Blending a Photo

I'm going to show this in photoshop, but it is just as easy to do in any program, using the same basic process. 

I love blending a photo into the background of a layout!  It's a great way to make a dramatic statement.  Here is an example, of a layout I did so you can see what I mean:

Isn't it fun how the blended photo is the same as the photo on the layout, but they really offer a nice contrast!  I also blended two papers together-all of which I will cover here!

First thing you are going to need is a grunge brush set. If you already have one loaded then skip down past this part. If not, then keep reading!

Brusheezy is a site where you can download free brushes.  If you are ever going to use these brushes for Commercial Use, double check each individual TOU, but you will be fine for what we are going to do today!  Here is the link:

http://www.brusheezy.com/search/grunge?from=mainsite

This actually links to their grunge brushes but they have lots of fun ones!  I chose the subtle grunge.  I downloaded and placed it in my brushes folder that I created in my digital scrapping section.  To install it so you can use it in photoshop, click on the paintbrush on the left.  Go up to the top and click on the arrow next to the picture of the brush that is shown.  It will pull down a box like the one below. You would use this to pick a different brush. To load one, click on the arrow I have circled below:

It will pull up a menu, choose "load a brush" from that menu and go to where you saved and unzipped the folder with our subtle grunge brushes.  Click on the ABR file to install.


After grunge brush is loaded!  Let's open up a paper, plain and light colored. 

Now we're going to place a photo on top of this. You want the photo to be larger than these dimmensions-it won't matter if that makes the photo grainy!  It will look like this:

So, I'm thinking that if I use the space on the right for my actual photo and clustering, title, journaling, etc. then I will erase a lot of that, but first, I'm going to blend the photo to see what I need to do from there.

On the layer palette, you'll notice I have two layers-my photo and the paper below it.  Just above that, it says "normal". While my photo is highlighted on the palette, I'm going to change that to soft light or any other one that I think works for my look! Play along with these to find what you like best!

Here is what I get when I only change it to soft light:

You may like it just like this and want to add your other stuff to it-that totally works!  But I'm going to continue to play and share my tips as I go!

Remember those brushes we loaded?  Well, I'm going to click on the eraser and find a brush from above.  These work just like the brushes but in opposite!  So go to the bottom of the menu we saw earlier and choose one of the brushes at the bottom from the grunge set we downloaded.

Erase around the photo as much or as little as you like:

Now, I want to add a little more grunge, so I'm going to place a paper from the kit above this layer:

This was actually a purple patterned paper (as you can see on the layer palette) but I changed the setting to overlay and look at the fun look it gives!  Now I can leave it and add my clusters and stuff or I can continue to play.  I can also leave the purple or whatever other color and not blend that layer and use the grunge eraser to clean away most of the stuff.  Leaving it something like this:

Play lots!  It is fun to see the many, many options that digital can offer!!