bodywork from the wheels/tires, then "rotating" the body a couple of degrees before doing a straight down drop.

I briefly attempted this, but couldn't figure out how to rotate only the body portion. I could rotate the entire image, but couldn't figure out how to rotate only the body, relative to the position of the wheels.

As I said, I'm brand new at this, hoping to achieve at least a basic level of proficiency.

SteveM.

[Jetmugg]

I'm not too concerned about the background being tilted a few degrees, at this point I just want to get the car looking "right".

SM