{"id":56221,"date":"2025-03-11T12:27:27","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T19:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/?p=56221"},"modified":"2025-06-30T14:53:33","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T21:53:33","slug":"tutorial-tuesday-photoshop-elements-246","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/2025\/03\/tutorial-tuesday-photoshop-elements-246\/","title":{"rendered":"Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greatest Hits: Faking it – Those Incredible Full Moon Photos…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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How’s everybody doing on this first Tuesday of Daylight Savings Time? I’m not gonna lie, I’m riding the struggle bus right now. Between inadequate sleep, the gray, chilly weather and all the political nonsense going on, I’m exhausted. Oh, and I finally was forced to switch laptops, which ate up a ton of time and I still haven’t found all the 2500 fonts I have on my old one. Maybe that’s a good thing… remains to be seen. Anyway, we have an astronomical event this week, a lunar eclipse of a full moon – a Blood Moon. Thursday’s eclipse will replicate a sight not seen since 1504! It’s going to be visible across North America from 11:57 pm EDT on Wednesday until 6 am EDT on Thursday, with totality – the best part! – between 2:26 am EDT and 3:31 am EDT. Since I’m in the Pacific time zone, if the sky is clear I won’t even need to stay up late to see the beginning. So what has this to do with a tutorial? Well, let’s have a look!<\/p>\n

Have you ever looked at those totally amazing full moon photos where it looks like the moon is rising out of the ocean, or it\u2019s rising behind a silhouetted city skyline and it\u2019s huge and bright? And have you ever wondered how the photographer was able to capture that image? I know how they do it, and after this tutorial you will too. Because it\u2019s all faked!<\/p>\n

I have a crystal-clear photo I took of the June 2013 Super Moon and that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to use to show you how I can make it look like the moon was over the mountain when it was quite far away in reality. This photo of the mountain that our subdivision snugs up to has been edited a bit to make the sky a bit brighter and the details a bit sharper. If I’m lucky enough to get Blood Moon photos, I’ll give this another shot.<\/p>\n

Have you ever looked at those totally amazing full moon photos where it looks like the moon is rising out of the ocean, or it\u2019s rising behind a silhouetted city skyline and it\u2019s huge and bright? And have you ever wondered how the photographer was able to capture that image? I know how they do it, and after this tutorial you will too. Because it\u2019s all faked!<\/div>\n
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I wasn\u2019t planning to take photos of last weekend\u2019s full moon so I didn\u2019t prepare for it. But then I took the dog out for a potty break and saw it hanging so brightly in the sky with Mars at its shoulder. So I grabbed my pretty decent DSLR, my telephoto lens and my very sturdy tripod and set up on the driveway. Rushing never makes for good results though and every one of the 70 photos I took was out-of-focus. The shots I took of the mountain were better, but pretty grainy. Thankfully I have a crystal-clear photo I took of the June 2013 Super Moon and that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to use to show you how I can make it look like the moon was over the mountain when it was quite far away in reality. This photo of the mountain that our subdivision snugs up to has been edited a bit to make the sky a bit brighter and the details a bit sharper.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s my 2013 moon shot. I used a long shutter, a tiny aperture and manual focus to get it this bright and clear.<\/p>\n

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To hang the moon over the mountain, I\u2019m going to use a\u00a0Guided Edit<\/strong>\u00a0that first appeared in\u00a0Elements 13<\/strong>.\u00a0Guided>Photomerge>Photomerge Compose.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Once you\u2019ve activated the\u00a0Edit<\/strong>, this screen opens. The instructions are fairly clear, even for the uninitiated. It says to drag the photo I want to extract FROM onto the space, so the Moon is going here.<\/p>\n

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Okay, there it is. All I want from the photo is the Moon, which has a nice, clear, sharp edge, so selecting it from my photo will be easy. I can use the\u00a0Quick Selection tool<\/strong>\u00a0for this step. If my desired extraction had more detail, I could choose one of the other options. AND\u2026 there are further adjustments that can be made in later steps.<\/p>\n

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Once I clicked on the\u00a0Quick<\/strong>\u00a0button, this tool tip opened to Guide me through the next part. It says, \u201cCreate new selection by dragging over the area you need to include.<\/strong><\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s hard to see the marching ants in the screenshot but they are there. There\u2019s even a little jaggy part that I\u2019m going to adjust by switching from\u00a0Add<\/strong>\u00a0to\u00a0Subtract<\/strong>\u00a0and scrape it off.<\/p>\n

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Done! As I mentioned, there are more refinements you can make to extract your desired image using the\u00a0Advanced Edge Refinement<\/strong>\u00a0menu. It\u2019s found just below the red circle.<\/p>\n

