Let’s Blend Challenge – Extractions

Hello, Joanne here, and welcome to the first Let’s Blend Challenge of 2025. We’re going to start the year off with everyone’s favorite – Extractions! There was a time I would do anything to avoid doing an extraction. Photoshop has now made it so easy with the Object Selection tool. Here is a link to an easy tutorial from Adobe.  I also found a tutorial on how to make selections in Photoshop Elements, for those of you who use that program.

Creative Team Members Shannon and Lori have designed some wonderful examples to inspire you:

Shannon (Shannonr) has created a wonderful nature page by extracting the duck in the foreground and then adding a blended element from one of the Blendable Layers templates. I love how she also added interest by making part of the page black and white and it blended the duck into the water nicely. Products used:  Curated Team Favorites Salmon Creek Scrapbook Kit  Strong Wings Stamp Pack  Scribbled Overlays 04  Fading Photo Masks 01

Lori (lmaggs) has created just the cutest page of her grandson golfing. Her extraction is seamless and the shadowing is perfect. Products used: Spectrum | Gardenia Scrapbooking Bundle  Vintage Mini Mix Kit 11  Vintage Artistry Nature Study Foliage Ephemera  Maybe Not Solids Paper Pack  Flair Mini Sports  Fading Frame Layers 02  Circle Frame Layers 01  Clipped Stack Layers 16

Here is my page – I used a photo of a redtailed hawk that was in my yard last week and flew over the house a few times. She was quite large and it was so fun to grab a few images of her. I extracted her and used a winter paper to create a wintery scene – Totally different from what she was flying around in that day! Products I used: ARToptions Mini Mix No. 10   Printers Trays No. 3  Basic Tags No. 3  Tidewater Add on Paper Pack  Vintage Mini Mix No. 12

A couple of things I do when I am trying to make my extraction blend into a paper: 1. Run it through the harmonize neural filter. That filter changes the tones just enough cohesively blend both images together. 2. Take your flattened image, make a copy of it in the layers panel and run it through an artsy filter. You can use the Filter Gallery, or something like Topaz Studio. This especially works if you want your page to look like its painted. I almost always change the opacity of that layer and then merge the two after. 3. If your extraction is a full on extraction, like Lori’s is on her page, add shadows.

Katie has provided a freebie for you to use if you would like. The only criteria for this challenge is you have an extraction on the page.

Please don’t forget to post your layouts in the Let’s Blend Challenge Gallery, as well as the January 2025 Challenge Participation Thread to earn store rewards.

Happy Blending!

Joanne