First, let’s look at Despeckle. We’ve used this filter before in cleaning up flawed photos, and you probably remember how easy it is to use. You don’t apply any settings; you just choose Filter, Noise, Despeckle, and the job is done. Despeckle can remove the kind of noise you sometimes see when you scan a printed image from a book or magazine: banding or regular grid patterns. You will see some loss of sharpness when you use Despeckle, and its effects are subtle; if you apply it and don’t see a noticeable improvement in your picture, undo and try another filter.

If you’re working with scanned pictures, the type of noise you’re most likely to see is specks of dust, scratches, and even rips in the original print. The Dust & Scratches filter is designed to get rid of, or at least minimize, this sort of noise. To get there, choose Filter, Noise, Dust & Scratches (see Figure 19.3).

Figure 19.3. Even with professional scans, you sometimes get dust and scratches on the photo—and this definitely wasn’t a professional scan.

To customize the effect of the Dust & Scratches filter, you drag the Radius and Threshold sliders. The Threshold slider controls how much a speck of dust must stand out from its surroundings for the filter to target it. The Radius slider determines how much blurring is applied to each speck or scratch to hide it. You’ll get the best results by keeping the Threshold value fairly low (to catch more noise) and gradually increasing the Radius value from 0 until you start to see an unacceptable amount of blurring. Most filters with dialogs, including Dust & Scratches, offer a Preview check box. Check the box to see the results of your settings in the image window, and use the preview area in the dialog to zoom in on specific areas.

The Reduce Noise filter can get rid of the kind of graininess you see when your flash doesn’t fire and you have to lighten the picture a bunch in Photoshop Elements. It’s a big dialog with a huge preview area, but its settings are pretty easy to understand (see Figure 19.4).

Figure 19.4. In this picture, the Reduce Noise filter can minimize the graininess of the bowl and the skin.

If you’ve got a picture with a lot of tiny bright spots, such as the one shown in Figure 19.5, the Median filter can help you. It locates pixels that stand out too much from their surroundings, brightness-wise, and tones them down to the median brightness value of the pixels surrounding them. I like to use it for pictures in which the flash was too close to the object being photographed (as in Figure 19.5), to tone down those intrusive sparkles. Median has only one slider: Radius. You’ll want to keep that value quite low because higher values drain all the detail out of the image very quickly.

Figure 19.5. The flash emphasizes every single pit and scratch in this old hood ornament, but the Median filter blends them back in with the metal surface.

After seeing all these ways to remove noise, you might be surprised to run into a filter designed to add more noise to a picture. And it’s true that the Add Noise filter isn’t strictly a clean-up or fix-it sort of filter; it’s better classified as a special effect. But it’s tremendously useful in creating all sorts of looks. And sometimes you can’t eliminate all the flaws in a picture—but you can disguise them.

One of my favorite techniques is to duplicate the Background layer and apply various filters to the copy. Then I combine the original picture with the copy by reducing the copy’s layer opacity or changing its blending mode. Figure 19.6 shows a variety of subtle effects I achieved by following this procedure, starting each time with the Add Noise filter.

Figure 19.6. (a) The original photo, featuring an antique car; (b) Add Noise, Motion Blur, Hard Light blending mode; (c) Add Noise, Color Dodge blending mode; and (d) Add Noise, Find Edges, Overlay blending mode.

As you might suspect, these are the basic Blur filters, with Blur More having an effect several times stronger than that of the Blur filter. In fact, Blur More gives you the effect you’d get by applying Blur multiple times. Now, these are both fairly subtle filters; even Blur More doesn’t apply a great deal of blurring (see Figure 19.7). If you want to really blur a picture, you need to use one of the adjustable filters, such as Smart Blur or Gaussian Blur.

Figure 19.7. I applied Blur to the left half of this photo and Blur More to the right half, but you probably wouldn’t even realize I’d blurred the picture if I hadn’t told you.

