Photo Accent

1. Find a one of your photos or digital artwork pieces you'd like to use. Do any resizing that may be necessary. This is the photo I'm going to use, set at 800x600:

Click to enlarge

2. Using the Marquee Tool, select the area you want to put the accent effect on.

3. Now go to Select>>Transform Selection and turn the selection to the angle you'd like and click Enter. Note: the picture won't look any different at this point.

4. Click Control + J to copy your transformed selection to its own layer. Again, this will not appear on your main image, but it will appear in your Layer Pallet.

5. To add the accent border, click on the Layer Styles icon at the bottom of your Layer Pallet:

6. Click on Stroke. For stroke size, choose somewhere around 10 pixels, whichever you feel looks best for the effect you would like. Next, choose Position: Inside.

Now select a colour which is complimentary but stands out.

7. Next we're going to add the drop shadow so the transformed area stands out even more. You will need a solid looking shadow, so set the Opacity between 85-90%. Move the shadow around in the dial until you get an angle that looks right to you, probably somewhere between 90-120 degrees. Here are the settings I used:

Your special effect is basically done; you can leave it as it is above, or you can apply effects to the background layer. To do this, make sure that the Background Layer is selected in your Layout Pallet:

Try different filters (Filter>>choose effect) and different colour adjustments (Image>>Adjustments>>choose effect)

To lighten or darken the background layer, click Control + L to bring up the Levels Control Panel.

To darken the background, move the lower Output Level slider on the right towards the left (darker) area of the levels bar:

To lighten the background, move the lower Output Level slider on the left towards the right (lighter) area of the levels bar:

Experiment, have fun...then show us what you make.