how to put a sparkle on something

[Crissyc]

I want to put a sparkle on a pair of earrings, any suggestions?

[Byron Gale]

Crissy,

Are you envisioning something like the star on the water drop in THIS (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1pkU6OAOOazufHF2uPZ8LZ4JlpRf) image?

Byron

[Angies]

Crissy,

That is a really cute star! Do you know haow to do that?

[CarolLHB]

There's a great set of flare brushes here:

http://share.studio.adobe.com/axQuickSearchSubmit.asp?txt=flare&allprods=0&submit1.x=22&submit1.y=5

They are flare brushes by Karl-very nice.

Hope this helps:)

[Byron Gale]

...They are flare brushes by Karl......that is exactly what was used in the example I posted!! :)

[bwolford]

You have 2 or 3 of these kinds of brushes in PSE already. Look in Assorted Brushes. The brushes on the studio exchange referenced above are superior.

Brice

[ATR]

Photoshop TV, Episode 18, February 20, 2006

Scott Kelby did a tutorial on Creating Glints.
He used one of the Assorted Brushes 48 px and increased/decreased the size of the brush accordingly as he worked through adding the glints to his image.

ATR

[Crissyc]

Photoshop TV? Whats that???

[bwolford]

http://www.photoshoptv.com/

Check it out.

Brice

[Crissyc]

I did check it out, thank you. Is it too hard for an element person? A beginning elements person.

[bwolford]

Photoshop TV has a lot of full Photoshop techniques, not just PSE.

They make what they do easy to learn, but some tools just don't exist in PSE. Many do. There are lot's of podcasts (you can listen to them with Itunes, but don't have to have an IPOD. Just load Itunes, select podcast, and search on Photoshop.

Brice

[ATR]

Crissye

If you want to view the Podcast Photoshop TV, just visit the web site http://www.photoshoptv.com. As has been mentioned, this program is geared to the Photoshop CS2 users, but some of the tutorials can be used in Elements with or without workarounds. This one with the “Glints” is one of those that is easy to use in Elements.

Scott Kelby’s tip is essentially as follows:
Set the Foreground color to whatever color you want for your Glints (maybe yellow). In Options Bar, make sure to start the Mode is Normal and Opacity is 100%.
Select the Paint Brush Tool in the Toolbox.
Go up to the Options Bar, open the Brush Picker
Where it says Brushes, click top right that line to open the drop down list, select Assorted Brushes
Scroll down until you see the Assorted Brush 48, select it, and close the drop down list

When you move your mouse you will see an X shape curse (represents the brush). Place that where you want the Glint and click once. You can change the Brush size to make a smaller or larger Glint. Maybe start out with 60.

That is it, except for you deciding if you want to work on a duplicate layer to protect the original and/or put the Glints on their own layer so that you can just discard the Glint layer if you do not like the way it looks. If you are not sure of how to do the latter, I can forward you how to’s in this Thread or private message.

Everything seems hard until you actually do it, and then you say why all the fuss. I have been there.

ATR

[Crissyc]

Thanks ATR,
I cant wait to get home and try it.
Crissy

[graficalicus]

I want to put a sparkle on a pair of earrings, any suggestions?

I've heard vinegar works well. Or there's a lot of jewelry cleaners out there... :cool:

(could't resist....)


For the podcasts, download iTunes ( www.iTunes.com ) - it's a free download, and works with Windows or Mac, and you don't need an iPod to use it (but the iPods ARE pretty cool..._). you can watch the videos right on your desktop.

once there, search for "Photoshop" - you'll find it easily as well as several other podcasts (including GraffiTV! - my own PS/PSE podcast!) - - the cool thing about iTunes is that each time you start it, it'll automatically go and see if there's a new episode and download it if you tell it to.

[Litespeed]

There's a great set of flare brushes here:

http://share.studio.adobe.com/axQuickSearchSubmit.asp?txt=flare&allprods=0&submit1.x=22&submit1.y=5

They are flare brushes by Karl-very nice.

Hope this helps:)

I'm using Photoshop Elements 4, but when I try to load the flare brushes into "Brushes" it doesn't do anything. The instructions have me a bit confused. Number 4 says "Click Load…", but I can't find that. The file I downloaded from the website justs has the name "Flare Brushes 2 by Karl S".

Also I can't download "Sharp" and can't find just a "Styles" in the pallette. "Silver" won't load apparently because I don't have a .ATN file extension.

Any suggestions?

[Diana]

Hi,

The Photoshop instructions are different for Elements. After downloading the brush set, you should have a file with the extension of .ABR. Just move or copy that file to the following location (although yours will be Elements 4.0). Then restart Elements and you should see the brushes in the pulldown menu in the Brush options bar.

