See engine through hood

Article written on 25 June 2008 .
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Our goal in this tutorial is to make an effect of penetrating look through car's hood so we can see engine. You might think that achieving this is very complicated but it is not. Quite opposite. All we need is two photos and a little bit of your time.

Step 1

Open our photos (you can download it from here (Pic1) and here (Pic2))

Step 2

As you can see, Pic1 is photo of car with the hood down and Pic2 is photo of the car with it's hood up. Now we have to copy Pic2 onto Pic1. You can do this in several ways, and I'll be using standard Drag'n'Drop technique. Select Move Tool (V), click on Pic2 and then left click and hold on it and drag/drop it to Pic1. Pic2 will show up as Layer 1. You can rename it. I choose to call it "Engine".

Step 3

Our two photos aren't ideal one's. That is because perspectives on this two photos are different and we have to adjust them. So on to work. Firs we have to size down "Engine" layer, because it is much bigger then the car on the photo. Now we have to find some kind of marker to use for this scaling. I used one part that is showing on both photos and that is radiator. So go and drag two guides, one on the left side and one on the right side, but first turn of visibility of "Engine" layer so you can see what you're doing.

That will be our markers. You can now turn visibility of "Engine" layer back on. Now click on "Engine" layer and go to EDIT - TRANSFORM - SCALE (or simply press CTRL + T) and scale down "Engine" layer. Try to match radiator size between those two markers. It should look something like this.

NOTE: Keep in mind that while scaling down your photo you must keep it's proportions so press and hold SHIFT while you are scaling down.

Step 4

Now we have to adjust perspective on the "Engine" layer. Once again go to the EDIT - TRANSFORM but now select PERSPECTIVE. Change the upper part and the lower.

You can also use EDIT - TRANSFORM - SCALE if you go over the markers. I can't tell you exact numbers so you have to work by your sense. When finished it should look something like this photo.

Step 5

Now we have to make that effect of "seeing through". Go and pick Lasso Tool (L) and make selection like this one on the "Engine" layer.

Go to SELECT - FEATHER and enter some big value in between 5 and 10. Now go to the SELECT - INVERSE and simply press DEL on keyboard. By doing this you'll erase everything but the part we selected. If you have some parts that are wrong and you don't want to see them then pick Eraser Tool, set some small opacity (10 or 20%) end start erasing that parts.

Final photo looks like this:

Author of this tutorial is Vladimir Markovic