Step 7: Select The 111-pixel "Rough Flat Bristle" Brush

We're going to switch brushes now and touch up the edges to enhance the painted look. Once again, right-click (Win) / Command-click (Mac) anywhere inside the image to bring up the Brush options dialog box, scroll down to near the bottom of the list of available brushes, and this time, click on the 111-pixel brush directly below the one we just used, the Rough Flat Bristle brush:

Step 8: Paint Small Strokes Around The Edges To Enhance The Effect

With the new brush selected, and making sure the layer mask, not the layer itself, is still selected in the Layers panel, go around the edges and paint small strokes to add some specks and paint splatters, enhancing the effect. The trick here is to keep most of the brush inside the already painted area so only a small percentage of it is extending out beyond the edges. You don't want to overdo it here. Allow only a tiny bit of the brush to extend into the white area and paint with very short strokes. Even simply clicking an area once with the brush can be enough. Again, if you feel you made a mistake, press Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac) to undo and try again. There's no pressure to get it right the first time, so feel free to experiment:

Our painted edges effect is complete! You could stop here if you wanted, but I'm going to take things further and make it look as if the photo was printed on canvas, and we're going to do it in a way that allows us to re-use this Photoshop file as a template for other photos with no repeat steps. We'll do that next.

Step 9: Add A New Layer Above The "White Background" Layer

With the "white background" layer selected (it doesn't matter here if the layer or the layer mask is selected, either one will do), add a new layer. This time, let's use the keyboard shortcut, Shift+Ctrl+N (Win) / Shift+Command+N (Mac), which brings up Photoshop's New Layer dialog box:

Inside the dialog box, rename the new layer we're creating to "Canvas", as I've circled in red above. Nothing else needs to be changed, then click OK and Photoshop will add the new layer above the "white background" layer and will name it "Canvas":

We named it "Canvas" because this layer is going to contain our canvas effect, as we'll see in a moment.

Step 10: Fill The "Canvas" Layer With White

Just as we did with the "white background" layer, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Backspace (Win) / Command+Delete (Mac) to fill this layer with white, since white is still our background color:

Our image is once again hidden from view, but that's okay for the moment.

Step 11: Apply A Canvas Texture To The Layer With The Texturizer Filter

We're now going to apply a canvas texture to this layer. Go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, select Texture, and then select Texturizer, which brings up the massive Filter Gallery dialog box showing us the options for the Texturizer filter over on the far right:

I've circled the options we're interested in with red above. Make sure Texture is set to Canvas, Scaling is set to 100%, Relief is set to 4, and the Light direction is set to Top. Click OK and Photoshop will apply the texture to the "Canvas" layer:

We can see the canvas texture but we can't see our image. We're going to fix that next.

Step 12: Change The Blend Mode Of The "Canvas" Layer To "Multiply"

We're almost done. Just a couple more quick steps to go. In order to see our image through the canvas texture, we're going to change the blend mode of the "Canvas" layer. Go up to the blend mode options at the top of the Layers panel, click on the down-pointing arrow to the right of the word "Normal", and select Multiply from the list:

As soon as we do that, our image becomes visible behind the texture:

Step 13: Lower The Opacity Of The "Canvas" Layer

The texture effect is too intense though, so let's reduce it, and we can do that by lowering the opacity value of the layer. Go up to the Opacity value in the top right corner of the Layers panel, click your mouse directly on the word "Opacity" to bring up Photoshop's "scrubby sliders", then drag your mouse to the left to lower the opacity. I'm going to lower mine quite a bit, down to 30%:

And there we go, here's my final result with the painted edges effect and the canvas texture lowered to an opacity value of 30%:

The effect is complete. Save your Photoshop .PSD file at this point, since we can now use it as a template to quickly add this same effect to other photos, as we'll see in the final section of this tutorial.

Our "Painted Edges On Canvas" effect is done, and our Photoshop .PSD document is saved. So what if we have another photo that we want to apply this same effect to? Do we have to go through all these steps again? Nope, we sure don't.

Let's take a look at what we have in our Layers panel now that we've gone through all the steps to create the effect:

We have three layers in total. First, at the bottom is our original Background layer containing the photo. Above that is our "white background" layer containing our painted edges effect. Finally, at the top is our canvas texture layer. Now let's say I have a different photo that I want to use this effect with. I'll use this photo below:

I want to apply the exact same effect to this photo without having to repeat any of the steps. How do I do it? Easy.

Step 1: Select The Background Layer In The Painted Edges Photoshop File

Going back to my "Painted Edges On Canvas" .PSD file, I'm going to click on my Background layer in the Layers panel to select it:

Step 2: Select The Move Tool

Grab the Move tool from the Tools palette, or press the letter M:

Step 3: Drag The New Photo Into The Painted Edges Effect Document

With the Move tool selected and the Background layer selected in the "Painted Edges" Layers panel, click anywhere inside the new photo's document window and drag it into the "Painted Edges" effect document window:

Hold down the Shift key before releasing your mouse after dragging the new image into the effects document, and that will automatically center it in the document.

Let's look at the "Painted Edges On Canvas" document's Layers panel now that I've dragged in my new photo:

Because I selected the Background layer here before dragging the new photo into the document, Photoshop automatically placed the new photo on a new layer directly above the Background layer, effectively blocking the original photo from view, while keeping the two effects layers above it so they remain visible, and the new photo has now replaced the original photo in the effect, without having to redo any of the steps:

Works great with portrait shots as well:

And there we have it!

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