Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 1 i Photoshop Elements The Complete Manual

BDM’s Complete Manual Series Photoshop Elements Elements is a photo editor and organiser that gives you the control to find, catalogue, edit and share your favourite images effortlessly. It is very likely that in this digital age, the number of photos you have on your computer is vast. It is very easy to take photos and deposit them on your computer and never look at them again. It is also likely that you have photos that you really like but that might be underexposed, badly lit; or could be improved if you were able to remove an annoying background distraction. You may even want to cut your subject out, put it into another scene entirely and create a new look for an image. If you’ve ever wanted to do more with…

STARTING WITH PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS The Elements Home Screen We start the journey by becoming more familiar with all the module environments you will be working with. Welcome Home When you open Adobe Photoshop Elements 2019, you are presented with a Home screen. This simple screen is your gateway to the Photo Editor program or the Organiser. The third option available is to activate the Adobe Premiere Elements Video Editor, if you have purchased that as well. If not, it will ask if you want to download a trial version. You also have the option at the top of the Home screen to search for help on things you want to achieve in the programs or to click on any of the featured Try This guides and What’s New items and…

STARTING WITH PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS The Expert Mode Workspace For those who have developed their skills to the point where they are comfortable getting more hands-on with their images. 1 The File Menu Most of the File menu options will be made available to you in this particular workspace, since all the tools and effects parameters are there to be used manually with little or no guidance from the program. 2 The Open Button Common to each workspace, click on the Open button to view any recently active images you have been working on or to create a new blank file ready to be worked on. 3 The Tools Panel This panel contains all the essential tools you are going to need for powerful and flexible image editing. It is broken down into View,…

STARTING WITH PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS Guided Mode Categories Here is a quick reference sheet of all the current guided tutorials available in Adobe Photoshop Elements 2019. Your Guide At the time of writing, there are currently 53 guided edits available in Adobe Photoshop Elements 2019. They can be accessed from the Guided workspace page and are distributed under six categories. Each one has a small before and after slider that gives you a quick overview of what each effect is designed to achieve. Easy-to-follow guides Just as the name suggests, the Guided mode is designed to help you produce a number of creative and artistic effects by taking you through the process in numbered steps. It is a semi-automatic edit where you click various available options and Elements does the rest…

USING ADOBE CAMERA RAW The Camera Raw Interface Part Two Our journey around the Adobe Camera Raw interface continues with more of the tools to bring the most out of your photos. 9 Full Screen Mode Clicking this button lets you toggle the full screen mode. When you do, no file menus will be visible until you toggle full screen off again. 10 Shadow Clipping Shadow Clipping is there to warn you if any of the darkest tones in your photo become solid black. A blue highlight will appear to warn you which parts of the photo are clipped. 11 The Histogram This is a graphical representation of the distribution of colour and tonal values throughout the image. The amount of tones in any given part of the tonal range are shown as peaks…

GETTING ORGANISED The Organiser Workspace Before you dive in and start using the Organiser and its tools, it’s worth taking a look at the workspace and how its tools are arranged. Find it Use Elements Organiser to organise and share your photos and media files. You can view thumbnails of all your favourite images and media you’ve imported. You can view a large thumbnail of a single media file or smaller thumbnails of many media files. You can fix the most common problems in the media files by using the tools in the Instant Fix tab of the Task panel. 1 The File Menu The File menu options appear in the top left of the menu bar. These are the basic methods for interacting with the program, managing your catalogues and…

GETTING ORGANISED Putting Names to Faces Now that you’ve tagged a few photos, let’s move over to the People workspace. Your library was scanned for all faces present in the photos and then displayed here. Now you can tag these people and literally put names to faces to aid you in your search for friends and family. 1 Click on the People tab to open the workspace for tagging faces. Just like the main Media view, you can view the contents of selected folders or click the All People button for a view of every face that has been found in your entire catalogue of images; this includes those in the UnNamed category. 2 The view you are presented with is a thumbnail portrait of each individual face that has been identified.…

