Making Lace in Photoshop/Photoshop Elements 6

I'm going to try to explain how I made the lace & cut-out cover, for those who are interested.

I used Photoshop Elements #6, so I think most anyone could reproduce the effects I managed.

Hmm. Where to start?  Well, let's start with the small (background) lace:

Finished "Background" of lace, without inserts or cut-outs.

STEP 1:  Set pallet to whatever cover background you want, with WHITE as the Top color.

Fill layer with your dark color, then duplicate layer.


On duplicated layer go to "TEXTURE" filter.

Use "Texture": Stained Glass.

Cell size: 8,   Border thickness: 6

Light intensity: 0 

(Border color should be White)

"Stained Glass" filter applied to blue copy of background.

"Select" dark background color, then use "Similar" tool to select ALL of the dark color.

DELETE dark background color (color will show through from the layer beneath).

Switch pallet background color to White, foreground color to Dark or Black

Select the Stained Glass "border".  [ & SAVE in "select" filter.]

Apply ARTISTIC: Film Grain to selected white border (aka: Lace)


Set Film Grain to: 15,  Highlight Area: 4
Intensity: 1

(Note: the "add noise" filter can also be used if you want a coarser-looking Lace)

Stained Glass with "FILM GRAIN" added to White Border.

Apply BLUR Filter: "Motion Blur"

Motion Blur:  Distance 3 to 5 pixels, Angle:  -45

Apply SHARPEN MORE Filter

White border (lace) with Film Grain Blurred & then Sharpened.

(Switch back your pallet with the original dark color underneath the white.)

Filter:

Sketch: Bas Relief  (this gives the lace  3-dimensional look)


Settings:  15,  Smoothness: 2

Apply Sharpen MORE filter again. 

Apply Filter: "Remove Color" to the lace.

BAS RELIEF applied to white border (LACE) before applying LEVELS.

In the LEVELS filter, "Adjust-Lighten" the brightness:

Right Input Levels:  212
Middle Input Level: 1.80
All other levels remain at Zero

"Remove Color" again (in lace) if you wish. Having the "texture" be the color of the background looks very nice, too.

Lace is lightened in "LEVELS" Filter.

AND THERE YOU HAVE YOUR BASIC "LACE" BACKGROUND, just waiting for designs.

You can easily change the background color in the Background layer, and the top white/shadow layer stays the same.

NEXT: Applying different designs!  NOW we get to the really fun part!

Photoshop Ice Sculpture

Making A Clear (Ice or Crystal-like)

Object in Photoshop Elements

 1.     Find a picture you’d like to convert.  Like a Regency Mail Coach.

2.    Select & save selected item in foreground, delete background. Best to have individual selections of different parts, such as “selection of horses”, “Selection of Coach WHEELS”, “selection of coach w/o wheels”, “Selection of People”, so you can control the amount and direction of light source.

3.   Use “Sharpen” filter for details you want to be prominent.  Use “Reduce Noise” filter, and/or eraser to smooth out areas you want to look smooth & icy.

4.   Set your pallet Background Color to Dark Ice-Blue/light blue, or Black/light grey. It doesn’t matter what color is on top of pallets.

5.    Select objects.  In this case I just selected the horses.

 6.   Go to “Sketch” filter and apply “Bas Relief”, with “detail” at max and the “smoothness” feature adjusted to your preference (about 1/3 of the way up the scale for this picture).  Use “left” or “right” light-source to highlight.  Other light sources (upper left, bottom, etc) don’t seem to work too well.

 









7.    When you’ve made the whole drawing into a “Bas Relief”, duplicate it 2 times.   Make the 2 top layers invisible.

8.  On your LAYERS Pallet, select the bottom layer (#1) of the Bas Relief Object. Go to the upper right corner of the LAYERS pallet and check “Luminosity” filter. Leave “opacity” at 100% for now.  Later you can adjust it to 75-85% if needed.

 9.   Leave the “Luminosity” layer visible.

10.  Select the layer directly above the “Luminosity” layer (layer 2). 

11. Go to upper right menu on this LAYERS pallet and click on “Screen” if your background is dark.  Slide the opacity scale to about 50% or lower, depending on how much transparent area you want.  This works best with darker backgrounds. This will lighten the already light areas as well as make translucent areas.  If you want completely transparent area you can simply erase or delete the area. 

11b.  If your background will be light, use the "Darken" mode along with adjusting opacity down.

12.  Place a colorful image in the Background.  I chose an old map of England.

13. Here is the stage-coach with a different background:

14.  To add some rainbow-sparkle, SELECT the 3^rd (so far unused) stage coach layer.

15. Go to the “Effects” menu/pallet.  Chose a highly   colorful spectrum Effect.  I chose “Nebula” for this sample, tho I don’t think the latest Photoshop Elements has it (I’m still using #6).

 16.  Lower the OPACITY to around 15-25%.  This can go under or over the other stagecoach filters, whichever looks best to you.

So the important filters to use in making an object

translucent are:  Sketch/Bas Relief, "Luminosity" and/or 

"Screen" or "Darken" with very low (about 15%) Opacity.

 After than you can do anything.

Photoshop Ice Sculpture Instructions... coming (pretty) soon.

Well, crumb! Goggle has made it difficult to post or edit this blog with my current Browser. Hmpf.

I've been busy moving, running around trying to get utilities set up and so on. Didn't have internet connection till a couple of days ago.

I intended to give instructions on how to make the "Ice Sculptures" but when I finally got around to it... I can't remember the exact process!  Why didn't I note them down? I'd got the process to about, hmmm, five or 6 simple steps.  So, I'm re-discovering the whole thing.  Of course I remember most of the steps, but not the order, and I seem to have forgotten something important, that gives the "ice" that translucent and chilly look.  While fooling around last night I found a way to make a really COOL snow-person.

In a couple of days I'll have figured it all out, and simplified it.  I think.

-Kathy

Regency Christmas Card#2, 2011

Original Fashion Print

For this Regency Christmas Card I perused several Photoshop Tutorials on making a picture of an Ice Sculpture... they were either too complicated (30steps!), or the required filter  (3-D filter, scowl :-(  ) wasn't working on my computer.  So I've been "fooling around" switching between the easy Photoshop Elements and the slightly harder Photoshop CS4.  This Ice Sculpture came out quite realistic, I think, though it should be just a little bit more opaque.

I am working on stylizing the Brighton Pavilion background... adding snowflakes, that sort of thing.  Also, I think I'll write down the various steps I used and hope to repeat the process and results!

Ironically, the least realistic item in the picture is the ice cube the lady is posing on- and it is a photo of a real ice cube.