Photoshop Elements Tutorial – Running Actions Part 4

This is part 4 of my tutorial on using the CoffeeShop PowderRoom 2 free action.  It covers smoothing and softening skin, and creating a vignette. 

Soft Skin

1. Click on the black Layer Mask Thumbnail box of the Soft Skin layer to activate both the layer and its Layer Mask.  Double check that the black box has a white outline around it.  The other box with the funny looking version of your image should not have the white outline around it.  See the Layer Mask Ready and Not Ready images in part 3 of this tutorial if you need a visual cue.
2. Follow steps 3-8 from Part 2  to adjust the brush settings.  I used a 7 pixel Soft Round brush at 15% opacity, with the Normal Blending Mode.
3. Make sure that the Foreground Color is white.
4. Brush over areas where you would like the skin to look softer and smoother.  It might take more than one pass with the brush to achieve the desired effect.  You can also use this, possibly with higher opacity brush, to blur the background slightly.
5. Adjust the layer’s opacity as needed.

Vignette

1. Click on the Vignette layer in your Layers Palette to activate.
2. Follow steps 3-8 from part 2 to adjust your brush settings.  I usually use a larger brush for vignetting.  The brush opacity I used for this picture was 15%, but that is lower than I would normally use in pictures that lent themselves to vignetting well.  My brush was a Soft Round 30 pixel.
3. Brush around the edges and corners of your image to bring focus to the subject by darkening the periphery.
4. If there are areas you need to lighten, such as shadows, you can change the foreground color to white (type X), reduce the size of the brush if needed, and paint over areas that you want to brighten.
5. Adjust the layer’s opacity as needed.  (I reduced the opacity of my Vignette layer to 26%.)

Wrapping Up

1. At the end of this process, you will see that your Layer Mask Thumbnails aren’t completely black anymore.  The changes you made with your white brush will be visible.
2. An important point to keep in mind when working with Layer Masks is that anywhere you have white, the enhancement you have applied to that particular layer will shine through.  Anywhere you have black, your enhancement will be hidden.  And wherever there is gray, your enhancement will show partially.
3. My Layers Palette looked like this at the end of the process: 

   

   Photoshop Elements Final Layers Palette

    

4. Flatten the image by right clicking on the Layers Palette and selecting, you guessed it, Flatten Image.
5. Apply a quick sharpening if you need it.
6. Save the image (of course, I’m sure you did that several times during this process!).
7. Show off your beautiful picture! 

   

   CoffeeShop PowderRoom2 Tutorial Before & After

    

CoffeeShop PowderRoom2 Tutorial – Introduction

CoffeeShop PowderRoom 2 Tutorial Part 1 – Install and Access Actions

CoffeeShop PowderRoom 2 Tutorial Part 2 – Whiten Teeth

CoffeeShop PowderRoom 2 Tutorial Part 3 – Enhance Eyes 

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