Hi all - just wondering whether anyone can tell me whether I should be able to create a flower similar to this one in Elements, or would this likely have been done in another program?

Any suggestions as to how I might go about drawing something like this would be much appreciated!

Thanks,
Claire

Claire,
This drawing looks like a vector drawing such as those made with softwares like Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape. On the other hand, it could have been created from a real photograph and reworked in Photoshop or Elements and possibly vectorized afterwards.

The full Photoshop has the pen tool, which creates vector shapes, so it would be theoretically possible to create such drawings from scratch, but it would be far easier to do with a vector software (Inkscape is free).

So, what could you do with Elements which has no pen tool?

There is a very affordable software (Elements+) which offers transforming selections or pahts into vector shapes, which you can save as layers in a PSD format file. In your example, you could start with a photograph of a real flower, then use a tutorial for transforming the photo to a simili drawing (try the filter: find edges to get an idea of the first step). Then you could simplify the drawing with the threshold filter and paint or erase to get a cleaner drawing. With Elements+ you could select the drawing and transform it to a shape (you can smooth the outlines).

Anyway, if you want to create drawings from scratch, you'll need a vector program like Inkscape. Even if you create your first step as above, you'll probably need to enhance it in a software like Inkscape or Illustrator.

Interesting question. That's not something I've ever done. There are so many free brushes for Photoshop; I'd try to find a brush I like instead of creating the flower from scratch.

Courtney