THE ELEMENTS EXPERIENCE The Elements Experience We hope that by now you feel like you’ve had a good introduction to what Adobe Photoshop Elements is all about. There’s a lot more to come on the following pages but before we dive in further, we thought it would be great to show you a series of quick tutorials exploring the vast range of techniques and tools available. There’s everything, from making a panorama from multiple images, to putting pictures inside text. Take a look and enjoy the Elements experience.…

THE ELEMENTS EXPERIENCE The Elements Experience 3 Replace Background Hopefully it isn’t an exaggeration to say that cutting one subject out of a photo and transplanting it into another is one of the core photo manipulation tasks that everyone has encountered or at least thought about when perusing their photo collection. Well, there is a great Guided edit to help you do just that. 1 In the Guided workspace, you will find the Replace Background edit under the Special Edits category. Put the photo you want to work on in the Photo Bin. 2 Choose from the available tools to select your subject. The Quick Selection tool should work well on our subject. Drag inside the edge of subject to select them. 3 Use the tool options to subtract areas that stray outside what…

THE ELEMENTS EXPERIENCE The Elements Experience 6 Multi-photo Text Creating visual text with a photo inside each letter can be a laborious process, particularly if you are working with a long word. Once again, the Elements Guided workflow has a guided edit that can take the work out of the process, so you can enjoy what you are creating. 1 The Multi-photo Text guide is in the Fun Edits section. With your chosen background photo open, you’re ready to then click on the Multi-photo Text icon. 2 Use the Type Tool first to add your text, alter its style and size using the Tool Option panel. You can also specify how it fits your photo. 3 When you click the Create Frames button, each letter is converted to a frame ready for you to…

YOUR GUIDE TO IMAGE EDITING Your Guide to Image Editing The great thing about Adobe Photoshop Elements is that it can cater for all skill levels when it comes to image editing, digital manipulation and creating new works of art. Whether you are a complete novice who is starting out and wanting to learn the ropes or an experienced digital artist who needs more advanced tools to complete their project, Photoshop Elements has all the power and sophistication you need to get the most out of your photos.…

YOUR GUIDE TO IMAGE EDITING Using the Photo Editor Expert Mode Don’t be put off by the title of Expert. In this case, you get more tools to play with and you can actually be more involved in the editing process. You can switch out to another mode, but to truly unlock the power of the program, you will want to try out some image editing in this mode. 1 We have opened another image that needs some fixing. It is a sunrise on the moors that is a little underexposed and needs some work to bring out the foreground, while keeping the sky relatively untouched, since that is quite well exposed. This is where the use of layers and masks will help us out. 2 First, the colour balance needs to…

YOUR GUIDE TO IMAGE EDITING Draw, Fill, Shapes and Text The Draw section of the toolbar contains various elements to let you paint, draw, erase and sample colours in your images. There are also a number of text options available for adding text effects to your photos and making masks in the shape of any text that you type. Brush Tool 1 The Brush Tool (B) is one of the most often used tools in the photo editor’s arsenal. Whether you are painting directly over a photo, or adding brush strokes to a layer, the Brush Tool is designed to behave like its real world counterpart but with more powerful features built in. 2 When you click on the Brush Tool, the options available are quite varied. You can control brushes with…

TAKE YOUR SKILLS FURTHER Sky Replacement Blue skies are wonderful. They mean we are having a lovely sunny day. This is particularly meaningful if you live in the UK, which is often the butt of jokes about its horrible weather. No better time then to get out and take some photographs. The only problem you may find if you’re anything like us, is that landscapes shot on days like this can look a little dull. The light is great, but the sky is lacking in any drama and it’s just a big, blue, empty canvas. Sometimes the sky is lovely but it’s in the wrong part of the image in relation to the landscape you were trying to shoot. Well, there is an answer to your woes with sky swapping.…

