

In Photoshop, just hang tight-we’ll feather the mask (instead of the selection) in a minute. In Pixelmator, choose Edit > Refine Selection. In Elements, click Refine Edge in the Options bar at the bottom of the workspace. When you’ve got the selection just right, release the Option key and your mouse button. To reposition the oval selection while you’re drawing it (meaning you haven’t let go of your mouse button yet), press and hold the spacebar and drag with your mouse. Try not to get the selection too close to the image’s edges. Bottom: Once you grab the tool, drag to draw a selection atop your image, like the one shown here. Top: The Elliptical Marquee tool for each app is circled here in Photoshop, Elements, and Pixelmator (respectively). Press and hold the Option key, and then drag to draw an oval-shaped selection from the inside out. Peek at your Layers panel to make sure the correct image layer is active (the girls), and then-in the main document window-position your cursor near the center of the image. Create an oval selectionįrom the Tools panel, grab the Elliptical Marquee tool. Here you can see the Layers panel in Photoshop, Elements, and Pixelmator (respectively), with each image of the collage on separate layers. Make sure the new layer lives at the top of the layer stack (just drag it to the top if necessary). When you do, the image lands on its very own layer. Press Command-C to copy it to your Mac’s memory and then activate the other document and press Command-V to paste the copied image.


Activate the document that contains the soon-to-vignetted photo and then press Command-A to select it.
PIXELMATOR DRAWING APPS FULL
In any of the three apps, open two images (in Elements, make sure you’re in Expert or Full Edit mode). To get started, you’ll need to open two images and combine them into the same document. (Sorry, you can’t do this workflow in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom or Apple’s Photos, iPhoto, or Aperture.) This technique is perhaps the easiest-and most romantic-way to combine two images into a new and unique piece of art. In this column, you’ll learn to create the ever-popular, oh-so-romantic, soft oval vignette collage in Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Pixelmator. One of the many superpowers of image editing apps that support layers is the ability to combine images into a collage.
