How did I do this in PS?

This is VERY embarrassing. Well over a decade ago I created this overlay to show different focal lengths on certain subjects. I want to recreate it with new lens focal lengths, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how I did it. The original .psd file has a transparent base layer, the different text layers, and a layer for each rectangle.

If anyone can help it would be most appreciated. I think it had something to do with paths, and I can email the original file if needed.

Many thanks!

I dont know how you did it but if I were to re-create it, I would use the "Frame" tool Draw the first frame. Bring up the frame dialog box and set a size for the outside line to something bigger than the default 1 pixel. Then copy that frame, and change the dimensions to the next frame. Do this until all the frames are drawn and aligned.

BTW, you can also use the same dialog box to set your pixel dimensions as well. Makes doing the different sizes much easier.

Thought of another way you might have done it. Turn on the grid. Then use the rectangle tool to draw the boxes. THe grid will help you aligh it and set the sized properly. I'm sure that there are other ways to do it as well.

I would use the Rectangle Tool and for each Rectangle, set the Line colour to either Red, Green or Blue and make sure there is no fill colour for each Rectangle, so just the lines are drawn.

Cheers

Dennis

Thanks! I will have to do a bit of research and practicing on those two methods and see what works.

I may have gone stupid at the moment, but how did you calculate where the lines go? Making the squares is no problem, several ways to do it. Just trying to figure out how to make the different focal lengths.

D Thompson wrote in post #19533722
I may have gone stupid at the moment, but how did you calculate where the lines go? Making the squares is no problem, several ways to do it. Just trying to figure out how to make the different focal lengths.

Math and a FoV calculator.
You can get the FoV using something like THIS calculator. Calculate the FoV and multiply it by some reasonable amount like 100 or something. Do it for all of the focal lengths you are interested in. Once you have your boxes, draw the out in PC, use the properties windw to set their size, and your done.

D Thompson wrote in post #19533722
I may have gone stupid at the moment, but how did you calculate where the lines go? Making the squares is no problem, several ways to do it. Just trying to figure out how to make the different focal lengths.

After you have generated the Rectangles, one on each Layer, if you Select all those Layers and Rasterize them, you can then Select the Layers and Align the rectangles horizontally and vertically so they are centred on each other.

Cheers

Dennis

This is getting better and better!

In the FOV calculator linked above, use settings like those shown in the attached screenshot and the resulting horizontal and vertical field of view values (displayed in centimeters in the calculator) can be entered directly in pixels in your draw/paint application so you do not have to do any kind of scaling or conversion.

So, for the screenshot with the 12mm focal length, the resulting box you would make in PS would be 3000px wide and 2000px tall for the full-frame (36x24mm) sensor/film size specified. Or points, or pica, or cm or whatever unit you want to use.

Kirk

Thanks for all the help. I got it figured out last night. I did one for the 14 - 35 and the 24 - 105, and one for the 100 - 500 and 420 - 700 (1.4x).

I also made on for all the focal lengths. You can hardly see the 700 rectangle.