How to remove sweat from a face using PSE ?

Following is a quick way to remove sweat from a face using Adobe Photoshop Elements. When you capture any sweaty face, the camera portrays the sweat as highlights. So removing those highlights, using the simple steps below removes the sweat, bring a matte look to the face. So here are the simple steps :

1. Open the portrait to be edited in PSE Editor.

2. Now create a new blank layer clicking on the new layer icon in the Layers palette.

3. Now change the blending mode of this layer as Darken

4.  Now select Brush tool selecting a soft brush, opacity of brush set to somewhere around 15% -25%.

5. Now keeping Alt key pressed, click on an area near the sweat area on the skin which does not have sweat. For this image I clicked somewhere on the left of the lips on the lower cheek which does not have sweat highlights. It selects that skin color in the color swatch if you notice.

6. Now start dabbing with the brush on the areas of the seat highlights. Keep dabbing until you get all the highlights disappear.

Here are my initial and final images :

Once you learn the technique, it doesn't take more than 2 minutes to have this done.

This tutorial was on request from Morgan Drzewicki. Thanks Morgan.

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 use Layer Masks for precise selections in PSE 9?

There is a wonderful addition amongst the rich set of features in PSE 9 - Layer masks. This was something which was missing in PSE 8. It is a wonderful tool which helps in achieving a lot of good results in different editing operations. This tool is specially helpful for people like me who aren't that precise in selection tools like lasso,quick selection etc. However, are more comfortable with the paint brush and eraser.

In this tutorial, I will be using Layer Masks to move one object from one image and place it on other precisely without using any of the other selection tools in PSE like Lasso, quick selection etc.

I have the following two pictures : one is butterfly on a white flower and other is a lady bug on a pink leaf. Now I want to place the lady bug from the second picture on the flower leaf of the first picture, next to the butterfly.



1. I opened both the images in PSE 9 Editor.

2. Now I keep the image of butterfly in display in the editing workspace.





Select the Move tool from the tools bar and drag the ladybug image from the project bin below over to the butterfly image in the workspace.

3. Now as you see in the image below, the lady bug image comes over the butterfly image occupying a lot of space. Also you would notice that there is a new layer formed in the layers palette which is that of the lady bug image.

Just drag one of the corners of the lady bug image inwards to reduce its size.

Now one can rotate the image of the lady bug by dragging the corner of the image keeping Control key pressed and revolving it through the corners like this.

Click the commit green button when you think that the orientation is correct.

4. Now select the lady bug layer in the layers palette and go to Layer> Layer Mask> Reveal All.

As you do this you would see that there is one white mask that got created in layers palette.

5. Now select the Brush tool from the tools bar and black color selected as foreground color in the color swatch (as shown below). Now brush over the rest of the area of the lady bug layer leaving just the lady bug. This will remove the pink and green background of the ladybug in the layer.

As you click and drag the mouse with the paint brush you would notice that some black color gets painted in the white mask in the layers palette.  And you would see the pink leaf disappearing.

In case you mistakingly paint any unwanted area or some extra area, you can correct it by changing the foreground color in the color swatch to white and paint over that area again. So you can keep switching between black and white foreground colors in the color swatch to correct your selection.

Also for best results, zoom the image to 200-300% and reduce the brush size when you brushing around the corners of the lady bug to get precision.

Once you are done, select zoom tool and right click -Fit to screen.


6. Now select the move tool again and move the lady bug over the white flower and change its orientation as per your needs. You may transform it using Control+Shift+Alt and dragging the corners.

Here is my final result ;

Layer Masks can be used in several other workflows like selective editing in a picture or applying filters to some part of the image etc.

Hope you would find it useful too.