Photoshop Elements 2.0
From TechHelp
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[edit] Importing Pictures into Photoshop Elements
NEEDS TO BE EDITED
Digital Cameras
Each digital camera is a bit different depending on the company. The features of digital cameras, and film cameras aren’t completely different. The basic point and shoot concept can be achieved with each camera. The main difference is that a digital camera allows you to take multiple shots, and later delete them from the camera. This can be done because a digital camera stores the pictures you take. The cameras we will be using today use a three and a half inch floppy disc for storage. Newer cameras use flash media or memory cards. These work on a similar principle as a floppy disc, but are much smaller. Another major difference between the film and digital cameras is the viewfinder. On film cameras usually you look through a small looking glass with one eye, with a digital camera you can do this or look at the viewing screen. The last major difference is that digital cameras have two settings that you can move between. One setting is to take pictures, the other is to look at the pictures you have taken. The second setting allows you to view pictures that you have taken and delete those you don’t like. There are a multitude of other features on different cameras such as adding effects to the picture, taking short movies, and creating panoramic pictures.
Once you have taken your pictures you can then import them into Photoshop. To import the photos from your camera you would want to make sure that all the software for you camera is loaded, and then in Photoshop choose File>Import>the name of your camera.
From this point you will have to find the correct folder your camera has created for the pictures. You should be able to see the files in a preview as you import them. It is a good idea to open them and save them with names right away. This way you don’t have a large number of pictures named 0001.jpg. Most cameras save the pictures as jpgs, which is an agreed upon standard in the Photo industry.
Scanners- Scanners much like cameras differ depending on the kind of scanner you have. The basic idea is similar to that of a copier. You take the picture, or photo, and scan it using the scanner. The scanner takes the image information and transfers it into a digital format. The nice thing about scanners and Photoshop is that it can eliminate the use of cutting and pasting that requires scissors and glue. Also it allows you to convert an important document into something that can last a long time, but don’t forget about Copyright. Make sure that you are within the limits of the law. The basics features of a scanner are similar across the board. There is software that comes with the scanner that changes the paper format into a digital format. The scanner has at least two buttons, a scan button and a copy button that will perform either of those tasks without opening any other program. Once again Photoshop allows you to import the scanned image in to the program. This is done much the same way as importing pictures from a camera. You would select File>import>the name of the scanner. This usually opens another menu that allows you to change specific criteria for your photo. This is an example of what the screen may look like. The most important of these are the Source, Output Resolution, and Paper size.
Source tells the computer what is in the scanner. In this case it is set to Platen, which means that the original is paper. The other choice is a Photograph. The output resolution is the next thing you should look at. This determines the dots per inch that your scanner is working at. This is critical when you want to make pictures or print materials large enough to view. Generally 300 dpi is okay for normal paper sizes. If you plan on putting something on the Internet you would want to make the image size smaller, the average size on the Internet is between 72 and 150 dpi. One thing to remember when scanning is the more dots per inch you scan at the longer it will take. The last piece of information that is important is what your paper size will be. This can be important when you finish everything. Once again depending on your scanner things will be a bit different.
Using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) A great feature that can be very useful tool called OCR can turn your paper documents into electronic documents that you can edit. Microsoft word and other programs have a built in feature called OCR, which takes scanned text and looks to see what letters and words it recognizes. The tool isn’t completely perfect, but can be very useful when you want to change an important paper document into something that you can edit. To use the tool in Microsoft Word make sure your computer is connect to the scanner then go to File>Acquire Text which will start the process. Note: Make sure that the document in your scanner is in the correct position so that the top and bottom of the page are oriented correctly.
After you select Acquire Text Microsoft Word will begin by scanning the document that is in your scanner. Once the document has been scanned Word will begin to process the page. This step is called Recognizing the Page. Once the page has been recognized a Proof Reader will appear to double check what the computer sees as characters.
This is similar to a spellchecker, if you know that the word is spelled correctly simply hit ignore if the word isn’t correct enter the correct word in the box labeled Change to:. Once you have finished this process for the page that you have scanned make sure your cursor is at the end of the document and start the process again if you have a document with more than one page. There are other programs that have OCR capabilities such as Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint.