TAKE YOUR SKILLS FURTHER Dodging and Burning Dodging and burning have their roots in the days of analogue photography, long before digital cameras and computers were in use. Dodging refers to the technique of lightening an image at the darkroom stage by reducing the exposure of a photographic print in specific areas. Burning is the opposite, where parts of the image are exposed for longer onto the print, making those areas darker. With the advent of digital technology the process is done on a computer but the basic principle and its terminology remain the same. In our example we had a basic image that was lacking in contrast; using the dodge and burn techniques, brightness and contrast was selectively added to produce a much stronger image. 1 Begin by opening a…

GLOSSARY Glossary For your reference, we have listed many of the terms you’ll encounter as you become more experienced with photo editing. Active layer The layer currently selected in the Layers panel. Adjustment layer A layer that lets you apply colour and tonal adjustments to your image without permanently changing pixel values. Use adjustment layers to experiment with colour and colour tones. You can think of an adjustment layer as a veil through which the underlying layers are seen. Adobe Bridge Bridge is a browser application produced by Adobe Systems as part of the Creative Suite and is usually installed alongside Photoshop. Its main function is as the file management hub of the Creative Suite. It can be used to open, manage, rate and rename files as well as edit…

STARTING WITH PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS Starting with Photoshop Elements If you are new to Photoshop Elements, cataloguing your photos and digitally manipulating them may seem like a whole new world you have to conquer. Do not worry though, we will guide you through the basics and get you started on your way to becoming a skilled user of the software. We hope to have you importing, tagging, organising and editing your photos like a pro in no time at all. With that in mind, let’s begin the journey and get you more familiar with how it all works.…

STARTING WITH PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS The Quick Mode Workspace For fast and simple edits, this is the mode to get you editing quickly, with one-click results for better photos. One-click Power Although this mode is designed to be quick and simple to use, it is still a powerful method to rapidly improve your photos with easy one-click presets that give you instant feedback on how your image will look with the new adjustments applied. There are many filters to choose from and many ways you can adjust your image to make it perfect, so you can share it with the world. 1 The File Menu Although a number of file menu option will not be accessible, the main ones that you need will be available. All the Enhance options are there as…

STARTING WITH PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS The Expert Mode Toolbar All the main editing tools you need in Expert mode are accessible from the toolbar on the left of the workspace. If you’ve used older versions of Elements or Photoshop, the main components of the toolbar will be familiar to you. There have been updates and additions to the tools available but most will be recognisable for what they are and you should be able to get to grips with the newest ones without too much issue. Although each tool has additional options displayed down in the Tools Options Panel, if you hold the Alt key and click on a toolbar icon, you can cycle though all variants of that particular tool to get to the one you want. Here is a…

USING ADOBE CAMERA RAW Using Adobe Camera Raw Most modern digital cameras allow you to shoot in a picture format known as Raw mode. Raw mode is a pure digital readout of the data captured by the sensor. This additional data offers amazing scope when it comes to getting the very best out of your photos. Step inside your very own digital darkroom and take control of the final look of your photos. More than that, see how you can integrate Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and Photoshop Elements for a professional looking workflow solution.…

USING ADOBE CAMERA RAW Camera Raw Processing ACR lets you process Raw files from digital cameras as the first step of your digital photo processing workflow; but you don’t have to stop there. You can process your Raw file and then continue to work with it in the Photo Editor, in either the Quick or Expert editing modes. 1 To begin, you’ll need to open Photoshop Elements 2019 and from the home page click on the Photo Editor icon, this will activate the Photo Editor program. The default is to open in Expert mode. You can access Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) from either the Quick, Guided or Expert mode workspaces. 2 Go to File > Open in Camera Raw (Alt + Cmd + O) to open your file browser and navigate to…

