Need help with transparency (Fashion Design)

[Sasha Pulliam]

Hello everyone,

I have one question regarding photoshop for fashion design.

I usually work in layers, each layer representing one garment (ex. pants, shirt, skin..etc) and it goes very well until I get to the point where I have to color a garment that represents a transparent fabric, like per example lace or chiffon.

My question is how do I achieve that effect, that will be only applied to the certain layer so that the layer beneath will be visible?

 

[Eggy]

Depending on the color of the targetted garment you could use one the available blend modes.
Maybe you can post an example so we have an idea.

 

[Sasha Pulliam]

View attachment 62635


Ok, here is the picture that resembles what I want to achieve, like this lace part of the dress.

 

[Eggy]

OK, we will use two images, a person and a lace pattern.


Open the 'body' picture.
Open the 'lace' picture.
Drag the 'lace' picture over the body and reposition or make it fit.
The lace is white (keep) and the background is black (remove).



Activate the 'lace' layer and apply a 'screen' blend mode.
Now the black is gone.

If the lace were black and the background of it lighter, use the 'multiply' blend mode.
When opening the blend mode pulldown you'll see the available blend modes.
Experiment with them to have the best result.

 

[Tom Mann]

One might run into problems if there is a big difference in brightness between some parts of the base image and other areas (eg, shadows and highlights). In such a case, the layer to be added might be brighter than the underlying area in some areas and darker than it in others so that neither screen, nor multiply blend modes will work for the whole image.

In this case, just select the background to the lace (ie, black in the example given), delete it, thereby turning it transparent, and then just add the layer. Another variant is to construct a layer mask for the lace. This will effectively make some areas transparent.

There are subtleties that can arise if the layer is slightly out of focus and is not resolving all the holes. In this case, the layer mask approach is probably the best. Let us know if you face this problem and we can guide you through it.

Cheers,

Tom M

 

[Sasha Pulliam]

Oh, never thought on that!! Thank you all

Sasha

 

[IamSam]

Sasha, sorry, I was skim reading and missed the whole point. I worked late last night and I'm not fully awake yet!