Innehållsförteckning för Issue 7 från Photoshop Elements The Complete Manual

Elements is a photo editor and organiser that gives you the control to find, catalogue, edit and share your favourite images effortlessly. If you’ve ever wanted to do more with your photo collection but didn’t need the advanced power of Adobe Photoshop CC, then Elements is for you. Now, thanks to Adobe Photoshop Elements, you have an easy and affordable means to find all those elusive images, organise them and manipulate your favourite ones to make them even better. It is easier than ever to quickly and easily make your images look amazing with just a few clicks of your mouse. From automated and guided edits to hands-on expert modes, you can create exactly what you want. The only thing holding you back is your imagination. Get started with Photoshop…

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 Inspiration articles ranged across the screen. On the extreme top right of the page are buttons for Facebook and Twitter and a Help button that takes…

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, Enhance, Draw, Modify and Colour sections. 4 Document Tab Each image that is open will be marked by a document tab to identify each image. It will display the…

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 for you. Try This Don't forget to check out the inspirational news stories and guide information available on the Home screen. There is plenty to…

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 along the length of the histogram. 12 Highlight Clipping This works in the same way as the Shadow Clipping warning. If any of the brightest highlights in the image are solid white,…

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 finding, tagging and viewing all of your media files. 2 The Import Button From the drop-down menu, you can choose to import photos from various files and folders on your…

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. Below the thumbnail are the words Add Name followed by a number. The number represents how many pictures of that person have been found. 3 If you hover your cursor over any given thumbnail, it displays two options. One shows all the complete photos of that person and the other just shows a small thumbnail of their face…

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.…

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 is required. Then you can use the Refine…

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 click and then select a photo to appear…

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 another layer and perform any edits you want on that one in the knowledge that the base image will remain untouched in case it doesn't turn out…

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 Marquee tool and has the same tool options available. You can make circular and elliptical selections of any size or proportion. If you hold the Alt key, you can centre your ellipse over the cursor position. Lasso 3 The Lasso tool can be used to make area selections from your image or active layer. The shapes you select with the Lasso tool…

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 crop or you can go it alone with no restrictions and make your own crop. Simply click and drag your mouse across the area of the scene that you want to be cropped and a gridded box will show you the current crop. You can click the green commit arrow to proceed. 3 Within the crop tool options you also have the Cookie Cutter Tool (C),…

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 than just a grey background. 1 Go…

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 RGB The RGB colour space profile by Adobe Systems, Incorporated. It provides a large gamut of colours. Aliasing The jagged effect seen at the edges of diagonal lines, arcs and so on, caused by pixels lining up in a sawtooth pattern. Alpha channels These are masks which let you manipulate, isolate and protect specific parts of your images. Anti‑aliasing The smoothing of jagged edges in digital images by averaging the colours of…

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.…

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 well as the Filter Gallery presets. 2 Mode Selector Here can you can exit the current mode and choose to enter the Guided or Expert modes. 3 The Open Button…

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 breakdown of the toolset available in Adobe Photoshop Elements 2019. The Tool Options bar The Tool Options bar appears at the bottom of the Photoshop Elements window and it…

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.…

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 the folder that contains the Raw file you wish to process. Once you have located it, double-click the file or highlight it and press Open at the bottom right of the browser window. 3 The Raw file, in this case a seascape shot in Cornwall, will open in the ACR workspace, as ACR runs in a separate window to…

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 creating a new folder, you can give it a bespoke name and then hit the Create button to make the folder into which your catalogue will be placed. Once you have done that, you can then give a name to your catalogue. We have…

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 left and right, increases the numbers of groups on view for more detailed scrutiny or reduces the number for a broader view of all the photos you are viewing. 3 We have opted to tag a specific group of shots taken at a location called Hound Tor. These shots are kept in a folder called…

