Photoshop Elements 7 Smart Brush

by Erin on October 9, 2008 · 0 comments

I converted the background in this picture to black & white with only 4 clicks of the Smart Brush in Photoshop Elements 7. Now, that is a time-saver.

I really expected to be underwhelmed by the Smart Brush, based on what I read in Adobe’s promotional materials. But, I have to say that I’m impressed. This is how I used the Smart Brush in this picture:

After opening the picture and performing some other edits (eye sparkle, booboo removal, CoffeeShop Powder Room, etc.), I clicked at the top of the towel and dragged down one side and back up the other until the baby and her towel were all selected. As soon as I clicked, the entire photo went black and white, but my selection reverted to color as I dragged.
There were a few selected areas that I needed to deselect, so that they would be black & white. Near the top left corner of my PSE screen, I changed the Smart Brush to the Subtract from Selection mode. I then clicked and dragged in the areas between BabyGirl’s hand and the towel, just above her hand, and under her elbow. Those areas were deselected and became black and white.
That’s it!

Now, this wouldn’t have been too much more difficult in an older version of Photoshop Elements, but this Smart Brush definitely was quicker & easier. It even creates a layer mask for you, so that you can make changes with a different type of brush, if you’d like.

The thing that impressed me the most was the quality of the selection. I inserted the largest picture here that I could. Zoom in if you can, and look at how well the edges of the towel were selected. You can see that the individual fibers were selected, with no peeks of the wall color coming through between them.

Here is the original for comparison:

The blue walls and lamp behind the baby were distracting, but with the corner of the wall right behind the lamp shade, removing the lamp was harder than I wanted to mess with. I’m very happy with the results! Especially given the amount of time I put into it.

I used one additional Smart Brush option on this picture. Can any PSE 7 users figure out what it was? This is where I’d offer a free copy of Photoshop Elements if I had one to give away, but I don’t. Instead, I’ll just tell you. I used the lipstick Smart Brush to brighten her lips a bit! I’m embarrassed to admit that I did that to my perfect BabyGirl, but using the flash on my camera zapped out some of her color. I don’t think it looks fake or overdone. Do you?

Additional Smart Brush Presets in Photoshop Elements 7

The Smart Brush Presets that I used for this picture were Reverse Effects – Black & White and Portrait – Lipstick. I could have used one of the 7 various (non-reverse) black and white presets instead, but I was just playing and it didn’t work out that way. Other interesting sounding Presets are:

Pearly Whites (for brightening teeth)
Greenery (for enhancing flora)
Blue Skies (I bet you can guess what that does)
Sunset – (changes a blue sky to sunset colors. This one seems to work best on gray or washed out color skies. Or you could desaturate the blue sky, then apply the effect. I need to play more.)

The cool thing about these effects is that they are customizable. Since they are layer masks, you can easily add to and remove from the area being affected. And you can adjust the opacity to prevent the effect from looking unnatural.

I’m enjoying my PSE 7 so far. Can you tell?