How-To: Photoshop Elements

I got such a great response to the photos that I posted last week that I thought I would write a little how-to post to explain how I went from the “before” to the “after”.

So here’s the urn that makes me heart go pitter-patter with it’s outrageous colors:

The “before” shot wasn’t too bad on its own. Really, without the “after” next to it, I think it could have stood alone. However, compared to the “after”, it’s a little lackluster. Here’s how I went from a to b:

1. Open the photo you want to edit in Photoshop Elements (duh!)

2. Create a duplicate layer from the background layer. You can do this by right clicking on the background layer in the layers palette on the bottom far right of the screen.

3. Once you have a duplicate layer (it should have opened up above the background layer in the layers palette), you can set it to a new layer type (it should be set at “normal” as the default). For the picture above, I changed the layer type to “hard light” from the drop down menu.

4. Since the hard light layer was a little too dark, I duplicated that layer. This made the photo even darker since it duplicated hard light on hard light. To adjust, I changed this third layer type to “color dodge”, which made the color much more vivid. However, it was a little too vivid and blown out in some of the lighter/white areas. So, I adjusted the opacity, which is found on the slider bar right next to the drop down layers menu.

5. I played around with the opacity on both the “color dodge” layer and “hard light” layer until I got something that I liked. Once I had this, I just “saved as” to preserve the original photograph. Bravo!

There is probably an easier way to do this, but since I’m largely self taught when it comes to Photoshop, this is as good as it gets. If you want to try this and I left something out or confused you to the point of madness, just drop me a line and I’ll see what I can do to set the world back to right.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Easter. As a Christian, this is the most important celebration of the year. It’s not about bunnies or chocolate, but about the miracle that the tomb was empty, Christ is alive and each of us have the opportunity to know Him personally if we will only come to Him. I like how Peter Marshall said it:

“It was when the disciples saw the empty tomb, that they believed. We must see not as the watch-maker who peers through his magnifying glass. It means to see with inner light that leads one to conclusion. It is perception, reflection, understanding – more than sight. Do you see? It is to see, as one who reasons from the effect to the cause. And when John and Peter reasoned from what they saw in the tomb, they arrived at the unshakeable, unassailable, certain conviction that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead.

There is no death to those who have entered into fellowship with Him who emerged from the tomb. Because the Resurrection is true, it is the most significant thing in our world today. Bringing the Resurrected Christ into our lives is the only hope we have for making a better world. ‘Because I live, ye shall live also.’ That is the message of Easter.”