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Photoshop Tutorial, Number Now What?

Hello readers reader it’s time for another edition of Everything I Know About Being Half-Assed I Learned From Reading Bossy.

Recently Bossy’s Close and Personal her offered a one-hundred-step marvelous Photoshop tutorial on how she achieves the burned edge effect on her pictures. Bossy offers the following two-hundred-step shortcut as an alternative method.

First begin with a photo. This is Bossy’s Dane, Stella. She isn’t just Great, she’s a couch potato:

stella

And here is that same photo straight out of the camera, or SOCCER MOM SOOC:

SOOC

The first thing Bossy notices about her Dane photo is that it sucks ass leaves a little to be desired. Bossy will first adjust the levels in order to pump up the image. In order to accomplish this go to Layers, and then New Adjustment Layer, and then Levels:

layers

Then you’ll get another Dialogue Box with three arrows you can drag around to make the blacks blacker and the whites whiter and the, yeah:

levels

This is the newly leveled-out Dane:

stella-levels

Next Bossy notices that the image is a little blurry. This is because Bossy has never taken a focused image in her life the living room moved. To fix this problem, go under the Filter menu and click on Sharpen, and then Unsharpen Mask:

sharpen

You will get a new dialogue box with three different categories of focus to adjust:

focus-3

This is Bossy’s Dane after the Unsharpen Mask has been applied:

stella-sharp

Next Bossy decides to bring a little more life into Stella’s eye by dodging the highlights of her, um, eye. First you do this:

duplicate-layer

Then this:

new-window

Then using your magnifying tool, increase the magnification of the new window until the whole thing is taken up with eye. This allows you to avoid Bossy’s every minute mistake overdoing it.

Now you’re ready to grab your Dodge Tool from the sidebar:

dodge-tool

Then go up to the top menu and make sure you’re set to lighten the highlights at a small exposure percentage:

percent

Using your highly magnified window, click the dodge tool around the eye until you achieve the desired effect.

eye

And this is Stella after her Dr. 90210 eyelift procedure:

stella-eye

And now the moment Bossy’s readers reader has been waiting for — Bossy’s über simple technique for adding a burned edge effect to her pictures photographs. The first thing you’ll need from your tool bar is the Brush tool:

brush-tool

Next you want to select a large brush circumference and a nozzle that allows for a spray effect instead of the more precise paint effect:

40-brush

Hello the one reader left! Anyway. Now you need to set the desired paint flow and the opacity of that paint:

flow

Did Bossy mention you should have the color black selected? Because you should totally have the color black selected. Next, position the paint circle icon over the edge of your image until it barely overlaps your cropped photo. Did Bossy mention you should have cropped your photo? Because you totally should have cropped your photo. Anyway. While holding down your shift key, move the paint icon down the edge of your photo:

mcthing

The great thing about this technique is you don’t have to be exact because the photo is cropped and therefore all but the thin border line falls off the screen blah blah Bossy’s blood sugar is dipping. Do you understand?

Also — the smaller the paintbrush circumference and the more refined the nozzle, the sharper your frame will be:

smaller-thing

Here is the before and completed after:

before-after

Reader Interactions

Comments

  3. Oh, I really want to thank you for all of the Photoshop lessons. It is really impressive to see all of the screen shots for the controls and what you go through to make things interesting. With circles and arrows and everything.

    Reply

  14. OMG! How he is laying on the couch, he thinks he’s human.

    Seriously, do you drag the paintbrush around the edges? My hand is NOT that steady! I would have squiggles all over the entire pic!
    I use the “rectangular marquee” tool, and make an outline frame INSIDE the border, then go to “select-inverse”, then “select-feather” (like maybe, 2 to 5 pixels), then “edit-fill” (black) and you can choose different “modes” on the drop down-menu.
    You’re welcome.

    Reply

  15. Bossy writes, “Is Bossy the only damn one who can’t take nice photos of her computer screen or TV?”

    Computer screen photo fix for Bossy.

    Open any screen on your computer

    At same time press the Ctrl key and the Print Screen key

    Open Word document, Paste in Word document. Then transport anywhere you want.

    Bossy says, “Shit, I already knew that you duck lov’in know-it-all dead beat Audubon Ron. You must just be a ton of laughs at a party giving everybody instruction and knowing all these teeny-weenie facts. Are you a one trick Ron or do you have more razzle-dazzle for me today! How is this for a trick, watch Bossy give Audubon Ron a dinosaur Yawn.”

    Reply

  20. My big lug of a dog (a paltry 110 pounds to Stella’s what? 200?), would love to be photographed in such a lovely way. That pose kills me. I bookmark all of your tutorials for the day when I actually get some software loaded on to the computer. Until then, I’m aiming for the worst photos on a blog award. I’m in the lead.

    Reply

  22. DG is totally in love with Bossy’s Dane and hopes to meet Stella someday. That’s some personality, sitting on the couch like she owns it (because she owns it, right?)
    In other news, you have teh mad photoshop skillz that DG wishes she had. Love the burnt edge thingy.

    Reply

  23. Dear, dear, dear. I am but a point and click person. That all looks like far too much of a brain ache.

    I would hate to disturb the slumbering Stella [even if I could lift her] but I think if you put her on a chocolate brown blanket, you’ll save yourself a lot of hassle.
    Cheers

    Reply

  29. We used to have a 100 lb Belgian Shepherd who insisted he was a lap dog. Oooof. Stella would’ve loved him.

    Also, Audubon Ron, if you want to only paste the active window (rather than all the toolbars, etc.)hold the ALT key as well.

    Reply

  32. you are magnificent. i didnt think anything could top the dooce video which is so masterful, such a cinematic delight, it’ll definitely be a hit at sundance this year and if you get robter redford’s autograph you are so going to be my new best friend.
    but this tutorial of yours, it may be your finest moment yet. you speak to us – the unwashed masses of the internet. and on behalf of us all, i congratulate you on making this photoshop thing, this captivating counter-intuitive, frustrating beast that has me in its clutches, almost approachable.
    thank you and good night.
    i must now go bathe so i am worthy.

    Reply

  44. To take a screenshot of a specific part of your Mac window, hit “command (the apple key), shift and 4” at the same time. That will give you a little target-shaped curser which you can then drag over the area you want to duplicate. Just lasso the area you want and when you release the mouse, and if your sounds are turned on, you’ll hear a camera click sound. The image will be on your desktop in .pdf format… called “Photo 1.” Go to Photoshop and open it from there. When you’re done messing with it, you can “Save for web” and turn it into a jpg.

    That’s a wonderful dog!

    Reply

  46. I use a match, burn the edges, then take another picture of the burned picture. Cheaper than Photoshop and addresses my pyro neediness.

    Seriously, thanks. One day I’m going to invest. I have a pug who pitifully sleeps on the back of the couch. His pics are somewhere on my website. Uncropped, undemoneyezed and unburned. Yet.

    Reply

  49. oh bossy, biddy loves you. and by the way, have you heard of the little command called print screen? you can take a picture of your computer screen without, well, taking a picture of it with the camera! biddy would be glad to teach you in less than 32 steps…

    Reply

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