Warping one object into another

[Nebraskagirl]

Hi,
Does anyone know how to take one image, make a "grid" out of it, and apply another image to the "grid". I'm trying to make a wallet have humanistic characteristics, but I don't know how to warp the wallet to do it.
Thanks for your help!
Andrea

[Lesa]

I found this little tip, by the wise and wonderful Matt K.:

GET WARPED
Warping images in Photoshop CS2 is just as easy as warping text in earlier versions.
1. Open the image you’d like to warp on a surface as well as the surface.
2. Target the layer with the object you’d like to warp and choose Edit>Transform>Warp.
3. Choose one of the default Warp settings from the top drop-down menu or pick the Custom option to have more control over the warp grid.

And this tutorial by Scott Kelby and Felix Nelson.

http://www.layersmagazine.com/design/warp-curl.php

Neither of these may be exactly what you're after, but perhaps the techniques themselves will be helpful.

[Nebraskagirl]

I found this little tip, by the wise and wonderful Matt K.:

GET WARPED
Warping images in Photoshop CS2 is just as easy as warping text in earlier versions.
1. Open the image you’d like to warp on a surface as well as the surface.
2. Target the layer with the object you’d like to warp and choose Edit>Transform>Warp.
3. Choose one of the default Warp settings from the top drop-down menu or pick the Custom option to have more control over the warp grid.

And this tutorial by Scott Kelby and Felix Nelson.

http://www.layersmagazine.com/design/warp-curl.php

Neither of these may be exactly what you're after, but perhaps the techniques themselves will be helpful.

Great! You're awesome! Thank you! I'm going to try it and let you know how it works out...by the way, cool site! You've got tons of great information...wonderful source...I'll be visiting often. Anyone else has great suggestions or tips, please let me know.
Thanks Again!
Andrea

[Nebraskagirl]

The only thing is I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to "grid" an image. Then I can take that grid and apply to my wallet photo. I think this is more complicated than what I thought. Maybe photoshop can't do this, I'd have to use another software.
Anybody?

[Sean Kent]

Well, I don't exactly understand what you're trying to accomplish, but I think I know what you mean. What you can do to 'grid' an image is to create a displacment map. Take your image that you want to 'grid', flatten it, change mode to grayscale, and save it as a seperate file (.psd) Now take the image you want to warp, go to filter > distort > displace. Press ok and navigate to the displacement map you just saved and open it. You can adjust the horizontal and vertical distortion in the filter. This doesn't really 'grid' an image per-say, but it reads the higlights and shadows of an image and 'displaces' it either horizontal or vertical.
Note: Make sure your displacement map and the image you want to warp is of the same size and res, or it will come out all funky. You should probably line them both up on the same document before saving.

[Nebraskagirl]

Great! Thanks Mr. Kent, I'm going to try it. What I'm trying to do is make the unfolded wallet look like it has arm and chest muscles, almost as if the muscles are bulging out of the fabric. I'll get back with a response after I try it...
Thanks!
Andrea

[Nebraskagirl]

So I tried it and this is how it turned out. I tried boosting the contrast of the greyscale image but it didn't help. At this point I'm not sure what I want to do.http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b359/thebargaindealer/edit368b.jpg

[skitchsdg1]

Do you mean you want a wallet to look like it has arms and legs (or something to that effect) but you want to the arms and legs to have the texture of the wallet instead of human skin? If so, yes I think this may be a more complicated thing than you thought. But trust me, whatever you want, photoshop can do it. Let me know if this is what you are trying to do. If not, there's no use taking the time to write it and have you be misunderstood yet again.

Rick M.

[Nebraskagirl]

Yes in a way: I want muscles bulging out of the wallet. Almost as if the wallet is human, or the human is wallet. I want it to look as if I came along and shot a picture of a wallet with human muscles. So far I've been unable to manipulate it for this effect...it looks like there's transparent muscles on top of the leather. I'm having issues with wrapping the leather texture around the muscles.
Thanks for your time and help,
Andrea