GETTING ORGANISED Setting up Elements Organiser Elements Organiser 2019 gives you complete control over how you import, search, tag, organise and share your photos and videos. Organiser scans your files and analyses your photos and can even find faces ready for you to identify. 1 When you open Elements, you are presented with the Home Screen. Down in the lower right are the programs available to use or to try a free trial. Click on Organiser to activate it and follow any on-screen prompts. 2 There is usually a default catalogue created but you have the option to use the Catalogue Manager to create a custom location for your catalogues. Click the Custom Location and then Browse to the location where you would like to create your custom catalogue. 3 If you are…

GETTING ORGANISED Tagging Photos with Location Data Tagging places is similar to the way you worked with People. There will be Unpinned modes and Pinned modes for those photos that have had their locations identified. We’ve already touched on adding Location tags briefly, but now we can explore the Places workspace in more detail. 1 Click on the Places tab to view the Places workspace. For the moment, you will need to be in the UnPinned category and view all the photos that have yet to have any location data added to them. If you click Group By Time, then they will be displayed in chronological order. 2 If you are using this view, then you can alter the Number Of Groups value displayed in the left hand panel. Moving the slider…

THE ELEMENTS EXPERIENCE The Elements Experience 4 Photomerge Panorama Sometimes, a view is too expansive to capture in one photo unless you have some specialist super wide-angle lens. Luckily, Elements has a Guided edit that can take a series of shots and stitch them seamlessly together to create a super-wide panorama that can stretch from horizon to horizon if needed. 1 In the Guided workspace, you will find Photomerge Panorama under the Photomerge category. Place the sequence of panoramic photos you want in the Photo Bin. 2 Make sure all your photos are selected and choose the type of setting you want. In nearly all cases, the Auto Panorama settings is fine for standard photos. 3 Make sure the Blend Images Together and Vignette Removal boxes are ticked. If you want to fill transparent…

THE ELEMENTS EXPERIENCE The Elements Experience 7 B&W Colour Pop Converting a photo black and white is great for highlighting the text and composition in an image to make it more powerful. There is a slightly creative option to that, where by you convert it to black and white but leave a part of it in colour so the object really stands out and draws you eye. It is referred to as selective colour or in the case of our guided edit example, B&W Colour Pop. 1 The B&W Color Pop edit is found in the Black & White section. Open a photo that you want to add the effect to and then click on the B&W Color Pop icon to proceed. 2 You can click on one of four presets or of…

YOUR GUIDE TO IMAGE EDITING A Guide to Using Layers Layers are one of the fundamental aspects you can employ when it comes to non-destructive image editing. The use of layers has become the very core of image editing since its introduction in the early ‘90s. As you might imagine, layers are exactly what they sound like. You can have a number of separate elements, each on its own layer, that are stacked one on top of the other. When all viewed together, they create the final image. The advantage of using layers is clear. It means you can change an element on one layer only and not have an impact on the rest of the image. It also means that you can take an image and duplicate it on…

YOUR GUIDE TO IMAGE EDITING Selection Tools Some aspects of image editing will require you to select certain areas of a photo so you can either place it on another layer or edit it in isolation from the rest of the image. With Elements, you have a number of options for being able to achieve this and we cover them next. Rectangular Marquee 1 This tool lets you make selections of square or rectangular areas of your image. In addition to making the selection, you can add to it, subtract from it and intersect with it. You can make selections of a fixed size, fixed ratio or normal aspects. You can also feather and refine the edge. Elliptical Marquee 2 The Elliptical Marquee tool behaves in the same way as the Rectangular…

YOUR GUIDE TO IMAGE EDITING Modify, Crop, Move and Recompose The Modify section of the toolbar contains a set of tools that give you the ability to crop in a number of ways and to scale your images but protect certain parts from being affected during the scale. You can also move the subject of your photo from one part of the scene to another. Crop Tool 1 The Crop Tool (C) is the most common method of cutting areas of your photo off in order to change the composition and proportions. When you click the tool, the options panel will display some suggestions for you as to how it thinks the image can be cropped. You can use those or make your own crop. 2 You can use set proportions to…

