Photoshop Instructions...can I in PSE5?

[sdewenter]

I am looking at page 94 of the PHOTOSHOP EFFECTS COOKBOOK, 2005. It has 2 girls on the cover and they are in many "pieces"/images. The recipe is for creating snow. Can I do this in Elements 5?

I have a area of green grass and bushes I need to make look like they are covered in snow.

1. "we need to generate a layer of snow to cover the ground and trees in this summertime image. Chose the eyedropper tool from the toolbar and click in the field of green to sample a mid-green color. We now need to make a selection based on the distribution of this color throughout the image. Go to Select>Color Range. Use the fuzziness slider setting of 132 and choose Sampled Color from the select box. Click OK.

2. Add a new layer naming it SNOW. We need to fill this active selection with white to begin the snow effect, so go to Edit>Fill and choose White for Contents. Deselect. In the layers palette, change the blending mode of the SNOW layer to Hard Light."

These are the 1st 2 steps of the recipe, but the rest I think I can do in PSE5. I know I should just go get Grafi's tools, but sometimes I like to know how to do things vs. running the action.

Thanks in advance!
Susan D

[TonyW]

PSE5 Doesn't have Color Range which makes step 1 tricky and magic wand doesn't work quite the same way. What you can do though is use Replace Color and select the mid green and adjust the fuzziness while looking at the mask to get the coverage you want. Replace Color works very much like Select Color Range but doesn't let you make the selection but if you just change the selected colour to white (by moving the lightness all the way up) you'll get a snow effect. I tried it both ways (in CS2 and PSE5) and there really isn't a lot of difference in the result and doing it that way is one step not two. Give it a try.

Tony

[sdewenter]

I will try it Tony. Thank you so much for your reply!
Cheers,
Susan D