[edit] Using Photoshop Elements
Photoshop is digital imaging software; this powerful program allows you to manipulate your photographs in a variety of ways. The tools that we will learn about today are the basic utilities within Photoshop.
[edit] Saving Photos
Once you have imported pictures from either a scanner or camera you need to save these images. The easiest and most useful format is a jpg. This format works well across almost all programs and computer types, it also is fairly small in size. To save a picture that is open go to File>Save As by selecting this you will be taken to a menu that allows you to save your picture where you would like, name your picture, and select the type. Name your file something that you will remember. Then select from the format drop down menu JPEG. This will bring you to another menu that asks you about compression. Compression takes the pictures pixels, the little squares that make up a picture, and makes them smaller by taking out certain pieces of information (don’t worry the human eye can’t see this).
The different image options that you have in regards to the jpeg compression relate to the quality and size, these are directly related. The better the quality the large the file size. The format options determine the way that the jpeg photo loads on the Internet. The Baseline (“Standard”) works the best for all situations that you might run into whether on paper or electronically.
[edit] Photoshop Element Tools
The tools within Photoshop are diverse and powerful. When you first look at the screen you will see a tool bar on the left. This tool bar holds groups of tools. By holding the cursor over each icon you can see the name of the tool. The tools that we are going to look at are the crop tool, the selection tool, the eyedropper tool, the hand tool, the magnify tool, and the red-eye brush.
Looking at how these tools work will give you an overview of the rest of the tools:
- Crop Tool
- Cropping a picture is when you take certain sections out of the point of view. To do this first you need to select the crop tool. Next you want to select the area you want to keep. The tool forms a rectangle so where you click initially will determine the upper corner. So click and drag using your mouse to select the area you want to keep. Once you have done this, the picture should have an area grayed out. This is what will be cut out. (You can move the area using the boxes at the corners or the one in the middle.)INSERTIMAGE The next step is to right-click which will open a new window that gives you the option to Crop or Cancel..)INSERTIMAGE By selecting Crop you will have a new picture that has eliminated the gray area. This tool is an excellent way to create smaller pictures out of one picture, just be sure to save the picture under a different name when doing this.
- Selection Tool
- The selection tool is grouped with the crop tool and functions in similar ways. This tool allows you to select sections of the picture and either cut them out, or make changes. The selection tool works the same way as the crop tool you select an area and then change it how you would like. One good example is to select an area and add an effect to it. The tool also allows you to select different sized areas to manipulate. Notice the little arrow at the bottom right of the tool this means that there are more tools under this menu. By clicking and holding on the tool you can select the different tools (this applies to all of the tools).
- Lasso Tools
- The lasso tools are similar to the selection tool but allow you more precise selection of elements in the photo. The lasso tool itself allows you to select parts of the image in any type of form. For more precise selection of elements in your photo using the Polygonal Lasso tool will allow you to create points around the image. The Magnetic Lasso tool is a nice tool to use for selecting certain parts of images without having to select the points yourself. The Magnetic lasso looks for color variation between what you are trying to select and the rest of the image.
- Magic Wand Tool
- This tool can be useful when you want to select a certain color within an image. If you wanted to select the black shirt of a person in a picture that you were working on by selecting the Magic Wand tool from the menu and click on their shirt you will select any of the Black that Photoshop thinks is close to that color. You can add to the selection by clicking on the Add to a Selection button at the top right hand corner of the workspace. These buttons also let your make a New Selection, Subtract from a Selection, and Intersect a Selection.
- Selection Brush
- This tool works in much the same way as the selection tool, but it allows you to make a smaller selection. By clicking on the tool you can simply click and drag over an area that you want to select. The tool will also add to an area that you have selected using the Selection tool, Lasso Tools or the Magic Wand tool.