Gaussian refers to the mathematical equations on which this filter’s blurring operation is based. You don’t have to know any math to use Gaussian Blur, however; this filter quickly blurs a picture by a user-adjustable amount, and it has only one slider (see Figure 19.8). The Radius slider goes from .1 pixel at the left end to 250 pixels at the right end; at the low-end setting, you get a similar result to the Blur filter, and at the high end your picture ends up looking almost as flat as if you’d applied the Average Filter to it. In between, you can use Gaussian Blur to apply a nice, soft focus to portraits and landscapes, and you can use it a bit more heavily in selected areas to smooth out imperfections in the same way you’d use the Blur tool (see Hours 16 and 17 to review that technique).

Figure 19.8. A Radius setting of 5.2 blurs the heck out of the donkey from Figure 19.7.

Because of the math this filter uses to determine which pixels it affects—a Gaussian distribution—it has a particularly natural look, as opposed to the flat, artificial look that Blur and Blur More provide.

The name might lead you to think this is the best Blur filter to use in all circumstances, but that’s not the case. Smart Blur is called “smart” because it can recognize edges and avoid blurring them, while it smoothes out noise and texture in smooth surfaces (see Figure 19.9). So when you’re looking for an overall blur, Gaussian Blur is a better bet.

Figure 19.9. Smart Blur polishes the surfaces of this door knocker without blurring its detailed casting.

The best use for Smart Blur is to smooth grain and noise between edges without blurring fine details. To make it work, you first choose a Quality level (Low, Medium, or High) and a Mode (Normal, Edge Only, or Overlay Edge). The only time you want to use a quality level lower than High is when you’re working on a really huge image file with a really slow computer; with smaller files and modern computers, you can stick with High all the time. As for the Mode, Normal accomplishes what I’ve been talking about—blurs surfaces but not edges—and the other two modes offer special effects.

Edge Only and Overlay Edge use Smart Blur’s smarts to find the edges of objects in the picture and turn them white. Then, if you choose Edge Only, the rest of the picture turns black; with Overlay Edges, the rest of the picture stays as is.

To control Smart Blur’s effect, you drag the Radius and Threshold sliders. As with all Photoshop Elements filters, Smart Blur examines every single pixel in your image. For each pixel, Radius determines how far around that pixel the filter will search, and Threshold controls how different from the original pixel a nearby pixel must be in order to be considered an edge. I’ve found that the best way to adjust these two sliders is to move both to a position somewhere in the middle and work from there. Lower Radius settings apply more blurring (drag to the left), and higher Threshold settings reduce the number of edges that the filter exempts from blurring (drag to the right).

This is a fun one. Radial Blur simulates the blur you get when either the camera or the object being photographed is moving toward or away from the camera or spinning. In either case, the center of the effect (which is usually the center of the picture) isn’t blurred at all; the amount of blurring increases as you move toward the edges of the image. The dialog box offers no preview option (see Figure 19.10), so you have to try different settings in Draft quality. Just undo and enter different values if you don’t like the results. When you’ve got settings you like, undo once more and invoke the filter one last time, set to Best quality.

Figure 19.10. When you click OK and watch as the filter is applied, the image looks as if it’s actually spinning.

Amount is the first setting in the Radial Blur dialog, but it’s the last thing I tend to set. After you’ve chosen a Blur Method, a Quality Level, and a Blur Center, drag the Amount slider to determine just how blurry things in your picture will get. This is the setting you’ll probably spend the most time experimenting with because of the lack of a preview. Fortunately, Photoshop Elements remembers the last settings you used, so if you come up with values that work well, you can easily apply them to another picture.

You can choose from two Blur Method settings: Spin and Zoom (see Figure 19.11). Their names give a good indication of what each one does: Spin simulates the motion blur you’d get from a spinning object, and Zoom looks as though the camera is moving toward or away from the photo’s subject. By default, the radial blur effect is centered on the middle of the picture, but you can move its center by clicking in the Blur Center proxy area. The location you choose will have the least blurring; the blur increases gradually as the distance from that point increases.

