Photoshop Elements: Poster Effect With Two Filters

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Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 6

March 4, 2008

You can quickly combine two different poster filters to create a unique poster effect. The colorful subject of this poster is my 20-year old cat, Abby.

Before After
Cat before

To create this poster effect:

  1. Open the photo and duplicate it on a new layer. Preserve the original and work with the duplicate layer. (If you make a mistake, you will always have the original photo on the background layer to start again.)

  2. Select the duplicate layer and apply the Poster Edges filter to it.

    1. From the Filter menu, select Artistic and then Poster Edges. The Filter Gallery is displayed.

      Filter Gallery

    2. Enter a value of 5 for Edge Thickness, Edge Intensity and Posterization.

    3. Click OK. This creates nice poster edges but mutes and darkens the colors somewhat.

      Cat with Poster Edges filter

  3. Duplicate the original photo again and place it on a layer above the Poster Edges layer.

  4. Select the top duplicate layer and apply the Posterize filter to it.

    1. From the Filter menu, select Adjustments, then Posterize.
    2. In the Posterize window, select a level of 5.

    3. Click OK. This creates an ugly posterized effect with vibrant colors. We'll use a blend mode to grab the vibrancy and lose the ugly.

      Cat with Posterize filter

  5. To finish the effect, in the Posterize layer, set the blend mode to Overlay and reduce the opacity to 50%.

Layers palette

Tips

You can also create other interesting poster effects by adjusting the filter settings and experimenting with blend modes.

For permission to use an article or resource for educational or non-profit purposes, please contact me at karenb@alibony.com. Commercial use is not permitted.

Updated on November 9, 2009