Creative Effects Challenge No. 171 - Beaches Maybe Peaches-participation contest

Following up on the Tryptich from the CEC No 170, let’s do it a little different while exploring the possibilities of PSE’s built in tools.


PARTICIPATION CONTEST
Everyone participating will get one entry. If you post your layer panel you get two entries.
Winner gets a bag of my home roasted coffee. You can have some input on origin and roast.
Details at end.


1. Pick an image of a beach scene or use mine which is linked below. Sorry no peaches with the beaches in my image.  

2. Open and duplicate it.

3. In the duplicate image, go to Effects>Panels and choose one. Label that layer Panels FX

4. Go to Layers, and use the Magic Want tool to select the Panels you will see over your background image.

5. Create a new Layer and Edit>Fill Selection 50% Grey. Label this layer Panels.

6. Return the original image and select all – Cmd/Ctrl A, and copy all, Cmd/Ctrl C. You can use other methods; none of them seem reliable to me; feel free to explain how you did it.

7. Return to the duplicated image and add a new layer above the Background and then paste the beach scene back. Label this layer Beach.

8. On the Panels layer, add effects such as textures, and Layer Styles such as strokes and bevels. In my PSE 21, some of the choices impact only the individual layer and some will flatten the image and apply the effect to a newly created layer. Try to first use textures and styles within PSE so that you can explore what is there. Advanced users feel free to import textures and styles. If your choice impacts all layers and you want to undo that, use Cmd/Cntrl Z to undo it.  I ended up not applying texture to mine, mostly bevel and stroke with the stroke color chosen from the shells.  

9. In the bottom right, choose More and open the history panel.

10. On the Panel FX layer, select Effects (fx) and try one or more from each selection. The purpose of this CEC is to explore what options you have within your version of PSE. Hence why I am suggesting you apply some of various choices. Note that some of these may add a flattened layer so you need to be aware of that but that is ok in this step. AFTER YOU APPLY THE EFFECT, JUST UNDO IT WITH CONTROL/COMMAND Z. YOU WILL USE THE HISTORY PANEL TO SCROLL THROUGH YOUR CHOICES. In my last image below I used the Color Sketch effect from PSE.




11. After you have applied and undone a variety of effects, go to the History panel, go back and forth until you settle on the one you like. You can repeat this process again, just be aware of what layer you are working with.

12. On the Panels layer, see if you want to make any final tweaks.

On my effort I decided that I could enhance the color sketch effect I liked by using Pin Light so you will see that additional copy of the Beach layer. I also made a layer to apply a different effect to the center panel but I didn't like them and turned off the mask.

Participation Contest -

Winner will be the one that selects the number closest to the following equation= How much have we spent on the Hooligans?
I chose this as its verifiable from my Quicken accounts. Hint- which really isn't much of one; they just had their second birthday.
Post your one or two entries with your images and I will record them. Contest ends after next CEC is posted. Note the coffee is whole bean not ground, so if you don't use whole bean, you can either skip the entry to have me send it to someone that does.