Here's a quick and EZ way to add a touch of glamour to your images in post production. You can often see this effect used on the jewelry shopping TV shows, in luxury car brochures, and in printed or televised ads for cars, diamonds, and other precious objects.
 

The following instructions were written for Adobe Photoshop, but also apply to Photoshop Elements and should work well with similar programs.

1. Open your photo and one of the stars in your favorite photo editing software. 

2. You can open this sample colored star file EZstar.jpg to use for demonstration purposes.

3. Drag and drop the Star image onto your photo (You can also Copy and Paste it onto a new layer.)

4. Resize (CTRL+T to activate the sizing box) and Rotate the star to taste.

5. Change the Layer Mode to Linear Dodge or Overlay. This will cause the star image's white background to disappear.

4. Adjust the Layer Opacity to taste.

5. To add additional stars to the same image: Duplicate (CTRL+J) the Star and move it on top of other bright spots in your image. You can resize the individual Stars, but do not change the rotation of the stars relative to each other, or you will get a fake looking effect.

Don't get carried away with your new-found star power. Professionals add just enough star effect to subtly enhance an image. 

(Click this image for a larger view) --->

A more advanced way to add the star effect by using brushes.
(This method works well for those who are comfortable working with Photoshop brushes.)

Loading the EZ star brushes

1. In the brushes' drop-down menu - Click on the right arrow button, then choose "Load Brushes".

2. Browse for the EZstar brushes on the EZstar effects CD, then click on the "Load" button. We have placed a brush for you to try here.

(Right click your mouse button to download this brush file to your drive.)

Painting stars

1. Open your photo.

2. Select the brush you want, Adjust its size and change the brush mode to Linear Dodge - In this case we use white as your brush color.

3. Click on bright spots where you would like the star effect to appear.

Color Variation

1. Select a color for your brush and apply it to your image using the Linear Dodge mode.

The EZstar effects CD includes:

• 225 various sizes, shapes and colors of stars that are ready to drag and drop onto any image, using most software that supports "layers", such as Photoshop Elements.

• 24 various star brushes.

• Clear and simple animated tutorial that will have you productive within minutes.

For the fully animated version of these instructions
please refer to the EZstar effects CD .

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