Using a Highlighter in Photoshop Elements 2023
Most genealogists I know have a collection of highlighters in various colors that we use on paper documents. And for those of us who use highlighters, going digital with our documents can be a problem. Do we print and highlight? Do we print/highlight/scan to keep things digital? Or we can create the look of a highlighter (in any color we want) in Photoshop Elements.
To create a highlighter
Open your document
Convert to RGB Colorspace
If you are working with a black and white image, especially
one downloaded from Ancestry or FamilySearch, you may need to convert your
image to RGB to get colors to appear.
Look at the tab with your file name in the upper
left corner of the workspace. If it says Gray/8, your image is a grayscale
image, and you need to convert it.
From the Image menu > Mode > RGB Color
Your image will convert to an RGB image. You can check by
looking at the tab with file name and it should say RBG/8 instead of Gray/8.
Make a new blank layer
Click on the first icon (paper with folded corner) in the
top of the layers panel to create a new layer. It will appear as Layer 1 above
your background layer in the layers panel.
Select the area to be highlighted
Use the Rectangular Marquee tool – dotted rectangle in the
Select section of the tool bar
The Rectangular Marquee tool options will appear at the
bottom
Click on the rectangle in the left hand section, the first
square (New) in the section section , Feather 0 px, Aspect Normal
Make sure you have Layer 1 highlighted in the layers panel
With your cursor, draw a box around the area you want to
highlight. You’ll see a moving dotted line (known as moving ants) around the
area you’ve created.
Choose the color for your highlighter
In the tool bar on the left, in the Color section, click on
the upper square.
The Color Picker dialog box will open. Choose a color from
the column in the middle of the dialog box (#1), and then choose an exact shade
by moving around the box on the left (#2). You will see your new color at the
top of the box just right of center (#3).
When you have a color you like, choose OK.
Use the Paint Bucket Tool to fill in your selected area
From the Draw section – second row – paint bucket is the tool
on the left
Paint Bucket dialog box will open at the bottom
Choose the square on the left to paint
Lower the opacity to about 25%
Tolerance – default is fine
Mode – Normal
Make sure the color you want to paint with is in the upper
left square of the color area
Click anywhere in the area of your rectangular marquee box
This should fill in your box
Deselect the rectangular marquee box – CTRL D
If you are happy with the way it looks, flatten your image, and save it with a new file name using the Save As command.
Adding a Second Highlighter Color to your Document
If you want to add another highlighted area, just go back
and repeat the steps starting with adding another layer to your document. I
tend to do my highlighted areas in separate layers so I if I mess one up, I can
just drag the layer to the trash can and redo just that one section.
Using the History Panel to Go Back and Make Changes
If a mess up a step, you can always go back a step in the
history panel, and redo that step.
If your history panel is not showing on the right, F10 will
make it appear.
Comments
Post a Comment