What this book covers

Chapter 1, Photoshop Elements Features Overview, introduces you to detailed explanations of exactly how the different parts of Photoshop Elements operate. It includes a clear examination of its Home Screen, the Organizer, the all-important Edit workspaces (Quick, Guided, and Expert), how Elements works with its video-editing sister application, Premiere Elements, and a detailed overview on how all the different Panels function.

Chapter 2, Setting Up Photoshop Elements from Scratch, helps you overcome your first hurdle of buying and installing the software. The next step is to learn how to set up the application to produce the quickest and most efficient results. This chapter deals with how to prepare your camera (by setting the correct color space in the camera), the best practices for imaging computers (both Windows and Mac), and understanding the differences between file formats.

We then look at how to set up a computer for photo editing, plus, importantly, how to back up your work effectively. This chapter then describes the best ways to start by importing picture files into the Organizer, plus all the techniques Elements provides for organizing the work, such as keywords, albums, tags, and metadata. Also, it describes how to manage those all-important catalogs, plus some ideas on the benefits of working with third-party plugins.

Chapter 3, The Basics of Editing, discusses the editing workflow and suggests a number of best practices. It illustrates how to get started with image editing by covering a range of topics, including the business of editing RAW files, understanding picture resolution, including the process of resampling files to make them larger, cropping images, straightening horizons, and using the Instant Fix feature in Organizer.

Besides getting started with the absolute basics, this chapter covers how to work with Version Sets and autocorrection tools, as well as showing you how to master contrast, color, sharpness, clarity, skin tones, and black-and-white conversions. Once you understand this, you are pretty much set up to move on to basic, but effective, retouching techniques, including using the fun Adjust Facial Features function and the surprisingly effective Open Closed Eyes feature.

Chapter 4, Image Makeover, helps you to learn photo editing by seeing it working in practice. In this chapter, we look at several different image makeovers that include dealing with the problems encountered when fixing poor contrast and brightness, how to get the most out of a RAW file, perfecting color inconsistencies, mastering the retouching (Healing) brushes, and how to combine multiple images to create one complete collage.

Chapter 5, Easy Creative Projects, looks at some truly impressive and highly useful features of Photoshop Elements. This began as a project-based application, and it has continued to expand its repertoire, both creatively and practically. In this chapter, these features include finding additional inspiration through the Home Page, adding artistic effects, creating wide-screen panoramas, shooting and making random jigsaw panoramas, delving into Elements' amazing Photomerge feature (with its Scene Cleaner), putting together a slideshow, creating custom calendars and greetings cards, and finishing off with how to create your own customized Facebook or blog page.

Chapter 6, Advanced Editing Techniques, shows more advanced features that you'll be ready to tackle once you get the hang of the editing basics described in Chapter 3 and the techniques practiced in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5. These features can easily be picked up to learn specific techniques, or used for a huge range of different photographic projects.

We describe how to use Adjustment Layers for lossless editing, how to use the powerful Clone Stamp retouching brush, and how to work with the power of Layers.

This chapter also deals with how to use custom text in connection with Blend Modes, how to edit using pseudo layer masks, how to combine pictures to make posters and flyers, how to correct perspective distortion, and how to work with text styles and special effects.

Chapter 7, Advanced Drawing and Painting Techniques, shows the astonishing range of design and layout features of Photoshop Elements. If you envisage yourself shifting away from pure photography in the direction of design, this is the chapter to visit as we highlight some of Elements' best design and illustration features.

These include the best ways to master the handy layout helpers located in the View Menu, the benefits of using a graphics tablet (over a mouse), how to use Elements' many brushes, and engaging you in some simple drawing exercises.

The chapter then shifts gear to highlight a range of features that include the Color Replace Tool, the Preset Manager, how to locate, import, and work with custom brushes, illustrative vectors, custom text effects, and finally, getting the most out of the program's many, varied effects' filters.

Chapter 8, Exporting the Finished Work, encourages you to consider export options once your masterpiece has been fully edited. In this chapter, we look at the various resolution requirements for different social media platforms, as well as how to prepare files for print. Because so many photographers are now so reliant on the internet, it's important to get a handle on how to prepare images for best display (using the Save for the Web feature), as well as how best to sharpen files for different print and online applications (including how to use the amazing Haze Reduction tool).

Finally, this chapter takes a good look at how to export multiple instances of your work (with Export as New Files), as well as how to bulk-process files using the effective Process Multiple Files utility.

Chapter 9, Best Practices, looks at how to fix all those things that can go horribly wrong when trying to manage a database of thousands, or tens of thousands, of images, when processing damaged or poor quality files, or when dealing with images that are not 100% sharp.

One of the best places to start is the amazing Find menu, which allows you to locate missing files based on a wide range of criteria, to adjust dates for different time zones, to re-instate a lost or damaged Catalog, to resize files via the resampling feature, and to deal with gross over- and under exposure.

In this section, you'll also find information for fixing, or at least improving, less-than-perfectly-sharp files, how to extend your editing prowess using the amazing Photomerge Face and People Swap features, shift large objects around your image with the Content Aware Move Tool, or indeed change the composition using the impressive Recompose feature.

Appendix, Common Feature, features a breakdown of all the features found in Photoshop Elements.