CLASS EXERCISE – PAINTED FRAME

This exercise will show you a creative way of creating a “painted frame” in Photoshop. First, Mrs. Feld will show you how to use this technique; then you’ll create your own exercise using a picture of New York or other big city (you can find some in iLifeO5 in the Big Cities Folder or find your own in Google).

1. Find a photo of New York or other big city. Save on your desktop and open it in Photoshop.

2. Create a New Layer by clicking the “New Layer Icon” - bottom of Layers Palette, or go to Layer > New > Layer.

3. Make sure your “foreground color” is black (in your Toolbox Pane).

4. Go to Edit > Fill > select Foreground Color (under Contents). Mode: Normal; Opacity: 100%.

5. Go to Brush in Toolbar and select the “Fuzzball” brush (192 in CS3). Between the Flowing Stars brush and the Chalk brush.

6. Change the Opacity in toolbar to 50%. Later you can experiment with other percentages. (Opacity in Photoshop refers to the transparency of a layer. You can change the opacity of a layer by giving it a value between 1% and 100%, where 1% is almost totally clear and 100% is completely opaque. The opacity of a layer will determine to what degree you can see the layers beneath it.)

7. Select the Eraser Tool and brush the middle of the picture. See what happens! Uncover a big area in the middle (like an oval). Reduce the size of the brush - you can simply press the [ (open bracket) key in your keyboard, or go to Brush in Toolbar and move the slider. Keep erasing until you achieve the desired effect.

8. If you want to fix your frame a little bit, you can also select the Brush Tool (making sure the foreground color is black) and brush the frame until you reach the desired look. You can go back-and-forth using the Eraser Tool and the Brush Tool.

9. That's it! You can practice with another picture, if you want to get creative and learn this technique well.

Save this exercise as Exercise No. 6 in your Photoshop Folder in the Server.