Figure 19.11. Radial Blur’s Zoom effect, centered on the giant baseball, makes it appear as if this sign is literally bursting off the side of the building.

As with the Quality setting in the Smart Blur dialog, Radial Blur’s Quality setting determines how refined the effect is—and, therefore, how long it takes for Photoshop Elements to complete it. Start with Best; if you find that you’re sitting around for too long waiting for Radial Blur to complete, switch to Good or even Draft.

We all know what motion blur is—it’s what happens when the object you’re photographing is moving too fast for the camera to capture it quickly. This results in a blur along the axis of movement, extending from the point where the object was when the camera started shooting to the point where it is when the camera is done shooting. It turns out that this effect is easy for Photoshop Elements to replicate, but you have to use it carefully if you want it to look authentic.

The most important thing to remember is that whatever is blurred will appear to be moving. So if you blur the whole picture, the picture as a whole appears to move, not just a particular object within it. To make just part of the image move, you need to select just that area and apply the Motion Blur filter to it (see Figure 19.12).

Figure 19.12. I selected the unicycle rider before applying the Motion Blur and then feathered the selection a bit. Now she seems to be moving because she’s blurred but the background isn’t.

The Motion Blur dialog has two settings that you can control: Distance and Angle. You determine the distance the blur extends in front and behind each pixel by dragging the slider, and you control the angle of the blur by entering a number of degrees or by dragging the proxy. The line cutting across the circle indicates which directions the blur will extend.

Clouds and Difference Clouds aren’t filters you’ll use every day. They have two main purposes:

Each generates a soft-edged cloud pattern based on the Foreground and Background colors. With Difference Clouds, the colors of the pattern are inverted each time you apply it.

To use Clouds or Difference Clouds to create a new sky for a boring picture, first you need to select the sky. You might want to use the Eyedropper to choose a Foreground color (sky blue, perhaps?), and you’ll probably want to make the Background color white. For a stormy sky, you can use shades of gray instead, perhaps with a purple or green cast for a truly threatening look (see Figure 19.13).

Figure 19.13. These fluffy clouds exist only in Photoshop Elements’ imagination; I selected the flat blue sky and pressed Alt as I chose the Clouds command to create them.

If you’re planning to build a texture or pattern on top of the Clouds or Difference Clouds filter, you’ll probably be starting with a new, blank image. Still, be sure to choose the Foreground and Background colors you want to use before you invoke the filter by choosing Filter, Render, Clouds or Filter, Render, Difference Clouds. You can use either of the Clouds filters as a basis for countless other effects (see Figure 19.14).

Figure 19.14. Using turquoise and fuchsia as my Foreground and Background colors, I applied the Difference Clouds filter repeatedly to achieve the first image, and then applied Stained Glass to the picture for a colorful, random mosaic effect.

As with the Clouds filters, Fibers creates something out of thin air; in this case, Photoshop Elements can simulate a woven surface such as cloth. Again, Fibers isn’t a filter you’d use every day, but it’s an interesting way to start creating a background texture. It replaces the entire contents of the current layer (or the Background layer, if you haven’t added any layers) with its fibrous surface. You can change two settings to control the fibers’ appearance:

When you’ve got the Variance and Strength settings where you like them, click Randomize to generate one version of what those settings will produce. Keep clicking until you see something you like (see Figure 19.15).

Figure 19.15. I clicked Randomize about five times before I got this look, which could be the basis for a neat brushed-metal effect.

When you point your camera directly at a bright light or a bright reflection, you sometimes see a lens flare in the resulting photo. This bright flash can reinforce the impression of light, making a picture seem more lively. You can reproduce a lens flare using the logically named Lens Flare filter.