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But since I just basically have a circle, I can move on to the next step by clicking the\u00a0Next arrow<\/strong>\u00a0at the bottom of the screen.\u00a0Elements<\/strong>\u00a0always drops things right in the middle of the canvas, so it\u2019s great that I can move my moon off the mountain and into the sky.<\/p>\n

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I decided to make it a bit bigger too, for dramatic effect. But I didn\u2019t go too much bigger because I don\u2019t want it to look completely phony.<\/p>\n

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Then I had second thoughts and decided to anchor it a bit by tucking it behind the mountain a smidge\u2026 after seeing that I had some\u00a0Hide<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Reveal<\/strong>\u00a0options.<\/p>\n

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I started that process by\u00a0Hiding<\/strong>\u00a0the lower part of the Moon just roughly. I used a hard round brush at\u00a0100% Opacity<\/strong>\u00a0to brush over the area that will end up being hidden by the mountain and trees. It takes several passes to completely hide the parts that I want hidden. Once I had an idea where the trees actually are, I could go back and\u00a0Reveal<\/strong>\u00a0the Moon where the trees don\u2019t obstruct the sky. You can see in the screenshot that some of the moon looks more blue than gray \u2013 that\u2019s where the sky hasn\u2019t been completely\u00a0Hidden<\/strong>. I also adjusted the size of my brush tip as needed to make the trees appear \u201cnormal\u201d.<\/p>\n

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I switched back and forth between\u00a0Hide<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Reveal<\/strong>, adjusting the size of my brush tip until I had some natural-looking trees on my mountain. then I clicked on the\u00a0Next<\/strong>\u00a0arrow.<\/p>\n

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If your photos were taken at different times and in different lighting conditions, your composite might look pretty weird right now. Mine\u2019s okay because night is night\u2026 But if you find your results aren\u2019t making you happy, there\u2019s still more in this\u00a0Edit<\/strong>\u00a0to help you get it right. The instructions say, \u201cClick \u2018Auto Match Color Tone\u2019 to blend your extracted object with the background. You can fine tune the results with the sliders.<\/strong><\/em>\u201d I highly recommend experimenting with this, because as you know, nothing is final in Elements until you say it is. If you click on the button and it does its thing but you hate the outcome, you can\u00a0Undo<\/strong>\u00a0it!!\u00a0CTRL\/CMD>Z<\/strong>\u00a0should be an automatic movement. It sure is for me!<\/p>\n

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I didn\u2019t like the results of the automatic process, so I made adjustments with the sliders. The image didn\u2019t need a lot of adjusting to make it look more real. Then I clicked\u00a0Next<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s the end of the\u00a0Guided Edit<\/strong>. Now I can choose to\u00a0Save<\/strong>,\u00a0Continue Editing<\/strong>\u00a0or\u00a0Share<\/strong>\u00a0my finished image. I want to clean up some of the noise by running the\u00a0Haze Removal<\/strong>\u00a0tool, so I\u2019m going to click on\u00a0In Expert<\/strong>\u00a0and go there.<\/p>\n

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If you\u2019re not familiar with the\u00a0Haze Removal tool<\/strong>, I think you should give it a try! It sharpens your images and removes a lot of the graininess. You can get to it by\u00a0Enhance>Haze Removal<\/strong>, or\u00a0CTRL\/CMD>ALT>Z<\/strong>\u00a0works too.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s still an interactive process. This screen opens up and you can make adjustments to the amount of\u00a0Haze Reduction<\/strong>\u00a0it does, as well as the\u00a0Sensitivity<\/strong>\u00a0of the action. And if you\u2019re not convinced it\u2019s actually making a difference, you can flip between the\u00a0Before<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0After<\/strong>\u00a0images and see how it\u2019s changed.<\/p>\n

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There! I think it looks pretty good, all things considered.<\/p>\n

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What do you think? Are you going to try this one? I think it would be good for adding a person who should have been in the photo but somehow wasn\u2019t or to add someone who you only wished was there. Ooh, or maybe go right into fantasy and add a unicorn or a fairy to a photo of a baby. The sky\u2019s the limit!<\/p>\n

Next week, I’ll bring up a Guided Tour<\/strong> of all the changes here at GingerScraps<\/strong><\/span>, to help you navigate the new Forum<\/strong><\/span> and find the Gallery<\/strong><\/span>. See you then!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greatest Hits: Faking it – Those Incredible Full Moon Photos… How’s everybody doing on this first Tuesday of Daylight Savings Time? I’m not gonna lie, I’m riding the struggle bus right now. Between inadequate sleep, the gray, chilly weather and all the political nonsense going on, I’m exhausted. Oh, and I finally was forced to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[229,102,284,92,62],"tags":[373],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 18:01:38","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\/56221"}],"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=56221"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57682,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56221\/revisions\/57682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}