How to bring sheen to hair using Adobe Photoshop Elements?

The hair in the image below looks dull and lacks shine. In 3 easy steps one can add shine to the hair using PSE 9.

 1. Open the image to be edited in PSE 9 Editor. Create a duplicate copy of the background layer using Control+J or dragging the background layer to the new layer icon in the layers palette( 1st icon below the layers).

Select the background layer in the layers palette and click the new layer icon which is the first icon in the layers palette below the layers.

This is how the layers palette should now look like. There appears a blank layer between the background layer and the background copy.

2.  Now click the top background copy layer in the layers palette and press Control +G or select Layer>Create clipping mask.

See the top layer gets indented in the layers palette indicating that a clipping mask got created.

Change the blending mode of the blank middle layer to Linear Dodge(add). You can do this simpley by selecting the middle layer in the layers palette and changing the blending mode from Normal to Linear Dodge(add) from the combo box in the layers palette.

3. Now select the brush tool from tools bar. Keep the default colors in the color swatch(black and white as default).
Choose the brush size from top bar as 60px of soft mechanical brush type.

Change the Opacity of the brush to 20% from top bar. Remember if the hair color is not not dark as shown but some lighter color, reduce the opacity to half this value(around 10%).

Keeping middle layer selected, start brushing over the area of the hair you want shine to appear.

Here is how my initial and final images look :                 

Initial Image

Final Image

How to train the quick selection tool for making better selections in PSE ?

Quick selection is a great tool for selecting objects in any image. It intelligently selects the object distinctly from the background by detecting the brightness, contrast and tonal changes along the objects and their backgrounds. It takes just a little mouse drag with in an object to select an background.

For example : for the image below I just dragged my mouse from point A to point B for selecting the whole apple instead of moving my mouse along the edges of the whole apple which we would require for other selection tools.

This is how my object was selected moving my mouse from point A to B (Please note I increased the brush size to 35 px from options bar after selecting the quick selection tool for making this selection) :

However in the above image, there is good contrast between the object to be selected and its background. So we did not need to train our quick selection tool. But for getting better results in minimum time when there is not much great color difference or contrast between our object and background, it is recommended that you train your quick selection tool.

So in an image like below, where there is not that great color contrast between yellow flower and its background, we would train our tool.

So if I move my quick selection tool from point A to B to select the yellow flower, here is what
I get as selected :

However I did not need this extra highlighted(green) part in my selection(as shown below) which was selected when I moved my mouse from point A to point B. But since there is a low contrast between the orange and the yellow here, this area too got selected.

So instead of selecting my flower in one go as shown above, I follow the steps below to get my needed selection :

1. Select a very small part of the yellow flower as shown after selecting Quick selection tool.

2. Now I will press Alt key and keeping it pressed, I click and drag my mouse over the area I did not want in the selection. So  I brush my mouse over the green highlighted region shown in the second last image.

I also notice that as soon as I click Alt key my mouse cursor changes from "+" to "-" as it tell what area not to select.

Once I am done with that I leave the Alt key back and again move my mouse from point A to B as I did earlier and here is how I get my desired selection :

So here I have trained my quick selection tool not to select what areas of contrast. So if I had the similar background around the whole flower, then I would just drag my mouse once along the boundaries of the flower to tell my tool about the low contrast areas which I do not want to select.

Also keep in mind that if you have a large and random objects to be selected then you should keep subtracting the wrong selections you make as you sweep and not to defer the subtraction task in the end. This trains my tool at every step of selection and tell it what "not" to selection as it goes ahead.


I hope you find this tutorial helpful!

How to create stitching or embroidery text effect using PSE?

1. Open a blank document in PSE. Now select pattern stamp tool and increase the radius of the brush such that it covers the whole document.

2. From the Pattern Picker in top bar, select the pattern Denim and stamp it over the document so that the whole document now is painted with Denim texture.

After Stamping, it looks like this :

3. Now select Text tool from left toolbar and write some text as shown. Choose the color you like. I chose Stencil Std font style from font picker combo box in top bar and pink color from the color picker.

4.  Now we will create Stitch brush. For this open a new file from File>New>Blank with default background selected. Now choose brush tool from tool bar with black color selected. Make the radius of brush around 9px with hard brush type selected in the top bar options.

Now put a dot and press shift to create a small slant straight line. Similarly create another such that you have drawn V-shape as shown. Once you are done, go to Edit> Define Brush

It asks to name the brush. Name the brush as Stitch.

5. Once you are done, select the previous file we were editing from the project bin. Select the brush tool and the brush style as Stitch from the Brush combo box in the top bar. Create a new blank layer from layer menu and name the layer as "Stich".

Now on the edges of the text, start stamping the brush as shown. Please note we are stamping only along the horizontol lines as shown.

6. For vertical lines rotate the file by 90 degrees from Image>Rotate menu and complete the bruh stamping along the vertical lines which now appear as horizontal plane after rotate.



Once done rotate the image back.

7. Now select the Stitch Layer and go to Enhance>Adjust Sharpness. Increase the amount and radius as necessary.

Click Ok.

8.  Now keeping the Stitch layer selected, Go to Enhance>Adjust color>Replace Color. Select the color of the stitching or embroidery if you dont like the black stitching. I changed it to off white from black.

9. Once done, keeping the same above layer selected, go to Layer>Layer Style. Add Bevel to it(approx 9px in size).

10. Click Ok. Here is how your embroidered/stitched style look like :

Hope you find this tutorial helpful !

How to create a portrait hard rock style using PSE 9?

 1. Open the portrait you want to edit in PSE 9 Editor.

2. Create a copy of the background layer by pressing Control+J

3. Now select the copy of the background layer and go to Enhance>Convert to Black and White.The following dialog will pop up. You may choose any preset available in the dialog or making changes using the sliders. Click Ok

4. Now Select this background copy and rename the layer as Overlay. Keeping this layer selected, change the blending mode of this layer to Overlay from the combo box.

5. Create a copy of this layer Overlay by pressing Control+J or by simply dragging it over the new layer icon in the layers palette. Change the blending mode of this new layer to Hard mix.

6. Now select Burn tool from toolsbar and brush it over the highlights in the resultant image. You may try the combo box options with the blur tool on top toolbar - Highlights, mid tones, shadows.

Here are my initial and final images :