Photoshop Transparency Help, please!

Hello

I'm trying to do something clver with a couple of photos from New York, and have come a bit stuck in Photoshop. I'm not even sure I can do what I want to do...

Basically, I have a picture of the Empire State building:

And I have a photo of an Art Deco woman who is frosted in the door glass of a cocktail bar:

What I want to do is overlay the woman on the building, using the gradients in her body as the black and white parts of the layer mask to control the transparency. She is only in black and white, but i don't seem to be able to paste her into the mask (which i suppose makes sense). I don't really want to have to draw round her, as there are some subtle variations around her glass and foot which I'd like to maintain.

I think I probably need to do something with the drop down on the layer menu that has "multiply" and "dissolve" on it, but I'm not really sure what those things mean!

Any help or advice would be appreciated!

PS don't worry about the different sizes and ratios of the pics, I have a plan to get round that too

-- BenStephenson - 08 Jun 2009

08 Jun 2009 20:53:37 BenStephenson:

Hmmm, I have fiddled with the transparency of the woman's layer, and that is approaching the effect that I want. Hmmm...

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08 Jun 2009 21:16:11 JackRuss:

Ben you can pump the levels on the "lady" then you are able to draw round her a lot easyer (magic wand) and then reverse the levels to bring it back once the mask is done and saved Just a thought ? Then paste to a layer and then use the opacity to make see through. you can tied an edges by using the rubber tool.

I'm not quite sure what picture you are trying to make, if the lady is going to be over the building then how are you going to reduce the size of the lady to match it ?

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11 Jun 2009 20:14:31 BenStephenson:

OK, I haven't quite got what I wanted, but here's the latest version after some more fiddling tonight.

Have also tried her over a picture of the Chrysler building, but I think it's a bit too busy.

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