You can choose a Lens Type, which determines the shape of the flare, from four options, such as 35mm Prime; these names no doubt are familiar to old-school photographers who know their lenses. The Brightness slider, obviously, controls how bright the flare is; at the top end, the flare can become a nova that obscures the entire photo. You set the flare’s location by clicking in the Flare Center preview area. Try to keep your flare locations logical (see Figure 19.16); no one will believe a lens flare placed in the middle of a patch of shadows.

Figure 19.16. Here I’ve placed the lens flare right where the sun was brightest on the car, so it looks authentic.

I could write a whole chapter just on using the Lighting Effects filter. No, make that a whole book. This filter is complex to understand and to use, but it’s worth a look because it can do truly amazing things. I give you the overview here, but I encourage you to read the Lighting Effects section in the Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 User Guide (download it at http://help.adobe.com/en_US/PhotoshopElements/6.0/pselements_6_help.pdf).

With Lighting Effects, you can add light and shadow to a picture using one light or several, varying the intensity, angle, and color of each light, as well as the intensity and color of the ambient light. You can do all this on a flat image, or you can use a selection as the basis to create a texture on the surface of the picture. To get an idea of how variable the results of Lighting Effects can be, open any picture; choose Filter, Render, Lighting Effects; and try a few of the preset combinations from the pop-up Style menu at the top of the dialog (see Figure 19.17). When you’re ready to create your own looks, switch to the Soft Omni style (which is a pretty basic style with just one white light) and start making changes.

Figure 19.17. The Flashlight preset style makes Monkey look as though he’s sitting in the dark all by himself.

You can add up to 16 light sources, each of which can be adjusted individually. To add a light, drag the light bulb icon below the preview area into the preview. Position it where you want it and then modify its settings on the right side of the dialog. To change the settings of another light, click it to activate it; click and drag to move it within the image. If you decide you want to remove a light, click it and either press Delete or drag the light to the Trash icon under the preview area.

For each light, you can choose the following attributes.

Texture Channel

You can choose to keep the surface of your picture flat, or you can give it a surface texture by choosing a channel to give the texture a shape and specifying how deep it is with the Height slider (see Figure 19.18). The channels that you can use, sort of like stencils, include:

• The three color channels (red, green, and blue).

• Nontransparent areas of the current layer (its transparency mask), and any saved selection.

• The White Is High check box inverts the selection so that the low spots become the high spots and vice versa.

Figure 19.18. I created a type mask and then saved the selection to make a texture channel for this image.

Saving Selections

When you’ve just spent 20 minutes painstakingly creating a selection to outline the subject of your photo or some other object it contains, why not save that selection so you’ll never have to do that work again? Before dropping the selection, choose Select, Save Selection. Click the New Selection radio button, give the selection a name, and click OK.

To reactivate that selection later, choose Select, Load Selection. Choose the selection from the Selection pop-up menu, check the Invert box if you want to select everything but the area the selection contains, and click OK. Or you can combine a saved selection with an existing selection by choosing Add to Selection, Subtract from Selection, or Intersect with Selection.

All your saved selections appear in the Texture Channel pop-up menu in the Lighting Effects dialog, along with the color channels and any available transparency masks.

This filter isn’t nearly as sophisticated as its siblings in the Render group; all it does is fill a selection or an entire layer with the contents of a grayscale image saved in Photoshop format. You can use one of the texture files that come with Photoshop Elements (found in the Program Files/Adobe/Photoshop Elements 6.0/Presets/Textures folder) or you can create your own. As with Render Clouds, this filter won’t finish the job of embellishing a photo or creating a masterpiece from scratch, but it’s a stepping stone along the way (see Figure 19.19).

Figure 19.19. The rough background texture for this image started as a snakeskin pattern applied with Texture Fill.