TAKE YOUR SKILLS FURTHER Frequency Separation Thanks to digital technology you can be a makeup artist and control exactly how you want your subject to look. Naturally, there are numerous ways you can go about retouching skin. Some techniques are very simple but do not give natural results. Some people take it to extremes and end up with their models looking like mannequins. All we are looking to do is make our model’s skin look as healthy and glowing as possible. We are going to use a technique called frequency separation. Simply put, you break the base image down into two components. One layer carries just colour and tonal information, the other layer holds detail and texture. This means you can work on one, without affecting the other. It’s a…

TAKE YOUR SKILLS FURTHER How to Add Rain to a Photo Rain is great, as long as you’re not caught out in it without your umbrella. It is certainly a favourite of cinema to add a more brooding feel to a shot. If you’ve ever seen films like Seven and the Ridley Scott sci-fi classic Blade Runner, you can see that rain is treated almost like a character in its own right. In this tutorial we are going to show you how you can make your own rain and take your images to a different level. We have an example shot of a dog looking very unimpressed by being out in wet conditions. The photo was taken during a lull in the rain, but perhaps the rain can be started…

STARTING WITH PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS What is Photoshop Elements? Let’s take a moment to get to know a little more about the software and how it can help you with your day to day image editing. Adobe Photoshop Elements is a great option for those who want an extensive toolset that can take on most of their image editing needs, without the requirement of highly advanced features such as you would find in Photoshop CC. It is also a great choice for those who only need one-click solutions to their image editing needs, or perhaps want to start to learn how to take on the more involved techniques and tools that Elements has to offer. Another big plus point in its favour is that it is one of the very few…

STARTING WITH PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS The Guided Mode Workspace This mode is great for accomplishing a variety of effects, with a handy guide for each one you use. 1 Category Selector Here can you can select which effect you want to apply to your image. There are six categories of effects to choose from. 2 Basics Contains the Basic effects Brightness and Contrast, Correct Skin Tone, Crop Photo, Levels, Lighten and Darken, Resize Your Photo, Rotate and Straighten, Sharpen and Vignette Effect. 3 Colour This category contains Enhance Colour, Lomo Camera Effect, Remove Colour Cast and Saturated Film Effect. 4 Black & White This section has a number of effects centred around monochrome. Black and White, B&W Colour Pop, B&W Selection, High Key, Line Drawing and Low Key. 5 Fun Edits You can find a lot…

STARTING WITH PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS The File Menu Layout Get yourself familiar with the file menu system and you will see just how powerful the program can be. Adobe Photoshop Elements has many one-click solutions to make your photos look their best but over time you may find the need to dig deeper into the more advanced options that are on offer with the Photo Editor. Many options are presented in the taskbar at the bottom and the panel bar on the right. If you need them however, the File Menu is where you can find all the vital tools. Adobe Photoshop Elements From this menu you can see the About screen and manage any Plug-ins as well as update your Preferences and quit Photoshop Elements. You can also view any…

USING ADOBE CAMERA RAW The Camera Raw Interface Part One Let’s take a look at the ACR interface, see what it has to offer and also how it can integrate with the Elements Photo Editor. In the Raw Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018 comes with Adobe Camera Raw supplied. It is more usually referred to as ACR and lets you process Raw files from digital cameras as the first step of your digital photo processing workflow; but you don’t have to stop there. You can process your Raw file and then continue to work with it in the Photo Editor in either the Quick or Expert editing modes. It is easy to get started. Let’s take a look at the ACR interface, see what it has to offer, and also how it…

GETTING ORGANISED Getting Organised Elements Organiser 2019 is packed with powerful features designed to help you make the most of your photos and videos by organising them and creating albums and catalogues as efficiently as possible. Import and tag your photos with keywords, location data and ratings. If you want, Organiser can auto curate your photo collection, finding the best ones based on image quality, tags and ratings to quickly find your favourite photos. Let’s look at what Organiser can do for you.…

