Mr. Potato Head The objective of this tutorial is to cut an image and assemble Mr. Potato Head using various tools in Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0

Open the document entitled “Potato Head”

Click “File”, “New” to open a new document.

Click “OK” to start a new document

Left-Click, hold down the mouse and move the blue bar of the new document and drag the new document so you can see both documents.

Left-Click, hold down the mouse and drag the tool box to the location you want.

Place the cursor over a tool to reveal the name of the tool.

Right click on a tool to reveal more tools. The tools with the arrow in the right hand portion, offer more tools.

Click anywhere In the “Potato Head” Document to work in this document.

Choose the “magnetic lasso tool”

Use the magnetic lasso tool to select the potato image. Left-click and hold down the mouse to select the potato. You have to select an enclosed portion, join the start point with the end point. Release the mouse when you have made your selection. You may have to left click to make the selection. Running ants will appear when you have selected. If you don’t get the selection you desire the first time, click CtrlZ or edit undo

Running Ants

Click on the move tool to highlight the potato you just selected.

Use the cursor to drag the potato image from the document, Mr. Potato Head, to the new document. Save your new document as LASTNAME_PH to your Network Folder.

Another way to select an object is to use the Elliptical Marquee Tool Select the marquee tool, Position your cursor above the image you would like to select. Left-click, hold down the mouse and drag to select the image. Running ants appear when you have selected the image.

Click the move tool to highlight the eyeball. Move the eyeball from “Mr. Potato Head” document to your new document.

Another way to select an image is using the “lasso tool”. Left click and hold down the button.

Use the lasso to select your image. It must be an enclosed portion. Click on the move tool. Drag the image from “Mr. Potato Head” to your new document.

Notice you took some “extra”. Select the eraser tool.

We are going to erase from the layer that has the eye with extras. In this case, layer 3. Make sure layer three is highlighted in blue. If you don’t see your Layers Palette – Click on the tab at the top of the page as shown in the diagram.

The layers tab is a pull down menu. You can position this menu anywhere in your workspace by clicking on the blue bar and dragging it to where you want to work with it.

You may want to zoom in on the object so you can see it better. You can use the zoom tool, or press ctrl and + to zoom in (ctrl and – to zoom out).

Click on the eraser tool, a circle appears, this is the size of your eraser.

To change the size of your eraser, change the size Of the eraser.

You can change the size of your eraser either by entering a new Number or using the sliding arrow.

Left-click, hold down the mouse and start erasing. If you Erase too much, click control z or edit undo to start over.

Another way to erase is to use the magic wand tool.

Click on the portion you want to erase. Hit the delete key.

In this case, too much was deleted. The tolerance was set at 75. Hit Edit Undo or Ctrl Z

Change your tolerance level. In this case, it is lowered to “1”. The lower the number the less variation in pixels are selected. The higher the number more pixels are selected.

Reselect the portion you want to delete with the magic wand tool. Hit the delete key. Select the eraser tool to “clean up” this cut.

You may try to use the eraser and not be able to do anything. If the running ants appear and you can’t erase. Save the project, close the project, open it up again.

The right eyeball needs some “additions” We are going to fill it in.

Select the clone stamp tool. A circle will appear to show the size of your stamp. Change the size if you need to.

Press the “Alt” key and a target will appear to show what you Are copying or “cloning”. Left click while you are holding down the “Alt” key.

Start “drawing” or “stamping” by left clicking where you want To add the white to the eyeball. You may get to a point where you “lose” your clone. If this happens, Edit undo and re-clone your area. You can now stamp again with the new clone.

Select the glasses and move to your document. Move the eyeglass layer below the eyeballs. Label the layers according to what they are. Double-click on the layer to rename the layer.

Click on the eyeglass layer to make sure you are working with that layer. Click on the Background Eraser tool. Start erasing the white area of the eyeglass layer. Each layer can be labeled by double-clicking on the layer you want to label.

Click on the more button, highlight “new layer”

Select “OK” to create a new layer.

We are going to add to the glasses and change the color. Select the “Brush” tool and trace the eyeglasses to make them more visible and a different color.

Right click on the eyeglasses layer. Select delete layer

Select “yes” to delete the layer. This will leave you with your “traced” eyeglasses.

Select the nose and put the layer under the eyeglass layer.

Add the lips and the teeth. Place the teeth layer on top of the lip layer.

Place the cursor near the corner of the teeth to get the double headed arrow. Drag toward the center of the teeth to shrink the teeth to scale.

Select the crop tool to shrink your document.

Draw a box around your picture to shrink your document.

Select “Image”, “Crop” to shrink the document.

Now that you know how to create a Mr. Potato Head – Here’s your assignment – Create a specialized Mr. Potato Head – some examples are shown above – use your imagination to create something unique. Use Google Images to help find items to put on your potato. Save your project as your LASTNAME_MrP to your network folder. Save often so you do NOT lose your hard work. When you are finished save a copy to your folder – copy and paste a copy to the TURN_IN FOLDER Labeled Mr. Potato Head. Good Luck – Be Creative!