Tips, Trends and Techniques Tuesday - How to Pin Something to Your Layout

I use Photoshop Elements 9.0, but I believe the terms are pretty universal. You will be using the Burn and Dodge tools to get the effect of the something pinned to the paper. First place your items on your page and size them the way you want. I’ve used the kit “New Year New Me” in my example, and have oversized the elements so you can see better. I placed the tag down and then the pin on top of it.

Next erase the part of the pin that would be under the tag.

You can erase a little or a lot, the choice is yours. I did a fairly large section. To darken you use the Burn tool and to lighten you use the Dodge tool. Now the Burn tool is in the lower left side of the tool bar and looks like a hand making the letter “o”. Make sure your tag layer is highlighted in the layers bar. I also like to make sure my brush for the burn is about the size of the pin piece I erased. You simply draw a line just below and just above where the pin would have been. This creates a shadowed look. If you want you could wait to erase the pin until after this step. If the pin is straight you can always click the beginning spot, hold the shift key down, click the ending spot and PSE will draw a straight line for you.

Here it is after one pass, looks good, but I think I want it a little darker. This is my personal preference, you can go over it as many times as you like, them more times you do it the darker it will get.

After a second pass.

Then you want to switch to the Dodge tool to lighten the top of where the pin would be under the paper. In elements you right click on the Burn Tool to select the Dodge Tool.

I like to make the Dodge tool slightly larger than the Burn Tool, it lightens part of what the Burn Tool did, but gives it more of a natural look to me. Here it is once I’ve finished with the both the Burn and Dodge tools.