Photoshop Elements: Dotted Halo Effect

Send article Send article Print article Print article

Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 6

March 28, 2008

Go a bit dotty with this three-part lesson. In Part 2, we will create a dotted halo effect around a portion of your photo. The areas not selected will be deleted to let a background color show through.

Part 1: Dotted Frame

Part 2: Dotted Halo Effect

Part 3: Dotted Brushes

Free Dotty Brushes set

Part 2: Create a Dotted Halo Effect

To create a dotted halo effect for a photo:

  1. Create a new image and fill the background with the color of your choice:

    1. From the File menu, select New, and then select Blank File.
    2. In the New dialog box, enter the dimensions of your photo and click OK.
    3. Fill the background layer with the desired background color. In this example, we used a green background.
  2. Create a new layer above the background layer and fill the second layer with white.
  3. Open the the photo, then copy-and-paste the photo to a third layer directly above the white layer.

  4. With the photo layer active, make a selection of the area of the photo to which you want to apply the halo effect:

    1. Use the Lasso tool to make a selection that hugs the contours of the desired selection area.
    2. From the Selection menu, select Refine Edge to further enhance your selection. Add some feathering and smoothing as desired for a softer edge, then click OK.
  5. With the selection still active, in the Layers palette, select the white layer below the photo and fill the selection with black. This layer's thumbnail will now show the selected area in black and the rest of the layer in white.

  6. With the selection still active, in the Layers palette, select the photo layer again:

    1. From the Selection menu, select Inverse or press Shift+Ctrl+I to invert the selection.
    2. Press Delete to delete the pixels in the inverted selection (the area of the photo where you want the background to show through). The white area from the layer below will now be visible.
    3. From the Selection menu, select Deselect or press Ctrl+D to deactivate the selection. This is important because you must apply the filter to all pixels in the black-and-white layer.

  7. In the Layers palette, select the black-and-white layer below the photo again. Then, apply the halo effect:

    1. From the Filter menu, select Blur, then Gaussian Blur.

    2. In the Gaussian Blur window, enter a radius of 20-50px:

      Gaussian Blur
    3. Press OK to apply the filter.
    4. From the Filter menu, select Pixelate, then Color Halftone.

    5. In the Color Halftone window, enter a radius of 8px and set all the Channel values to 0. (For different effects, you can change the size of the radius and change the values of the channels. However, to keep the dots a uniform black, all the channel settings should be the same value; for example, 20 for each channel.):

    6. Press OK to apply the filter. The image will now look like the following:

      Halo effect applied

  8. In the Layers palette, select the black-and white layer and change the Blending mode to Soft Light to allow the color of the background to show through. Experiment with other blending modes for different effects. The Layers palette will look like the following:

    Halo Layers palette

Related

Part 1: Dotted Frame
Part 3: Dotted Brushes
Free Dotty Brushes set

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