{"id":40138,"date":"2021-05-25T17:00:39","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T00:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/?p=40138"},"modified":"2021-06-17T17:39:48","modified_gmt":"2021-06-18T00:39:48","slug":"tutorial-tuesday-photoshop-elements-150","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/2021\/05\/tutorial-tuesday-photoshop-elements-150\/","title":{"rendered":"Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Digital Stamps in Living Colour<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Do any of you belong to Font Bundles<\/strong> or Design Bundles<\/strong>? I love their monthly Dollar Days<\/strong> sales, although I already have more than 1600 fonts and I don’t have a Cricut<\/strong>… I’m also a sucker for digital stamps in addition to my enormous collection of rubber and acrylic stamps. But so far I haven’t found the right combo of paper, stamping ink and coloured markers so my stamped images always end up smudged and smeared. I thought, “Is there a way I could colour a digital stamp or a PNG image from Design Bundles<\/strong> using Photoshop Elements<\/strong>?” I had a podcast I wanted to listen to and some free time so I played with an image from Tiddly Inks<\/strong>, drawn by Cristy Croll<\/strong>, and figured out a method that worked really well. It can be adapted for doddles and brushes too. Read on!<\/p>\n

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First off, the image used for this technique must be a PNG<\/strong> on a 100% transparent<\/strong><\/em> background. You can see in the screenshot above that only the outline of the space alien is visible. While it IS possible to use a digital stamp with the outline filled with white, it’s a lot more work, as you’ll see as I work through the colouring process. I made a Copy<\/strong> (CTRL\/CMD>J<\/strong>) of the untouched stamp and turned off visibility (for now). It will become the “clean” outline later.<\/p>\n

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This step won’t work as readily with a white-filled outline. It would involve Magic Wand<\/strong> selection and lots more steps. Doable, but time-consuming. As the screenshot below says, as long as the areas I’m planning to fill are completely closed by the outline, I can use the Paint Bucket tool<\/strong> to fill the area. If the outline has even a microscopic gap in it, when the Paint Bucket<\/strong> is dumped, the paint will escape and fill the entire canvas. (UNDO!!) If that happens, I’ll switch to a small, hard black Brush<\/strong> and close the gaps. I’m going to do all the solid Paint Bucket<\/strong> filling on the bottom outline layer. My little green man has some exposed skin around his ankles.<\/p>\n

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I found that the Paint Bucket<\/strong> sometimes didn’t fill right to the outline, leaving a faint blank rim around everything. So I switched to a smallish hard round Brush<\/strong> with my green colour in the foreground and painted away the blank spots. I didn’t worry about colouring outside the lines, because I have that lovely, clean outline layer set aside.<\/p>\n

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As long as my painting didn’t actually go outside the outline, I didn’t worry about it. Where I couldn’t quite get into tiny spaces cleanly, I switched to the Eraser tool<\/strong> and tidied up. I toggled back and forth between Brush<\/strong> and Eraser<\/strong> quite a bit.<\/p>\n

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I decided I could work with the top layer visible. See how the outline is much cleaner? I used a black Brush<\/strong> on the top layer to make the eyes a little less jaggy.<\/p>\n

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Once I had all the green areas filled and neat, it was time to add some dimension. Working with alcohol inks on paper, this step can be a real challenge for those just learning how to blend and add depth. Digitally, if I make a mistake, I just have to Undo<\/strong> until I’m back at the point where I messed it up. Up to this point in the process, I’d say not more than 10 minutes had passed. I clicked on my foreground colour to open the Color Picker tool<\/strong> and chose a darker value of the original green to begin shading.<\/p>\n

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For the technique to work well, all the shading and highlighting will have to be done on its own layer<\/strong>. You’ll see why as we move along.<\/p>\n

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Before I did anything else, I had to decide where my light source was, the same as when creating custom drop shadows. I chose the upper right corner, so shadows will fall to the lower left. Then I Brushed<\/strong> on my shading, based on what my eye saw as contour.<\/p>\n

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I felt that there needed to be a bit more depth to the shaded areas, so I chose another, darker value of my green and Brushed<\/strong> a narrower area right at the edges of the contours.<\/p>\n

