Tips and Tricks – Weaving

Claire here and no we are not sewing today. However, this technique will really leave people guessing if it is digital or real. So lets dig in:

1. place your items one on top of the other keeping in mind where you want the items to over lap each other.

2. Keep in mind when you are placing an object, the entry and exit of your item overlapping.

3. Select the item that is not being erased in your layers palette and click on the picture of the item in the layers palette while holding down the Control Key. This will create little marching ants around the object in your project.

4. Click on the item that is to be erased in your layers palette and Erase within the marching ants. Don’t worry about going beyond the marching ants. The program knows that you want to erase just what is in marching ants.

And Voila!

Shadowing in Photoshop Elements
Now shadowing woven items in Photoshop Elements (I’m using v. 7) can be a little work since we do not have a way to automatically tell the program to put the shadow on a separate layer, but the end results are so worth it. If you shadowed the items using the Drop Shadow Action that came with the program, there would be shadows where there shouldn’t be.

So to combat this effect, you have to create shadows each on their own layer.

1. Choose the layer in the layer palette of the item you want to shadow.

2. Duplicate the layer. When you do this, you will automatically have the copy of the item on top of the original item.

3. Choose the original item in the layer palette.

4. Duplicate. Then using your bucket tool, fill in the entire item with black.

5. No using the arrows on your keyboard move the blackened item in the directions you want your shadow.

6. Using a black brush fill in any blank spots that were made when erasing for weaving if necessary.

7. Now go up to Filter>Blur>Glaussian Blur.

8. When the box pops up set your blur. Slide the slider around until you are satisfied. This function acts the same as adjusting the size of your shadow.

9. Now reduce the opacity on the shadow level to around 70%. But slide the slider around until you are satisfied.

I hope you followed all that and take some time to play with it. You’ll be a weaving pro in no time.