Photoshop Effects: Poster Edges & Opacity - Tutorial

This week I'm going to show you how to add some Photoshop effects to your photos. I had two beautiful photos that were almost the exact same. I could have scrapped them together but I really wanted to do something outside of my usual box with them. Here's what I did.

First I opened the image I wanted to manipulate in Photoshop. 

Original Image (photo permission by Allison Avenue Photography)

Then I added a Filter.  To do this I clicked Filter --> Artistic --> Poster Edges.  I adjusted it until I got the look I liked and clicked OK.

Double click the Background Layer in the Layers panel (if its not already displayed on the right hand side of Photoshop, you'll find it under the Windows menu).

Adjust the Opacity in the Layers window that opens. You may see a checkerboard effect. I adjusted the opacity on this image by 60%.

Got to Layers --> Flatten Image to see the result.

Here's the final result. Undo it and adjust Opacity if its not to your liking. Click to enlarge so you can see the poster edges along with the opacity.

Image with Poster Edges and 60% transparency

Original Image

Save picture under a new name so that you preserve your original photo.  If you make a mistake and save over the original you can remove the layers in photoshop but I highly discourage overwriting original files.

Check back soon to see how I use this in my traditional scrapbooking. Let me know if you try this and post a link in the comments section. Oh, if you need a great photographer with great prices in the Houston or Dallas area, contact Allison and tell her you found her on Heather Leopard's blog).