WIN: gradient in specific area

Hallo,
Every now and then you see pictures in black and white where, around the head of the person portrayed, you see the background lighting up, as to draw the attention to the person. In a darkroom one would mask of parts of the photo while exposing. Can this be done in Elements 2.0 ?
Thanks, Sjef

Sjef,
Can you give us an example? You can post free pictures at <http://www.pixentral.com>.

Sjef,

There are various ways to do this, here are 2:

A. 1. Duplicate background layer
2. Create new layer and fill with white (Edit>Fill layer - white)
3. In layers palette, drag this layer between the other two layers
4. On top layer of stack, make a selection, for example with the
elliptic marquee tool,then go to select>inverse, go to
select>feather (try 25)
5. Press delete on keyboard

B. 1. Duplicate background layer, then shut off visibility
of background layer by clicking on its eye icon
2. Create new layer and fill with 50% gray (Edit>fill)
This layer should be at the top of the stack in the layers
palette. Set the blending mode to overlay
3. Go to Filter>Render>Lighting effects. Here there are
available a plethora of effects, such as spotlight, and in
various colors if you so desire. The size of the effect is
adjustable from within the selection box, but one can also
fine tune the effect with the eraser tool applied to the 50%
gray layer.

Hope that this helps. Let us know how you make out.

Ken

Sjef,

Respectfully, Adobe has just released version 4. I would suggest you
consider downloading the full operational trial version. I'm not sure I
understand why you are looking at 2.0.

Cheers

Well, Jim, a lot of hardware, like the Graphire 3, still comes bundled with PE 2.

Ohhh... Thanks Barbara.

Shortly after I'd sent it, I'd realized it might just have been a question
regarding a technique and that he actually owned it... I think I need sleep.
:-)

Cheers

Thanks for all your remarks. Kenneth, I will try the two options. The reason that I own Elements 2.0 is that is came with the Nikon Coolscan. It was my intention to buy version 3.0 (as it makes 16 bit possible) but maybe I wait for version 4, or getr CS instead.
Thanks !!

Sjef,

You can run both on the same computer, just not simultaneously. The download
is 384 megabytes. I am trying it now and it installed smoothly on my
notebook (PIII 800 with 512 megs Ram) with XP Home running on it.

Cheers

OK, so I did download elements 4, the installation was straightforward. But now I'm trying to open my NEF nikon raw pictures and it doesn't know what I'm talking about.

Yes, I've solved this by copying the NEF plugin file from the plugin folder in Elements 2 to the plugin folder in Elements 4.
Now it recognises the file format.

Awesome Sjef,

Thanks for letting us know.

Cheers