Creative Techniques

1. Techniques with Chrome:

This seems to work well with defined shapes:

make sure your layers palette is open (windows tick layers)
Duplicate image in the layer palette or using Ctrl+J or layer/duplicate layer
Invert layer – in Elements filter/adjustments/invert
Then in the layers palette change normal to difference – or try darker colour.

2. There are various ways of blurring a back ground:

Firstly, enhance the image if needed (shadows/highlights or levels etc)
Select the figure/feather a little/select inverse/copy the selection (Ctrl+J)
Lock the new selected layer
Apply blur - filter/blur/Gaussian blur and any other adjustments to the selection like de-saturating etc
When you are happy with the results, flatten the image (layer flatten)

Or

Duplicate the whole image and apply Gaussian blur.
Using the eraser (set to about 50%), rub out part of the image that needs to be sharp (the sharp image is underneath the blurred layer)
You can copy the blurred image a number of times then use the eraser on each blurred image. This will give a softer, less defined edge.

3. Selecting:

Depending on the image, ‘Quick select’ is useful and easy if you have a block of colour; magic wand works quite well with blocks of colour; polygonal lasso works well with a lot of straight lines (zoom in to make a good selection.

With any selection tool, make sure you have selected ‘add to selection’ (top left in Elements) then, if you need to subtract form the selection, hold down the Alt key and you’ll be able to ‘subtract from selection’ without having to change the setting.

If you have spent some time making a selection, do save it! - select/save selection. If you want to keep the selection to work on the image another time, then don’t flatten image and save as a TIFF or PSD file. If you flatten and save as jpeg you’ll loose layers and selections.

4. Mirror Images:

To create a mirror image you can mirror the whole image or just part of it. Expand you canvas to cater for the additional image. Using the crop tool is easiest. Else use image/resize/canvas size. Make sure relative is not ticked then double the width size.

If you want to mirror the whole image, duplicate (Ctrl+J) the layer or if you want to mirror a part of the image, then select using the rectangular marquee and Ctrl+J to copy the selection.

Rotate the selection using/rotate/flip layer horizontal then use the move tool to move the layer into position.

Flatten and save as above.