As with the Lighting Effects filter, 3D Transform has hidden depths. Its dialog box isn’t nearly as big as the Lighting Effects one, but you have a lot to learn before you can really consider yourself an expert user of this filter. When you master it, however, you can use it to map a picture to a three-dimensional shape based on a cylinder, a sphere, or a cube; then you can rotate the shape in space to show a different view of the picture (see Figure 19.20).

Figure 19.20. Remember back in Hour 8 when we applied a whole bunch of layer styles to a single type layer? Refresh your memory by taking a look at Figure 8.11. This is what that same layer looks like when it’s mapped onto a cylinder shaped like a can of tuna.

Craquelure actually means the pattern of cracks on the surface of old paintings. In Photoshop Elements, however, the Craquelure filter makes your picture look as if it was painted on a cracked plaster surface (see Figure 19.24). You can set values for Crack Spacing (the distance between cracks, 0–100), Crack Depth (0–10), and Crack Brightness (0–10). Darker cracks lend greater intensity to the effect, but if you make them too dark, they’ll look artificial.

Figure 19.24. Using the Craquelure filter is much cheaper than buying all that special crackle glaze at the craft store.

You can think of the Grain filter as a more sophisticated version of the Add Noise filter (see Figure 19.25). It adds any of 10 types of grain to a picture, and you can specify the Intensity (amount of grain, 0–100) and degree of Contrast (also 0–100). The key to getting great results from the Grain filter is experimentation with the different Grain types. (Note that the Sprinkles and Stippled grain types are created using the Background color.) The 10 Grain types are listed here:

Figure 19.25. You wouldn’t think a light coating of grain would make such a difference in a photo, but it definitely does.

I’ve never thought Mosaic Tiles actually looks much like a mosaic, but it’s kind of a cool effect. It creates small, irregular chips in the picture with grout lines between them (see Figure 19.26). You can specify Tile Size (0–100) and Grout Width (0–10), both of which are self-explanatory. You can drag the Lighten Grout slider to change the color of the grout between tiles; drag left to darken the grout and right to lighten it (the slider goes from 0 to 10).

Figure 19.26. These are the oddest-shaped mosaic tiles I’ve ever seen.

Again, I don’t think this filter looks the way its name implies it should; I can’t think of any Photoshop filter whose results look less like a patchwork quilt than this one (see Figure 19.27). Nonetheless, Patchwork has its devotees, and I believe I’ve even used it a time or two to create backgrounds. It breaks up the picture into squares, each of which sticks out from the background more or less, depending on whether the area is darker or lighter. The Square Size slider goes from 0 to 10, and you can choose a Relief value between 0 and 25 to determine the overall depth of the protruding tiles.

Figure 19.27. It might not look like anything in nature, but Patchwork is rather a neat effect.

Using the Stained Glass filter, you can turn your picture into either stained glass or a much better-looking mosaic than Mosaic Tiles produces (see Figure 19.28). Just be sure to set the Foreground color before you fire up Stained Glass because the filter uses that color for the borders of its glass cells. You can choose a Cell Size (2–50), a Border Thickness (1–20), and a Light Intensity (0–10) that produces a more or less bright spot in the middle of the “window.”

Figure 19.28. It might not be Tiffany, but I think it does look pretty much like stained glass.

If you want to make your picture look as though it’s painted on brick, burlap, canvas, or sandstone, the Texturizer filter will take you there (see Figure 19.29). You can load more textures from the example files (found in the Program Files/Adobe/Photoshop Elements 6.0/Presets/Textures folder) or you can create your own. For each texture, you can set a Scaling percentage (0–200) that determines the size of the texture with respect to the image, a Relief value (0–50) that determines how far the texture appears to protrude from the picture’s surface, and a Light angle (Bottom, Bottom Left, Left, Top Left, Top, Top Right, Right, or Bottom Right). If you check the Invert box, the result looks as though the texture is pressed into the image instead of the image being painted over the texture.

Figure 19.29. Here I’ve inverted the texture so that it looks as though the burlap was pressed into the wet paint and then removed.