Articles : Tutorials - Digital

Blending Photos using Photoshop Elements

Create your own photo backgrounds with blending!

Blending photos to make backgrounds is not as hard as it would seem. This tutorial will take you step by step to creating your own personalized backgrounds. **You will need a basic working knowledge of PSE in order to complete this tutorial.**

Ready to begin?

First of course is to choose your photograph. I have chosen this picture of my husband, Bobby. I like it because it has that nice blank wall behind it. This will allow a good portion of the paper to show through.

Then choose your paper. I have chosen this paper by Kim Hill from her Extreme Teen Kit.

Now we’re ready to create our layout. Go ahead and create a new blank file. Make sure the *Background Contents* setting is *Transparent*. Drag your paper, then your photo to the new file. Your paper should be *underneath* your photo. Here’s what our layers look like so far:
 

Resize your photo to fill the entire page.

Now, I’m going to draw your attention now to the layer palette. Click on the layer with your photo so it’s active. Now at the top of the layer palette you will see a drop down box. It should currently be set to *Normal*. Go ahead and click on the box to see your choices. These are your blending modes.

Now we’re ready to create some magic! One of the easiest ways to blend would be to use *Overlay* or *Soft Light*. Here’s what my layout looks like using this setting.

If this works for your photo/paper combo you can stop here.  I’m not happy with this though, so let’s try something else.

Setting the blend mode to *Darken* produces this result. The background paper shows through nicely here and I can still see the all the important elements of the picture.

You can then play with the opacity of your layer if you want. If you want a more washed out look, then lower your opacity. Here is a setting of 47%.

I’m going to use a setting of 91% for my lo. It takes away some of the harsh contrast from the bad lighting, and still allows plenty of the background to show through.

As an added bonus, by using this photo with the blank wall, I’ve created a fake extraction!

Your layout is now ready to add your title, journaling or any elements you’d like to use. I want to keep the focus right on Bobby, so I’m only going to add a title.

Now that you know the basics, you can try this technique using all the different overlay modes! Each produces it’s own results and they often change depending on what paper/photo combination you’re using.  Just play with those blending and opacity settings until you get the desired results.

Happy Blending!
 

About the author ...
Tracy joined the Creative Team in June 2008. She has been Scrapbooking for 8 years, and has been Digi exclusive since 2006. Tracy has been featured in Bella Scraps Magazine and Gallery Standouts.

Submitted by -Tracy-