GETTING ORGANISED Tagging and Keywords If your photo library is large and scattered across many folders, it would help if they were tagged and had keywords added to make your searches more streamlined and efficient. Rather than trawling through folder after folder, why not tag them with keywords? 1 From the Home screen, click on the Elements Organiser icon to open the Organiser workspace. We worked in Folder view with the Media tab clicked and all media currently on display. We had some example images of Dartmoor in Devon that we wanted to tag for future reference. 2 We made a folder called ‘Places’ that contained a number of images but only a few of them were relevant to our particular requirement of moorland photos. The first thing we did was to…

GETTING ORGANISED Adding Events Tags to Photos Having talked about who was in a photo and where was it taken, it seems only right to mention how you can search for images when you want to know when something was taken. Now you can tag and group them by the type of event it was and when that event happened. 1 We have an example folder full of various types of events such as weddings, parties and sporting events. When viewed in the Events workspace, they are listed by date order to help you find what you are looking for. They are listed with most recent dates and times first. 2 Much like the People and Places workspaces, the Events workspace has a Suggested category for untagged events yet to be identified…

THE ELEMENTS EXPERIENCE The Elements Experience 5 Meme Maker What is a meme, you may ask? A meme is an image, video or piece of text that is humorous in nature. It is copied and spread around the Internet and social media and often has slight variations added to it. The power of the meme has not gone unnoticed at Adobe, so they have introduced the Meme Maker as one of their Guided edits for you to have some fun with. 1 In the Guided workspace, the Meme Maker is under the Fun Edits category. Make sure you have a suitably worthy image open and ready to go. 2 We have a funny picture of a monkey sticking his tongue out. The first thing to do is to click the Create Meme Template…

THE ELEMENTS EXPERIENCE The Elements Experience 8 Zoom Burst Effect Sometimes you want to add motion to an image that is otherwise quite static-looking. Elements has a few Guided edits that can add a motion effect to your photos to give them a little extra punch. The Zoom Burst Effect is a digital version of an ages old photographic trick where the photographer very quickly zooms their lens as they take the shot to create streaks within the photo to emulate the feel of speed and action. 1 The Zoom Burst Effect edit is found in the Fun Edits section. Open a photo that you want to add the effect to and then click on the Zoom Burst image to proceed. 2 The first step is to crop your image so the main…

YOUR GUIDE TO IMAGE EDITING Methods for Adjusting an Image When it comes to methods for adjusting your images in Elements, you are spoilt for choice. There are a number of methods to get an image looking great. We’ll show you how each one works, with some examples, to help you choose which method suits you best. Quick Mode 1 We start in the Quick mode workspace with a sunrise image of a pier that is in need of some work to make it look its best. The first thing to do is remove that large black spot in the top right corner: probably a bit of mud stuck to the lens, currently spoiling the shot. 2 To remove such a blemish, you can go to the toolbar and choose the Spot…

TAKE YOUR SKILLS FURTHER Take Your Skills Further Now that you’ve experienced what Elements has to offer and how the major tools work, it’s time to try out some more involved projects to help you hone your skills. The Quick and Guided workspaces are all well and good but if you really want to understand more about digital manipulation, then it’s time to fire up the Expert workspace and dive in. There’s an old saying: ‘the best way to learn, is to do’. With that in mind, let’s do it!…

TAKE YOUR SKILLS FURTHER Composite Images Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are part of the same scene. In this tutorial we will be looking at a fairly typical approach for the two main elements of the image which is the grey/neutral background compositing technique. Shooting your main subject against a grey screen gives them a well defined edge that makes the process of blending them into another environment all the easier. Grey screen compositing is the choice of many graphics professionals and is easier to do than you might think. We have a scenario in which we have a photo of a cellist and want to put them into a much grander environment…