Deforming an image to an irregular shape or path

[M.C.eggtooth]

I'm having trouble figuring out how to do this:
I have a shape that is like a 2d hourglass or an odd curl and i want to paste an image in photoshop over it and CAUSE THE IMAGE TO BE WARPED TO CONFORM TO THE SHAPE.

Thanks for any help in advance.(also posted in pluginsforum)

[Bombi]

Maybe you could use the liquify filter within photoshop. It allows you to manually manipulate the image... there are several different tools that allow you to do this.
Hope this helps.

[Roo]

Select the shape, copy what your are wanting in there, and then *paste into*, you can then try the different transform tools to try to get it to wrap to the shape. Under the edit menu Edit>>>Transform

I'm not sure this would work perfectly, as such actions are normally done in a vector program such as Illustrator.

Human Software does have a plugin that is supposed to to just this:
http://www.humansoftware.com/pages1200/ ... izz11.html

However I find thier plugins to be quite costly and very user unfriendly...i.e...very hard to use becuase thier documentation stinks. I bought one from them for 99.00 several years ago, and still don't know how to use it. Also they offer no demos, so if you want it, you have to buy it, if you hate it, you're stuck with it.

[Guest]

What I think I need help with here is how to "transform" distort with more than just 4 control points. I appreciate the info on the plugin. I may go and try this with illustrator, but I have little experience with that program.

[ponyman]

Find somebody with Paint Shop Pro 9 and use there warp mesh tool