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/8932/brusheslocation4ly.th.jpg (http://img509.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brusheslocation4ly.jpg)

I don't understand what you mean by "Sharp" or "Silver"...are those other add-ons you've downloaded from Adobe? or the name of another brush? The Palette has a Styles and Effects section and selections for Layer Styles and Effects both under that.

Here's the link to a good article on add-ons and where to put them:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pselements/qt/freegoodies.htm

Diana

[Litespeed]

Sharp and Silver were downloads. The instructions under the download for "Sharp" and "Silver" say Choose Load Styles to add a library to the current list. When I tried to download "silver". The section part of the instructions say Choose "Load Actions" from the Actions palette menu, but I can't find an Actions palette. I will keep working on it from your instructions and see if that helps at all. Otherwise "I will be back"

[Diana]

Elements won't run actions written for Photoshop in most cases. Some actions are written for Elements, but I personally haven't seen any at Adobe Studio Exchange.

But the layer styles at Adobe Studio Exchange are useable in Elements...but you have to ignore the Photoshop installation instructions because they are installed differently in Elements. Print out and read the article in this link I previously gave you...it explains all about where to put your downloaded files for Elements.
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pse...reegoodies.htm

I went to Adobe Studio Exchange and looked at "Silver" and "Sharp".

Silver is an action...you might as well delete it...some experienced people can finagle them to make them work, but it's an advanced project, not a newbie undertaking.

Sharp is a Layer Style and will work with Elements. Just copy the .asl file (assuming you use Windows) to:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 4.0\Presets\Styles

When you are looking at add-ons to download, read in the description what kind of add-on it is. If it says "action," don't bother to download it.

After downloading the file, look at the extension...you can tell what kind of add-on and where it goes by the extension. The following types of add-ons, even if made for Photoshop, will usually run in Elements:

Brushes - they have a .abr extension
Layer Styles - .asl extension
Shapes - .csh
Patterns - .pat
Gradients - .grd
Color swatches - .aco

The article I gave the link to tells you which folder in your Elements program folders to place the file, depending on what kind it is. There isn't really any "installation" process....just moving or copying the file to the proper folder.....then restarting Elements.

One last question....Do you know how to copy your downloaded file and are you familiar with how to navigate your folder hierarchy to find the Elements folders? If not...

Find your downloaded Sharp.asl
Right click on it and select Copy
From your Desktop, open My Computer
Click on Local Disk (C:)
then click on Program Files
then Adobe
then Photoshop Elements 4.0
then Presets
then click to open the Styles folder
Right click inside the Styles folder and select Paste
Now restart Elements

In the Layers & Effects Palette at the right of the Editor's workspace, click on the dropdown and select Layer Styles
Farther right there is another dropdown arrow, if you click on that, quite a long list of options should appear.
Scroll down until you see the "Sharp" layer style (they are in alphabetical order).

Hope this helps.:)

Diana

[graficalicus]

Elements won't run actions written for Photoshop in most cases. Some actions are written for Elements, but I personally haven't seen any at Adobe Studio Exchange.

actually..... tons of actions work with elements. There's really just *some* that won't because they call for tools that aren't available in elements or involve a "Stop" while the user fiddles with some setting. The only way to know for sure is to install an action and see if it works or not. It's a pretty painless ordeal though -

more info on actions in elements is here (http://www.graficalicus.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=164)- there's even several actions utilities (like automatically cleaning the cache - an important step!) and self-installers on my site, too - and most of them are free.

experiment with some, and cheers!

[Litespeed]

Thanks for all the help. If you hadn't told me how to do it I never would have gotten it done. It is a lot easier just to copy and paste. You guys are great and I'm sure I will have a ton of other questions.:D

[bwolford]

Diana, nice write-up! Graffy beat me too it, if an action is created with PSE in mind, it will work very well in PSE... If it uses a PS only tool or function, that's when the trouble starts.

As Graffy says, trying is knowing...

Brice

[Diana]

Thanks, Brice.

Graffi, I was giving that advice to a newbie and....remembering when I was a newbie...tackling trying to get an Action written for Photoshop to work in Elements was not a high priority (especially when it may not work)...there was so many other interesting add-ons and techniques to learn before I ever wanted to even have a go at a trial and error process such as that.

Since there is no way to know if a Photoshop action will work in Elements, even after creating the thumbnail and the other steps, it's really not worth it to me even now to waste time on that. There are so many other things I'd rather be doing in Elements.

I do download and use some actions that are written specifically for Elements and am grateful to those Photoshop users who take the time to write them for us.:D

Diana