Saturday, April 24, 2010

How to remove makeup from a face using PSE?




Steps to remove make from a face using PSE :

1. Select Brush tool from tool bar.
2. Click on Alt on Windows and Option on MAC to activate eye dropper tool and select a color below the eyes having skin color and minimal makeup.
3. Choose the mode as 'Hue' or 'Color' from top bar and rub the tool around the eye area where makeup was applied.

Makeup is removed. You may try the same technique to remove makeup from other parts of face.

Here are the initial and the final photos :

 

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

How to put makeup on eyes using PSE?




1. Open the file and Zoom on the eye portion of the potrait.
2. Now using Lasso tool, select the lower lid area of the eye. Save this selection as a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (Layer >New Adjustment layer>Hue/Saturation) and name the layer as 'lower portion'
3. Now from adjustment panel, make adjustments to the color you want to put for lower lid area.
4. Go to Filter menu>Blur>Gaussian blur, add Gaussian blur to the color as needed.
5. Similarly select the upper lid area using the lasso tool and select it too as Hue/Saturation adjustment laer and name it as 'Upper portion'. After selecting appropriate color for this layer as well add Gaussian blur to this layer as well as for the'lower lid layer.
6. Now create a new layer (Contl+Shift+N) and name it as 'Liner'. From color swatch in tool panel, select a brush with the color(selected from color swatch) that you want to give as an eye outline.
7. Add blur to layer - 'Liner' from Filter menu>Blur>Gaussian blur.
8. Now create a new layer (Contl+Shift+N) and name it as 'Shadow'. From color swatch in tool panel, select a brush with the black color selected from color swatch, and fill a small triangular region outwards in upper lid region as shown in demo. Add gaussian blur to this layer as well making it very light effect.

Adding eye make up is that easy using PSE!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

How to whiten teeth using PSE?



The high resolution video can be found@ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKDFAybXH00

Here are the steps to whiten teeth in PSE -
1. Open the image to be edited in PSE Editor.
2. Now using Zoom tool from tools bar, zoom on the teeth area by clicking on the teeth.
3. Now using any selection tool, select the area of the teeth. I used Magnetic lasso in the example illustrated. You can use the "Add to Selection" and "Subtract from Selection" top tool bar in for making appropriate selections.
4. Now save this selection as a layer via Layer via Copy option from right clicking the selection area. Nam.e the layer as 'Teeth' by double clicking the layer created in layetrs palette.
5. Now from Enhance menu, Select Adjust Color> Adjust Hue/Saturation.
6. Select 'Yellows' from the combo box and reduce the saturation by 40 points.
7. Select 'Masters' grom the combo box and increase lightness by 10 points or as neccessary.
8. Click Ok.

There is an alternative method for users that hae PSE 7.0 or a newer version. Here are the steps to whiten teeth using smart brush :
1. Open the image in PSE Editor.
2. Select Smart Brush tool from tools bar.
3. From the presets combo box on top tool bar, select 'Very Pearly White'
4. Make a selection around the teeth.

Please notice that Smart brush creates an adjustment layer in your layers palette with the selection area. If you want to make changes to the white color then double click the adjustment layer and select the color.
Also, Smart brush uses Quick selection tool by default for making selection. For using other selection tools with smart brush, please refer to the article at community publishing site of Adobe@ http://kb2.adobe.com/community/publishing/534/cpsid_53474.html

Hope you find this tutorial useful!

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

How to bring more focus on eyes in a potrait using PSE ?




1. Select Background layer in layers palette
2. Select the complete eye area ( including the white part ) using any selection tool (i used quick selection tool). Right click over the selected portion and say Layer via Copy. Name this layer in layers palette as 'Eyes' by double clicking the layer in the palette.
3. Now select the background layer again and make a selection for the eye ball regions only. And right click and select Layer via Copy and name this layer as 'Eye ball'.
4. Now Conrol+Click on the layer 'Eyes' to show the eyes selected in the image. Click on Background layer and Select Inverse from right click on image area followed by Layer via Copy. Name this new layer as 'Blur'. This constitutes the whole image except the eye region.
5. Now select the layer 'Blur' and Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Modify the blur to something like 2.5 or lesser. This is done to rest of the image leaving eyes so that eyes are prominent in the image. Click Ok. You can later on modify the opacity of the layer making it more transparent if you want to decrease the blur effect. You can do that by selecting this layer in the layer palette and moving the opacity slider on right top of layers palette.
6. Now select the layer 'Eyes'. Go to Enhance>Adjust Sharpness. Now make changes to the amount and radius. Click Ok. You can vary the sliders as per your needs and preview it side by side in image area or preview area in the dialog. Do not oversharpen as it makes the eyes look artificial.
7. Now select only the layer 'Eye ball' and select Enhance >Unsharp mask.
I changed the amount to near 50% and radius to near 16. This details out the pattern inside the eye ball and brings more focus to the eye region.
8. You can now also increase the saturation of this layer by Enhance>Adjust color>Adjust Hue/Saturation. You can select the Grrens from the combo box if you obly want to saturate the Green of the eyes using the Saturation slider.
Click Ok.

Here are the initial and the final images :


(Click to have larger views to see differences)

Friday, April 9, 2010

How to add glow to text using PSE ?

1. Open a new file from File>New>blank File.

2. Double click the icon near the color swatch on left toolbar to change the default colors to Black and white.

3. Now select paint bucket and click on the canvas to paint it black.
4. Now select text tool and create a text layer on Canvas and add any text.

5. Control+click on the text layer created in Layers Palette to select the text.


6. From effects panel, select any Bevel effect suiting your needs and double click(you can try various bevel effects).
7. Now click on the small icon on right on this text layer from layers palette to open style settings dialog.

