PSE Tip – Creative Kaitlin And Quick Edge Burn

Kaitlin is my good friend Lisa’s little girl. She’s also – like – this really creative chick. She is going to be a famous and successful artist, I have absolutely no doubt. She represents to me a promise of what could have been. I wish I studied something artistic in school, instead, I decided to get a degree in physics. Yes, physics. In any case, the blue hair is cool too.

I am working on a project for a friend and was creatively stuck…so while I was at my hometown last month and visiting Kaitlin’s mom and dad, I asked her to make me a header for my project. I saw her passion and her talent and I just knew…it was going to be WAAAAY better than what I could do. This is what she gave me, awesome. I changed it a little bit, to better represent what the project is about. Kaitlin knows this, I told her. Trust me, the original is great.

Kaitlin, in the “real” world when you are not working for yourself, your vision sometimes has to be amended for a client or boss. I hope you’ll like what I did to your original. I’ll show you at the end of this post.

I’m going to take Kaitlin and change her a little too, give her a little bit of a burn around the edges. I had to dissect some actions to figure out how…and it’s not the simpliest thing to do in PSE but it can really make put a punch in a photo.

First choose the rectangular marquee tool and select a portion of the photograph about an inch from the sides of the edges.

Notice that I hit control J to make a duplicate layer…just to keep the original image in case I mess up.

I then right click on the photo and that little box shows up. I didn’t zoom in again! A real graphic artist would have, I’m just a physics major. Anyway, choose “Select Inverse”. You’ll see that the outside of the image becomes selected.

Right click on the image again and select “Layer Via Copy”. You see another layer pop up with just the selected outer edge.

Under the layer drop down box, choose “Linear Burn”. I zoomed in! The angels are singing.

You’ll see the outer edge of your image turn darker. It’s kind of cool.

Now go to Filter>Distort>Spherize.

It will put the oval over the image. Don’t panic, it just looks funny, it’s ok.

Then go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur.

Move the radius all the way to the right to 250.0 pixels.

There’s Kaitlin with an edge burn on her. It just sets off her blue hair so well.

You know Kaitlin, when your mom and I were in high school, I used to worry about your mom’s taste in music. When we were all listening to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, she was listening to Metallica or some other really hard rock band. But now, I’m the abnormal one and she’s the one saving lives every day as a nurse. I love your parents…I know you will make them proud.

And here’s what I did to your original piece of art. As you can see, it still is representative of your original. It’s a little blurry because I had the resolution wrong when I shrunk it for the web. Like I said, a real graphic artist would have done it correctly. I hope you approve.

Here’s a Kaitlin-girl original. This piece has won her acclaim and she is advancing to the Northeastern Pennsylvania Scholastic Competition. She’s won the right to take it to the national level as well. Way to go Kaitlin-girl! Make your momma proud.