Hide the area outside the selection with a layer mask. To see a preview of the feathering before you commit to it, use the Refine Edge command in both Elements (left) and Pixelmator (right). In Elements, choose Selection from the menu at the bottom of the dialog box, and then click OK in both apps. In the resulting dialog box, drag the Feather slider rightward until the feather preview looks good to you. In Photoshop, just hang tight-we’ll feather the mask (instead of the selection) in a minute. In Pixelmator, choose Edit > Refine Selection. In Elements, click Refine Edge in the Options bar at the bottom of the workspace. When you’ve got the selection just right, release the Option key and your mouse button. To reposition the oval selection while you’re drawing it (meaning you haven’t let go of your mouse button yet), press and hold the spacebar and drag with your mouse. Try not to get the selection too close to the image’s edges. Bottom: Once you grab the tool, drag to draw a selection atop your image, like the one shown here. Top: The Elliptical Marquee tool for each app is circled here in Photoshop, Elements, and Pixelmator (respectively).
Press and hold the Option key, and then drag to draw an oval-shaped selection from the inside out. Peek at your Layers panel to make sure the correct image layer is active (the girls), and then-in the main document window-position your cursor near the center of the image. Create an oval selectionįrom the Tools panel, grab the Elliptical Marquee tool. Here you can see the Layers panel in Photoshop, Elements, and Pixelmator (respectively), with each image of the collage on separate layers. Make sure the new layer lives at the top of the layer stack (just drag it to the top if necessary). When you do, the image lands on its very own layer.
Press Command-C to copy it to your Mac’s memory and then activate the other document and press Command-V to paste the copied image. Activate the document that contains the soon-to-vignetted photo and then press Command-A to select it.
In any of the three apps, open two images (in Elements, make sure you’re in Expert or Full Edit mode). To get started, you’ll need to open two images and combine them into the same document. (Sorry, you can’t do this workflow in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom or Apple’s Photos, iPhoto, or Aperture.) This technique is perhaps the easiest-and most romantic-way to combine two images into a new and unique piece of art. In this column, you’ll learn to create the ever-popular, oh-so-romantic, soft oval vignette collage in Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Pixelmator. If I have to use another tool to resize each image, than this is essentially useless to me.One of the many superpowers of image editing apps that support layers is the ability to combine images into a collage. Since I am using this to make single large collage images of products I am selling, I must have the entire photo visible. This does not appear possible - or at least is the one option that isn't intuitive. What if you need the entire photo in the template box? You should be able to reduce the photo so the larger dimension fits, and then fill the background with something - like letterboxing. Well, no camera today put out square photos. Lets say you are using a template with square boxes. If the photo dimensions do not match that of the square you can move the photo around, and I have been able to double click the photo and ENLARGE it to zoon in, but I cannot reduce the size. You select the template, add some photos to the left side, then drag them to the individual squares.
The problem I have (and I am not paying $20 just to find out if this is solved in the Pro version) is that you cannot resize an image.
The interface is clean and easy to use, understanding that this is the free version there are still useful templates and it is a functional program.