{"id":60218,"date":"2026-04-14T12:47:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T19:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/?p=60218"},"modified":"2026-04-14T12:47:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T19:47:03","slug":"tutorial-tuesday-photoshop-elements-257","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/2026\/04\/tutorial-tuesday-photoshop-elements-257\/","title":{"rendered":"Tutorial Tuesday (Photoshop Elements)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Digital Zen Doodling (Part 2 of ???)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Okay… has your brain had time to process Part 1? I hope so, because Part 2 is on its way! Now, where did we leave off? Oh, right… we were getting ready to make those white dotted rings around our big coloured dots. Onward!<\/p>\n

I needed quite a few runs at this until I figured out the easiest, smartest way to accomplish it. Free-handing and eyeballing weren’t cutting it. Once I settled in with the method below, it really got a lot better. I created a guideline<\/span> – a circular placeholder on which to apply my white dots. I started with the topmost pink dot, Selecting<\/strong> the edge by CTRL.CMD>clicking<\/strong> on it in the Layers Panel<\/strong>. The longer route would be to click Select>Subject<\/strong> with that layer active. You should see a line of “marching ants” around the outside of the dot. The screenshot isn’t good for that. \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

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Now, that little path isn’t going to be useful in its current size, so next I went to Select>Modify>Expand<\/strong> then when the pop-up appeared, I typed in 15 px<\/strong> into the Expand by:<\/strong> box. Sorry, I don’t have a screenshot of that menu, I was on a tear and completely forgot! (Multiple times!)<\/p>\n

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I want the guideline to disappear and reappear at will, so it will have its own layer<\/span>. Pop one of those in there above the pink dot by clicking<\/strong> on that sheet-of-paper icon<\/strong> at the upper left<\/strong> of your Layers Panel<\/strong>. Then click Edit>Stroke (Outline) Selection<\/strong>. Set the Stroke Width<\/strong> to 2 px, Color white<\/strong> and the Location<\/strong> to Outside<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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With the Foreground Color<\/strong> still set to white (Hex Code ffffff<\/strong>), I went back to my Brush Tool<\/strong> and chose a small (5 px<\/strong>) hard, round Basic Brush<\/strong>. Each click of the mouse on the guideline gave me a dot; I pictured a clock face to space them, starting at 12, dropping to 6, back up to 3, over to 9. Then I split the spaces between those dots as evenly as I could until I got this lovely string of pearls around my pink dot. I turned Visibility<\/strong> for the guideline off so I could see if I needed to make any fixes. Remember CTRL.CMD>Z<\/strong> will Undo<\/strong> something you’re not happy with.<\/p>\n

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Now, this is where digital Zen Doodling really makes sense. I didn’t have to make a pearl necklace for each of the pink dots, like I would have to with paint. I could just make Copies<\/strong>!!\u00a0 Six pink dots, six Copies<\/strong>. CTRL\/CMD>J<\/strong> is that keyboard shortcut. Then I moved each one into position around its respective pink dot. Looks pretty cool already! To prevent any accidental mess-ups, I Activated<\/strong> each pink dot and each white dot ring layer, then right-click>Merge Layers<\/strong> (CTRL\/CMD>E<\/strong>). That gave me a single white-encircled-pink-dot layer.<\/p>\n

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I didn’t want to be too uniform with the white accents so for the blue dots, I decided on more of a daisy look. I turned Visibility<\/strong> for the guideline back on, moved it over to a blue dot and Enlarged<\/strong> it as shown. Again, the accents will go on their own layer<\/span>. To achieve a more elliptical shape with my Brush<\/strong>, I clicked the Brush Settings<\/strong> bar and typed in 70%<\/strong> into the Roundness<\/strong> box. You could instead push on one of the “handles” in the diagram box to achieve the same thing. Leave the Angle<\/strong> at 0\u00b0<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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This time, I opted to W<\/strong><\/span>ork S<\/strong><\/span>mart, N<\/strong><\/span>ot H<\/strong><\/span>ard. I clicked a “ray” at 9 o’clock and another at 3 o’clock. (Somehow they ended up on separate layers. Yours shouldn’t. But if they do… Merge<\/strong> the two layers.) With both rays on the same layer, I can make a bunch of Copies<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

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I made 4 Copies<\/strong>, CTRL\/CMD>J x 4<\/strong>, which gave me 4 separate layers. Again I used an imaginary clock face to arrange my Copies<\/strong>. I Rotated<\/strong> each one so that they were fairly evenly distributed around the dial. Then I Merged<\/strong> (CTRL\/CMD>E<\/strong>) those 4 layers. That gave me a total of 8 rays on a single layer. Another 3 Copies<\/strong> of THAT layer, rotated into place and I had a complete ring around the blue dot. Then I Merged<\/strong> all those layers too. The advantages to doing it this way are that I didn’t have to change the Angle<\/strong> on every<\/span>. single<\/span>. ray<\/span>. So, after you’ve read all the way through, if you choose to use this method for your pearl necklaces, I’ll cheer you on!<\/p>\n

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Back to good ol’ CTRL\/CMD>J<\/strong> to make daisies for each of the blue dots. Slide ’em into position, Activate all the Layers<\/strong> and Merge<\/strong>. Easy peasy.<\/p>\n

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Are you tired of Merging<\/strong>? I’m not going to lie and say this is the last time, because it clearly isn’t! But let’s Merge<\/strong> the black layer with the Refined Edge<\/strong>, and all the pink and blue dot layers together. That affixes everything so nothing can be shifted unintentionally. Now we have a pretty “petal” that can be replicated as many times as necessary.<\/p>\n

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Did you catch that? I made 7 more Copies<\/strong> of the petal and arranged them as shown. I think it’s shaping up really nicely!<\/p>\n

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We’ll stop here. The next set of screenshots will involve the diamond-shaped openings snugged up to the notches in our petal shapes. We’ll be making lines inside them, and doing a bunch more Copy-Pasting<\/strong>. Next week is Challenge Spotlight<\/strong><\/span> Tuesday, so the next part of this odyssey will have to wait a week. \ud83d\ude09 I personally have done ZERO Challenges<\/strong><\/span> so far this month… too many other things going on. But maybe, if I squeeze out an hour or so, I can at least update my Signature<\/strong><\/span>. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

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Digital Zen Doodling (Part 2 of ???) Okay… has your brain had time to process Part 1? I hope so, because Part 2 is on its way! Now, where did we leave off? Oh, right… we were getting ready to make those white dotted rings around our big coloured dots. Onward! I needed quite a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[229,102,284,92,62],"tags":[373],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-21 17:00:54","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\/60218"}],"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=60218"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60239,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60218\/revisions\/60239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gingerscraps.net\/gsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}