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I realized that if I added a new blank layer BEFORE<\/em> I opened the Color Picker<\/strong>, I wouldn’t forget to put each new colour on its own layer. The beauty of having each colour on its own layer is that I can move the layers up or down the stack to achieve the best look. You can see the added depth from the new darker colour quite well.<\/p>\n

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Now for some highlights! I added a blank layer then selected a light value from the Color Picker<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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This colour will go on the areas of the image that are rounded or raised, and therefore reflecting more light.<\/p>\n

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When I was happy with the skin areas, I moved back to the bottom image layer to Fill<\/strong> his uniform.<\/p>\n

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Following the same steps as for the skin, I shaded and highlighted the uniform. Don’t worry about how stark these steps look. They won’t be when I’m done!<\/p>\n

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I continued Filling<\/strong> and contouring the image, moving between layers as needed. I went with a magenta planet, and then used deeper values to add a drop shadow to my alien.<\/p>\n

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Now for the really fun part! To blend all these edges, I’m going to use a Gaussian Blur Filter<\/strong>. Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur<\/strong>. The Preview<\/strong> will show what’s happening to the edges, and I can watch it on my actual image as I go along. If the edges of the layer I’m Blurring<\/strong> aren’t visible in the Preview<\/strong> pane, all I need to do is click my cursor on the actual image somewhere that overlaps the edge and it’ll appear. Using the slider, I adjusted the Radius<\/strong> of my blur so that the edges began to blend nicely. 12.5 pixels<\/strong> looks good.<\/p>\n

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The highlighted area of the planet would be softer in real life, so for that layer, I pushed the slider hard to the right. 23.5 pixels<\/strong> looks right to me.<\/p>\n

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Those lumpy spots needed some deeper shading, and Blurring<\/strong> this layer too much will make the effect pretty much vanish. So the Radius<\/strong> here is only 4.3 pixels<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Blurring<\/strong> isn’t the only way to make this technique look good. Don’t forget the power of Blend Modes<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

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I tried several Modes<\/strong> before settling on Multiply<\/strong>. I haven’t Blurred<\/strong> these layers yet, and it looks pretty ghastly, but not for long.<\/p>\n

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I did the same with the darker green shading layers. These steps are completely personal preference. If it isn’t making your image look better, don’t do it!<\/p>\n

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I worked my way up the green layers and Blurred<\/strong> them.<\/p>\n

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The skin dimensional areas only needed a Radius<\/strong> of 4.5 pixels<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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I moved from segment to segment, Blurring<\/strong> as I went.<\/p>\n

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When I got to the last layer of the planet and the alien, I was pretty satisfied with how it looked. Now to add a starry sky to the background!<\/p>\n

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To make less work for myself, I added a Blank Layer<\/strong> BEHIND<\/em> the bottom image layer so I could Fill<\/strong> it with colour and let the image do the hard work.<\/p>\n

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I found a starry brush in my stash. It’s from Key Lime Digi Designs<\/strong><\/a><\/span> (it was a Challenge<\/strong> brush) and it’s the perfect touch! The stars are, of course, on their own layer. Then I applied a glittery Style<\/strong> from the GingerBread Ladies<\/strong><\/a><\/span>‘ Dream Big<\/strong><\/span> Monthly Mix<\/strong> collab to the stars to make them even more twinkly.<\/p>\n

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When I was finished, I Saved<\/strong> my creation as a PSD<\/strong>, just in case I look at it later and want to tweak it further. I plan to use it for my grandson’s birthday card, so it may need a little touch-up. I know this isn’t going to be widely popular, but I enjoyed the process and will be doing it again. It took me about the same amount of time it would have taken with alcohol inks or coloured pencils – not taking into account the versions I ruin before I get one  like – so there’s that…<\/p>\n

PDF Link: https:\/\/bit.ly\/3q7sQQU<\/a><\/p>\n

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Digital Stamps in Living Colour Do any of you belong to Font Bundles or Design Bundles? I love their monthly Dollar Days sales, although I already have more than 1600 fonts and I don’t have a Cricut… I’m also a sucker for digital stamps in addition to my enormous collection of rubber and acrylic stamps. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[229,284,92,62],"tags":[373],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-21 09:08:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"private","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40138"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40138"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40490,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40138\/revisions\/40490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}