Creative Effects Challenge No. 151 - Stretched Pixels

[Tom]

A recent thread about how to create a Frame from pulled pixels was received with much enthusiasm.  I searched for more ideas about this technique, but most of what came up had to do with pulled pork, not pulled pixels (LOL!)  Eventually I learned that this technique is more widely known as stretched pixels.  While much of what I came upon was presented using Photoshop, I found that by ignoring the Photoshop-specific bits most everything else works just fine in Photoshop Elements.

For this challenge please feel free to further pursue making a frame from pulled pixels if you like.  It is worth noting that the size of the rectangular selection can strongly impact the "graininess" of the pulled pixel result, which can be exactly what is wanted for a frame.  There are other fun things you can do with this effect however!  Here are some examples of Pixel Stretch Art to get your creative juices flowing.

This is the tutorial that I used as the basis for my image below: Pixel Stretch Effect

(source image from Pixabay)

Here is a similar but more ambitious video from graphic artist Joe Cavazos that condenses 1.5 hours of design work into a 5.5 minute tutorial: S-Shape Pixel Stretch.  Well worth the time to view it!

Finally, the following two posts are mini-tutorials that show you how to accomplish some stretched pixels effects in Photoshop Elements not covered elsewhere on our forum.

If you have any questions or suggestions I trust you know they are welcome, but most of all I hope you have as much fun as I did learning more about this technique!

[Tom]

To achieve the effect in the tutorial above, you need to select a Rectangular Marquee that is 1 pixel tall (or wide).  In Photoshop there is a single-row marquee tool, but it is almost as easy to do in Photoshop Elements.  Here's how:

Mini-tutorial: How to select a single row of pixels in Photoshop Elements

1. Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M)
2. In the Tool Options, select Fixed Size from the Aspect drop-down menu
3. Enter a 1 for either the H or W, and the other dimension to a value that makes sense for your image
4. Click in your image and you will see a line of "marching ants"; position it where you wish to sample the colors you like
   
5. Copy those pixels to a new layer (Ctrl-J)
6. Activate the Transform Tool (Ctrl-T) and then "pull" out the selection using the anchor points in the center of the selection bounding box

Setup for the pixel stretch	Result of the pixel stretch (after hiding the other layers)

[Tom]

To achieve the effect in the tutorial above, you need to create a circle from your stretched pixels. This is done the same way in Photoshop Elements as in Photoshop. Here's how:

Mini-tutorial: How to turn a rectangle into a circle in Photoshop Elements

1. Copy your stretched pixels image into an empty square document
2. Resize/rotate it using the Transform Tool (Ctrl-T) so that it spans the document left-to-right and with the lines horizontal
3. The area above the stretched pixels will become a hole; if you don't want a hole align it with the top of the document
   
4. Select Filter | Distort | Polar Coordinates | Rectangular to Polar and click OK
   

Copy the circular stretched pixels into your working document.  Position and resize it according to your likes.

Before	After