Abstract Dimensions: Layers: Brush Strokes

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Adding a brush stroke effect to a photograph just became easier with the advent of the PSP 5 layers.

Start by making a duplicate of your image. Working on the duplicate, immediately add the same image as a layer. (You can do this easily by pressing CTRL+C and CTRL+L on your keyboard. The image will be pasted as a new layer). Your pasted layer will become layer 1, the image you pasted to will become the background.

With Layer 1 as the active layer, select image/noise/add on the menu bar. Add as much or as little noise as you like. I used a setting of 54%. Check the random radio button.

Next we need to blur all of those little specks by going to image/blur/motion blur on the menu bar. Choose the direction you would like your brush strokes to go, (I used 51 as I wanted a brush stroke that went from the bottom left to the top right). The intensity setting is also your preference. Don't worry if you think you're blurring the image too much. We'll fix that later. But, on the other hand, don't get too carried away as too much blur can result in some color shifts. I used a blur of 9 pixels. Let's drop those brush strokes in now by going to image/edge/enhance on the menu bar.

If the brush strokes are too strong, play with the opacity slider to adjust some of them out. At this point you could consider yourself done. But if you would like to bring out a little more detail in the facial features there's one more step.

Press CTRL+L on your keyboard to add yet another layer. (Your image should still be in your clipboard). Adjust the opacity slider until the brush strokes show through the new layer. You could have adjusted the opacity on the previous layer but I think that the coloring and detail come out better when you use a third layer.

Bet you're wondering why we used the photo for the background image. It's just a little added protection. If something goes wrong and you've altered your original image without intending to, you've still got it untouched as the background layer.