- Move Tool
- This tool allows you to move anything that you have selected in the picture. If you have multiple layers and would like to move something make sure that you are on that layer. (See Layers Below)
- Red-eye Brush
- This tool and those that surround it are for changing the colors within the picture. The first thing to do is zoom-in on the area that we want to fix. I find it easier to work on the image this way. Once you are comfortable with your work area select the red-eye tool. The way the red-eye tool works is that you take a sample of the eye that isn’t red and then replace that with the new color. If you know some ones eyes are brighter than the color that is sampled you can change the color by going to the toolbar at the top of the screen that looks like the picture below..) INSERTIMAGE To change the color you are fixing the red eye with click on the box labeled replacement. This will open a box with a wide range of colors that you can choose..) INSERTIMAGE The last set of tools are grouped together because they don’t manipulate the picture, but parts of the tools.
- Brush and Pencil tool
- These two tools are similar in their application and use. They both allow you to add colors in lines or shapes, depending on the brush that you select. After you have selected a color you can click and drag with the brush to draw your shapes.
- Bucket
- The Bucket tool allows you to fill areas of the picture that you have selected with the color of your choice. This is a quick way to add color to a large area.
- Gradient
- The gradient tool adds shading to your image. The effect looks similar to shading on images.
- Eyedropper
- The eyedropper allows you to choose a specific color from a picture. Perhaps you are trying to find that shade of red for a stop sign, which you are changing to go. This tool allows you to find the exact color you are looking for.
- Magnify
- This tool is very useful to zero in on certain parts of the picture. Perhaps you need to fix the red-eye in the picture, or want to see a smaller area of a picture. This tool does just that.
- Shape Tools
- Photoshop has a wealth of shapes that you can add to your photo or even create your own image by adding images to a new document.
- Type Tools
- There are several Type tools for adding text to an image. The Horizontal and Vertical type tools will let you add colored text to your image. The Mask type tools will let you type on your image and either cut out the shapes of the text or create text that is colored like the area you have typed in. Think of the Mask tools as Alphabet cookie cutters.
- Hand Tool
- The hand tool is used when a picture has been magnified and you want to find a specific point, instead of using the scroll bars.
- Color Picker
- While you are working in Photoshop and want to know which colors the tools will be using you want to look at the color picker at the bottom of the tool bar. This area displays the colors that you are working with. If you want to change the colors simply double click on the box and you will be brought to a color picker for selecting colors.
[edit] Layers
A powerful tool within Photoshop is the ability to create layers. Layers are like multiple overheads that give you the ability to create layered photos. This may come in handy when you want to apply different effects to photos or create a collage of photos. You can create layers in a lot of different ways on is to go to the Layer>New Layer this will create a blank layer which you can add information to. Photoshop also creates layers by itself if you are adding text to a picture or adding a shape Photoshop will create a layer for that individual shape or layer. To see what layers are part of you photo go to Window>Layers. The Window menu will also let you select other menus that you may find useful as you begin to use Photoshop Elements.
Printing- You can print the picture as you normally would, remember though your picture may not be 8 ½ by 11. However there are two additional settings allow you to print multiple images per sheet, these are under File>Print Layout. One is called a Contact Sheet that is a set of thumbnails images on a page. This allows you to see what the pictures will print like. Once you find that you like the photos and would like to print 2x3s or 5x7s select File>Picture Package. This allows you to print different numbers of standard size pictures.
Image Menu-
This menu allows you to do very useful things to the complete pictures. Duplicate Image takes the image that you have selected and creates another named imagename-copy. This is a quick way to create multiple images. Rotate allows you to rotate the image clockwise or counter clockwise. You can enter your own numbers or rotate either 90? or 180?. Resize allows you to change the Image or Canvas (the white area around the picture) size. Enhance has different setting to change your picture to what Photoshop guesses it should look like. Layer this is a powerful tool. By creating layers you are in a sense creating a 3 dimensional picture in 2 dimensions. Think of a layer as an overheard overlay. Layers allow you to make changes to part of the picture then lay it on top of the other. This allows you to make a lot of changes to the image. The Window menu is where you can open the different menus to see other options, such as color selection. The Select menu gives you options that are also helpful. Things such as select all and select inverse. This gives you the ability to cut out or manipulate very specific pieces of the image.
