Ideally, company logos or other solid art are printed from resolution independent vector files (EPS). Unfortunately, it is common for companies to provide graphic designers with a pre-printed logo or a scanned black and white TIFF. The goal with each of the following methods is to get a logo to appear above a photo without evidence of a mortice or fringed edge. (No points if you pull out the Photoshop magic wand tool.)
Blend Mode
If the logo will be output small and the supplied scan has sufficient resolution, here's quick solution. Crop in reasonably tight. Then drag or paste the logo on a separate layer. If the logo background is white, simply change the layer blend mode to "Darken." Done!
Vector Path
With an Adobe Creative Suite of applications, more than one program can be used. If the scan (or logo) is large enough, Adobe Illustrator can be used to auto trace. For Illustrator CS3, select Object: Live Trace: Make and Expand. (There may be some irregularities if compared closely to original but edges will remain sharp for very large enlargement.) With the Group Selection tool, remove the square bounding box. (Alternatively, the scan can be placed on a Template layer and manually traced using various Illustrator tools on a new layer above.) Save resulting art as an EPS for use in a variety of page layout applications.
To use in Photoshop, click inside filled are with Group Selection tool (thereby selecting entire logo). Copy from Illustrator and paste into Photoshop as Smart Object to transform and move to position.
Rasterized Smart Object
Don't want to bother with Illustrator or paths? It's not necessary. Do you want your logo to be in color over a complex background difficult to cancel out with various layer blend modes? There's another way all within Photoshop. Steps 2 through 10 can be recorded a Photoshop Action.
- Scale if necessary for proper resolution.
- Select all and copy.
- Paste into a new channel using the channels palette.
- Deselect and invert so that background is black (Cmd-I).*
- Make a selection from the channel (Cmd-click thumbnail).
- Create a new layer.
- Mix desired color in Color Picker.
- Fill the selection with that color (Opt-delete).
- Lock the layer (renaming it if desired).
- Disable or discard the original background layer.
- Delete Alpha channel.
- Drag (or copy-paste) symbol on to photograph.
- Convert layer to Smart Object and scale (transform) to desired size.
*Note: If scan is not solid black, use white eyedropper tool within Photoshop Levels adjustment to click within logo before making a selection. On the channel layer, black is the area that is masked -- meaning it will not be filled with color.
There are two reasons for converting to a Smart Object. First, original resolution is retained as it is scaled. Secondly, it is possible to double click the Smart Object layer to alter the color if necessary. With the layer locked, simply select a new color and fill (Opt-delete) without making a selection and the shape color is changed, retaining its high-fidelity anti-aliasing. The image can be saved as a Photoshop (PSD), TIFF image or Acrobat 8 or higher (PDF .1.7) file to preserve Smart Object layer.