 8. Reduce the Bevel size under bevel checkbox. Make it smaller as per your need(you can try experimentiong with different effects).


9. Now Check the checkbox for "Glow".
10. Select Outer(You may select iner if you require).
11. Select the color of the glow matching your text color.
12. Now experiment with the size, distance and opacity sliders to get the glow as per your needs. You may also add some dropshadow matching your glow color to give enhanced effects.
13. Crop if required. Here is the text with the steps illustrated above.


Its that simple!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

How to add soft glow to a potrait and make skin beautiful?

Here are the steps :

1. Take a portrait image.

2. Control+J twice to make two copies of the Background layer.

3. Name top layer as Blur. Select it and change blending mode to 'Screen' (from the dropdown above this layer which has default vaue as 'Normal' selected) and change the opacity to 70%. Deselect the layer and change the visibility to invisible by clicking on the checkbox next to it.



4. Now select the second copy of layer and name it sharpen. Make top 'Blur' layer invisible by clicking on the checkbox along with it. Add adjustment layer(from layer menu>Adjustment layer>Levels) for levels onto 'Sharpen' layer and adjust the levels. To keep eyes prominent, keep this adjustment layer Levels selected and select the brush tool to soft brush and opacity to 60 and sweep it over the eye area.



5. Now again select the 'Sharpen' layer and increased the sharpness from Adjust sharpness (radius=0.5 and amount to 250%).



6. Now using any selection tool , select the eyes in the same layer (sharpen layer) and make a new layer via copy and name it Gaussian blur.




6. Go to Filter>'Blur'> Gaussian blur. Make the value as 15-16(it may vary as per the sharpness given earlier. So you may adjust it giving it few trials) to Gaussian layer.



7. Make the top 'Blur' layer visible.



Here are my original and final images :







Monday, April 5, 2010

How to edit JPEG in Adobe Camera Raw Editor?

Normally people use Adobe Camera Raw Editor for editing raw files. All the editing tools like exposure, white balance, sharpness, vibrance, saturation, blacks, fill light, noise reduction, spot healing, crop, histogram etc are available at one place. So it is an easier method to apply editing with the consolidated tools from one dialog.
The most important advantage of using Camera raw editor is that it edits an image non destructively. What does this non-destructive editing means? It means that you are not loosing any image information while you are editing your image. Whenever an image is edited (unless we save it as version set or a new copy), the original image is overwritten by new changes unless you do it at the expense of your hard disk space. Adobe Camera Raw editing is a solution which allows you to revisit your changes you made previously in the same file and make further changes from the point you left editing earlier.

Here are the steps to edit a jpeg file in Camera Raw dialog.

1. Launch PSE Editor.
2. From File menu>Select “Open As”.
3. From the browser dialog shown, select a jpeg file and from the dropdown for “Open As”, select “Camera Raw” as shown below and click “Open”. This will open your jpeg file in Adobe Camera Raw Editor.
4. Apply the edits you like from the top tool baar options and the right editing pane.
5. If you click “Done”, the changes are saved and the file gets closed. If you open the same file again with the same steps illustrated above, you would find the changes still saved in the Camera Raw dialog in which you can make further editing if required.


If you click “Open Copy”, the image will get opened in Editor. However if you save the file now, then the file will be saved normally without saving the camera raw settings which you changed. So next time when you open this saved file in camera raw dialog, it will open it as a new file.

Here is the screenshot of a jpeg opened in camera raw dialog.




Hope this helps some of you!

Friday, April 2, 2010

PSE Editor crashing?

Here are few workarounds :
a) Delete Editor Preferences :
  1. Double click on Desktop shortcut > This launches welcome screen.
  2. Click on Edit and keep Control+Alt+shift pressed while Editor is being lunched.
  3. You will get a screen to delete Editor settings. Choose to delete the preferences and relaunch Editor.
b) If above does not work, rename Twain plugin :
Go to the location where PSE is installed. If it is installed on default location on XP, the location would be C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 8.0\Locales\en_US\Plug-Ins\Import-Export\Twain_32.8ba.
Rename Twain_32.8ba file to anything and relaunch application.

c) If above doesnot work, try emptying some space on harddisk using disk cleanup utility.

How to easily create customized watermarks in PSE?







Here are the quick steps :

  1. First open a new file with transparent background.
  2. Create a text layer with the text you want on watermark.
  3. Customize it as you want. You may use bevels effect on the text layer from effects pallette. Add glow, strike etc by clicking on the icon one right side in the text layer in the layers pallete. You may add gradient if you want and customize it as you like. 
  4. Then just add this as a brush from Edit menu >Define brush. Now this will be added to your brushes in preset manager.
  5. Whenever you want to watermark any picture, just click on Brush tool and choose the brush you created from top toolbar. You may also select different patterns from patterns dropdown and then just stamp them on your pictures. I am not sure if people use this or not. It was just a workaround which I got for myself.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

How to create 3D text in Photoshop Elements


1. Open a new file in PSE Editor.
2. Now make the default colors in color swatch in the tool bar.
3. Select the text tool from left tools bar.

4. Write some text and simplify the text layer by right clicking the text layer in layers panel and choose "Simplify Layer".
5. Image >Free Transform.
6. Skew the layer to give 3 effect. Press Control and skew the text by extending the left top of the layer towards top left and right top toward a little down left(or some other orientation you may choose). Similar with bottom left and bottom rights.
7. Press Control selecting the text layer.
8. Select a gradient tool and choose colors and stroke from left to right or vice versa.

9. Now from Effects palette, select simple bevel and double click to give bevel effect. Click on the layer effect button on right and change the bevel level to 1 pixel.

10. Now create duplicates of this text layer say 15-20 duplicates. This will create a 3 D effect. Right click last duplicated layer and choose Clear layer style.

It's that easy !