And the award goes to the best looking. . . EYE !?

Everyone wants their picture to look the best and the most unique one from a group of pictures. And why wouldn't you? Photoshop isn't all about having the best border for your picture, or the best and most meaningful text on your picture either. Now, I'm not saying those things don't count, but there are other small, yet important, things you can do to improve your picture. Here's a simple way, using different types of filters. Here is a very cool way that you can make some one's eye in a picture look very sharp and alive looking by using filters, but by not overdoing it. A simple and quick way you can do this is by using a filter. We have used two different versions of photoshop, Photoshop Elements 1 and Photoshop Elements 5.0. Each photoshop that you work with, no matter how advanced will have a filter button. Keep in mind though that as Photoshop gets more advanced, there are more varieties of filters to choose from. However, using Elements 5.0 will cause you no problems. In a way, filters are equivalent to the special effects that you can find in PowerPoint. They are used to make a picture more attractive. There are different types of filtering, like sharpening or unsharpening a picture, making it look like it has been pencil drawn etc.
A great way to use Photoshop easily and efficiently, is to know which tool to use for which task. That way, it saves you time from searching the menu bar for something to make your picture look more interesting. Here are some features of filter that you can use.
Pasteurize: It takes away all the colours in your picture except for the four main ones (CYMK)
Lets say you want to make your picture look black and white. The simplest way to do that is to use Threshold. What this feature does is that it takes your picture and makes it black and white.
Photo filter: This is used to make a picture look warmer or cooler. It all depends on the colour you use to do this. For example; you can choose orange to make your picture look more warmer.
Blur: The blur tool is, as you can guess, a tool that is used to blur a picture. There is a few different types of blurring. One of them is Motion Blur. It is when you blur a picture to make it look like it is in motion. For example you can make it blur so that the picture looks like it is being blown to one side.
Distort is a tool used to add ripples to a picture.
Brush strokes is used to puts ink on the outlines of a picture.
Spherize: It is used to make a circular shape, or any other shape, look 3-D. This feature is particularly used to make planets look more natural looking.
To add grain to a picture, you have to use the Noise tool.
Pixelating is when you make the pixels of an image stand out more.
Render is used for clouds and making pictures lighter.
Sketch is a cool way to make your picture look unique. It makes your picture look like it has been sketched, rather than made with Photoshop.
Last but not least, the texture effect adds, well, texture to your picture.

That's everything.
Bye.

- Peggy .