Now you need not consign a photo to the trash just because your subjects eyes are shut. Thanks to the latest version of Elements, you can tackle the problem with ease. If you have another example of a face where the eyes are open and they are not too different in terms of their colour and lighting, you can swiftly replace those closed eyes for open ones. This works in both the Quick mode and Expert mode. 1 Open your photo by going to File > Open and navigating to where your primary photo is kept and either double-click the image or select it and press the Open button. 2 Go to Enhance > Open Closed Eyes and you will see the Open Closed Eyes dialog box. Here you can choose your…

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 areas then choose Content Aware Fill Transparent Areas.…

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 you prefer, click on the Select Custom Color button…

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 Healing Brush Tool (J). When you choose this tool, the Tool Option panel displays Spot Healing Brush options. You can choose Spot Healing Brush or Healing Brush to remove the spot. 3 The main difference between the two brushes is that the Spot Healing Brush lets you paint directly over the blemish and then works out what to…

Eye Tool 1 Red-eye is caused by light from the flash of a camera reflecting off the blood vessels at the back of the eye when the pupil is wide open. If you happen to find a favourite photo where your subject has red-eye, then it is a simple process to remove it. 2 Click the Eye Tool (Y) and simply click your cursor over the offending redness in the eyes of your subject. The tool will remove the redness and you can alter Pupil Radius and Darken values to make sure the red has been completely removed. It can also be set for Pet Eye as well. Closed Eye Correction 1 Another great function available in the options panel is the function to open closed eyes. Click the Open Closed Eyes button…

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. It requires your primary photo and…

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 relevant image to work on. Go to…

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 oneclick 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 remaining Adobe products that can be purchased outright, without the need for subscription. A Worthy Alternative There was a time when, in certain quarters, Elements was considered a dumbed-down version of Photoshop with a limited…

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 more creative edits under this category. You have some diverse effects to try out such as Double Exposure, Effects Collage, Meme Maker,…

Adobe Photoshop Elements has many oneclick 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 legal notices or hide the workspace. File One of the key menus you access at the start and end of a session. You can create new documents,…

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 can integrate with the Elements Photo Editor to help you get more out of your favourite photos. 1 Zoom Tool A standard zoom in and zoom out tool that lets you view your image at…

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.…

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 press the Cmd key and left-click each of the required moorland photos. There were five shots in total. 3 Now that the images are selected, you can begin to tag them. The first and foremost requirement is to add a place tag. In the taskbar, click on the Add…

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 and a Named category where any that are tagged as an event will finally be displayed. 3 Click the Number Of Groups slider and push it to the far right Max setting. The media browser will display more time and date options for you to focus in on. We are looking for a particular sporting event, Autocross, which was photographed back…

Guided edits are a simple, quick and fun way to add edits to your photos. Have you ever fancied yourself as a great sketch artist? Well, with the Partial Sketch guided edit, you can instantly turn any of your favourite photos into an artistic rendering with just a few clicks. 1 Open the Elements Photo Editor, go to File > Open and choose a favourite photo; then go to the Guided workspace. The Partial Sketch effect is under Fun Edits. 2 You have four pencil sketch effects to choose from. Click one to activate the sketch brush. Select Add and use the slider to control its size. 3 Paint across your image to reveal areas you want to be converted to a sketch effect. You can always use the Subtract brush, to remove…

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 button to add the basic frame and text.…

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 subject is in the centre of the shot. The…

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 be adjusted. The image is a little too magenta and warm, particularly if you look at the colour of the grass. This can be altered by using a really simple trick that can be really effective and requires the use of layers to do it. 3 Press Cmd + J to copy the Background layer. Name the new layer 'remove cast'. Then go to Filter > Blur > Average. This…

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 your mouse or if you use a tablet, you can control it as if it were an airbrush with pressure sensitive effects for more artistic flair. 3 You can choose any number of brush types from the brush picker and alter the Size and Opacity values. You can also load new brushes that can be purchased and downloaded from a…

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 simple and effective method. 1 Our example…

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 up again, to make the dog even more grumpy. 1 The process…