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Digital Photography Special Interest Group

Amazing Photoshop Elements: Layers

Everyone always seems mystified by Photoshop's layers features.

While layers are very complex, I believe that they are often viewed as being more complicated than they actually are.

A layer is simply a picture or transparent layer placed on top of another picture. Think of it as placing clear plastic wrap on top of a photo. By creating a layer, you prevent any damage or change to the base photo.

Here is a quick list of terms that will help you figure it all out:

Layer Pallette: You can see all of your stacked layers in the Layers Pallette.

Amazing Photoshop Elements: Toolbox

Photoshop Elements ToolboxThe Amazing Photoshop Elements Toolbox

There are so many wonderful things you can do with Photoshop Elements.

You will find many of our tips in our notes from previous meetings.

Photoshop Elements Part I

Photoshop Elements Part II

Photoshop Elements Part III

Photoshop Elements Part IV

This time we will spend most of our time discussing the Magical Photoshop Elements Toolbox.

There are three kinds of tools in the Toolbox:

Hover your mouse over any area in the toolbox to see its name. Hold your left mouse button down over any tool with a little diagonal triangle at the bottom to see hidden tools with similar functions.

Selecting: These tools create "Marching Ants" that indicate that an area has been selected. Selection tools include the Marquee Tool, Lasso Tool, Magic Wand and Brush Selection Tool These are all found in the top 5th of the Toolbox.

Once and area is selected, any changes you make will only apply to the selected area.

Painting: These tools "paint" effects by holding down the left mouse button while moving the mouse in the area you want to change. Painting tools include the Paintbrush, Pencil, Erase, Red Eye, Blur, Sharpen, Sponge, Smear, and Clone Stamp tools.

All painting tools allow you to change the area that you are working on by adjusting the brush size and you can apply affects by making changes in the Options bar (tool bar under the file menu that changes when you select a tool).

Custom Tools: These are tools that don't fit into

Taking Better Pictures (Part I)

Taking Better Photos

Part 1 

 

Composing Photos:

 

No reckless shooting of innocent civilians. Take aim, compose the shot and FIRE!

 

Taking Better People Pictures

Taking Better People Pictures:

Taking pictures of people should involve more than just pointing the camera in a person's general direction and pressing the shutter button.

Here are a few ideas and styles for taking great pictures of people.

Remember the rule of thirds.

As a general rule place your subject in 1/3 of the photograph.

<<— Notice how Allen's face is not centered in the photograph. This takes the viewer through the photograph and around the subject.

 

Giving Photos a Professional Look

Giving Photos a Professional Look

Have you ever wondered what makes professional photos look so. . . umm. . . professional?

The following tips will help you create photos that look like you know what you are doing!

Taking Better Pictures:

There are several links in the group archives giving tips on composition. Here are some other helpful tips.

Use the color wheel.

How to Email Your Digital Photos

Emailing Your Digital Photos

A few things to remember:

  • Always save a copy of the ORIGINAL photo

  • You can always go down on resolution, but you can never go up.

  • 72 dpi for email and web – 300 dpi for printing

Photo Restoration

Digital Photo Restoration

Restoring old photos is one of the coolest things you can do in digital photography. The best part is that anyone can do it. All it takes is a scanner and a nice image editing program.

Important Photo Restoration Tools

There are many several tools that you just can't do without when it comes to restoring photos.

Cloning tool

Organizing and Viewing Digital Photos

Organizing and Viewing Your
Digital Photos

The key to organizing your digital photos is sorting them from the beginning.

I begin by saving a folder to my desktop called "Camera pix," but it can be named anything. Inside this folder, I put a folder for each month. Inside each of those folders I make new folders as I need. For example, In my Camera Pix folder for last year I had a folder called December. Inside my December folder I have three other folders, "POL" for Parade of lights, Christmas, and "Misc."

Organizing and Backing Up Photos

Getting organized:

The best way to get your photos organized is to start with a system that works for you.

My system is to create a single folder for all my digital photos on my hard drive. Inside that folder, called "Digital Pictures," I place a sub-folder for each month of the year. In each month's folder I may place more folders for each activity held during that month.

For example: Digital Photos –> April –> Easter –> Grandmas

I then place the digital pictures into their respective folders.