Tip of the Week - J is Just for Fun
J is for Just 4 Fun!
There are a ton of things I could do for J but the season has me in the mood to do some fun stuff.
So to get started, the following was sent to me by Kelty Luber. It is a walk-through explanation of how she did the photo manipulation/collage with her adorable pooches!
First off, it’s easier to start with a setting that’s forgiving. Like a grassy yard, a rough wall, etc. It’s an easier background for this kind of editing than an evenly patterned wall or the like, unless you set up a tripod.
Secondly, don’t resize the pictures. I recommend working with them full size and then sizing the final product down later if necessary. It’s so nice having the large format in case you want to print a poster or something larger later!
So I basically crouched, leaning against the wall with the camera tight against my head and snapped away for about a minute or two. The more pictures, the better.
I started out with about 20 pictures and narrowed it down to the clearest ones as well as ones that had the dogs in different areas of the frame so there wouldn’t be much overlapping. I chose one picture to begin with- the one photo of them closest to the camera on the right. I then went through the other four photos and did this:
· took the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) with a setting of 3 for the feathering, and outlined the dogs, giving a good cushion around them of grass or background. (See individual layer)
· copied and pasted into the final document
· dragged it to the area that they were in the former picture, so that it matched up. Set the layer to a lower percentage of opacity so you can see a bit through it, which helps to judge if you’re lining up right. restore to 100% opacity.
· take the eraser tool on about 60% (opacity and flow) and lightly drag it around the edge of this latest layer of dogs to blend it in a bit in case it’s off.
· repeat with the other dog layers
· if there’s any overlap (like with the tail over the other dogs playing), just make the topmost layer a bit transparent and erase lightly and carefully over the area that needs to be behind. (Check out my layer to see what I mean)
· use the marquee tool (M) to select around the entire document
· go up to edit and click “Copy Merged”, then “Paste”, making sure it is now the topmost layer.
· Now you have a flat version of your layers that you can touch up with brightness, contrast, color, etc while preserving the layers below in case you need to change something. I love copy merged. 
· Add a warm glowing border by choosing the merged layer then going up to Layers > Layer Style > Inner Glow. Another way you can do it which I prefer, is to create a new layer, take the paint bucket and fill the layer with black, dark brown, whatever color you’d like to edge it. Then select the marquee tool with a high feathering like 45, and draw a square over the filled layer- maybe all of it but an inch around. Then hit delete. If there’s too much border, you can hit undo and try again or just use the marquee one more time over the existing border. I prefer this feathered border look to the inner glow.
Thank You, Kelty, so much for the insight into how you created your Doggy Keepsake!
Now, continue reading! There is MORE. By now, we all know that there are several dozen ways of doing things to get a similar end result!
If you have a newer version of Photoshop Elements (5.0 or newer), there is a nifty little MENU item called PHOTOMERGE. PHOTOMERGE is available in PSE 4.0 too, but it is not very good, and you will have a lot of “clean up” to do after you run it. Photoshop CS and newer have PHOTOMERGE as well, but they really aren’t reliable until CS3.
So have you even tried the PHOTOMERGE? It is actually pretty sweet, you will have to look over the photo at 100%, to make sure you haven’t got any spots that are missing pixels, but the newer versions are accurate enough that it will save you a TON of time.
· Open all of the photos into PS (found it is easier this way, although it has options to pull straight out of the file location)
· Then go into FILE > NEW > PHOTOMERGE PANORAMA
· After a few minutes, depending on how many photos you are using, it puts them all into a new file, on separate layers, already masked!
· Then you can go into the individual layers and fine tune the masks, so you don’t have gaps or missing pieces. I usually save the .psd as well as a .jpg version.
· I generally don’t merge or flatten my layers (although, I do use the merging options for different things, or when I am positive I will never go back and need to edit the file again), I ALMOST NEVER FLATTEN because it automatically saves the file as a FLATTENED version when you SAVE AS a JPEG.
So what PHOTOMERGE does is it takes all of the similar stuff (i.e. background) and merges (actually masks) it together (pretty seemlessly in newer versions of PS and PSE), then it uses masks to reveal the stuff that doesn’t match. It also helps reduce the time consumption of selecting feathering and erasing each individual element.
You should definitely try it out. It will save you a ton of time if you want to keep doing photos like this!
I will go into collages and blending layers in a later tutorial.
One more thing!
If you have PSE 7, you will find other PHOTOMERGE variations. There are four variations: GROUP SHOT, FACES, SCENE CLEANER, and PANORAMA! You can play with each one to see which one gives you the best results for the photos you are using!
MORE JUST 4 FUN!
PSE 5 has tutorials, in the HELP MENU and PSE 6 and 7 you have an option for guided edits. These are quite helpful when you are starting out and when you want to find out more about what the program can do for you.
In PSE 5, explore your ARTWORK and EFFECTS panel (it is right above your LAYERS panel). When the panel is “open” click on the icon that looks like a little picture frame with a sun by the lower right corner. And in the DROP DOWN MENU you can select a category or choose to display all.
In PSE 6 & PSE 7, your EFFECTS are in the EDIT tab (located in the top right corner of the workspace window) and the ARTWORK is located in the CREATE tab. There is a TON of new content in the newer version, so take a peek!
HAVE FUN! EXPLORE!
