PET Creative Homework Week #41

[lisabee]

Hi everyone,

It’s that time again and here’s this week's creative homework assignment.

A big thanks to you all for participating last week. We had some marvelous creations.


As always this assignment is open to EVERYONE who is reading the forum.
Please join in and share your images.
If you see an image you like and would like to comment or have a question, here is the link to the accompanying comment thread
http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com...159#post326159

Have fun!

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This week’s homework is in 2 parts –

Part 1 is a handy little technique for making a moveable lens flare.

You have your image ready (cropped, levels done, sharpened etc) to add the light.
Then…….

1. Make a new layer, name it lens flare, and with that layer active, with the rectangular marquee tool, make a square selection (approx 4cm), this can be anywhere in the picture.

2. Fill this square with black - Edit > fill selection (all working on your new layer)

3. Put the lens flare in the centre of the square - Filter > render > lens flare
(I used about 120%)

4. Change the blend mode of the layer to SCREEN – and the black disappears leaving the lens flare visible.

5. Ctrl D to get rid of your selection marching ants.

6. Use the move tool on your lens flare layer to move the light source anywhere you chose.

To make the light softer, duplicate your layer and use a Gaussian blur of about 20, then merge this layer with your lens flare layer to move it about.

There you have it, a light you can move around to find the best position for it in your image.

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Part 2 – this is an optional extra which continues from Part 1 – we’re going to make a brush from the lens flare.

1. duplicate the lens flare layer into a new file
you can do this by opening a new file and copying the lens flare layer into it, or on your layers palette menu go to more> duplicate layer, give it a name and choose NEW under destination

2. Set the layer blend mode to normal.

3. Select the light part of the lens flare (not the whole square),
I found I needed to zoom in to 100% and used the magic wand until I was happy with the selection of light bits.

4. Edit > define brush from selection.
The brush will appear at the end of the list in the brush file you have open.

To use the brush


5. back on your image, open a new layer. Select the brush, (mine saved at about 80px, but I changed the size to about 20px to use it), go across the tool bar to MORE OPTIONS, set HUE JITTER at 100% and SCATTER at 100%.

It works best as a click brush (rather than brush strokes) to get the random effect. And if you keep your brush work on a new level, then you can easily modify it or erase anything you don’t like.

Experiment and enjoy and please share your images.
Looking forward to seeing your ideas,

Lisa

[lisabee]

Ok, here's one I made earlier

I'm still in the 'halloween mode'



Lisa

[TonyW]

Thanks Lisa. I gave it a try with picture I had (Castlerigg stone circle in the Lake District) - just did Step 1 as I wasn't too happy with the result from Step 2. Here's the after:



And here's what the before looked like. I used levels adjustment layers and a photo filter layer to add some orange to the lens flare and I think I changed the blend mode to color dodge instead of screen.



Tony

[smiles]

In the original the moon was just a blur. I placed the lens flair under the moon (brush), which gave it an outer glow. It's works great! Thanks Lisa again for your time!

[Martha]

Here's mine. I used the Sumi-e filter on the photo and changed the brightness to -57. The inner border is from Tim's Vintage Frame tutorial, Steps 1-3. I added an outer glow (I forgot to write this down and I forgot which one) and dropped the opacity to 70%. The frame has a Wow Chrome layer style.
Martha

[Bamagirl]

This is my homework. I cut on all of the lights and even added reflections. Thanks for the fun assignment.

[Aussie Nan]

I was hoping this would look like a soft moon reflection sort of thing. I think I ended up with - overhead lamp reflecting on the water???? I had fun, thanks Lisa.

Toni

[Aussie Nan]

Had to have another go, just having too much fun. I would love some critique on this image.....I really want to improve my 'eye'. You see, I am still trying for the moon reflecting on the water. It's maybe an impossible excercise seeing these photos were taken at 11am.

Toni

[billz]

Thanks Lisa -

This is a fine way to get the lens flare exactly where and how you want it!



Bill

[qcocoq]

I tried a couple things. Haven't had any luck with the brush yet. I wanted to make a shooting star in the moon photo. I'll keep trying. I had fun with the assignment though.