Adobe Photoshop Elements v 2.0

File Types Four most universal file formats are PSDPhotoshop Document format TIFFTagged Image File Format JPEGJoint Photographic Experts Group GIFGraphics Interchange Format PSD - Photoshop Document Format  Developed exclusively for Photoshop.  Cross-Application Compatibility not good.  Used to store images that needs to be re-edited.  Stores all image data ie. preserves layers, modes, styles, text etc…  Larger than most file formats.

TIFF - Tagged Image File Format  Best cross-application and cross-platform support  No degradation in image quality  Provides several compression options

JPEG- Joint Photographic Experts Group  Compresses image to very small size  Degradation in image quality  Very widely used GIF - Graphics Interchange Format  Used exclusively for web graphics and animation  Maximum of 256 colors  Very small file Less Common File Types EPS - Encapsulated PostScript BMP - Bitmap file PDF - Portable Document Format PICT- Macintosh Picture Format PNG - Portable Network Graphics

Palette Well  Palette well allows you to dock a series of palette windows in a tabbed menu.  Click a palette name tab in the well to open it. You can drag and drop it in the work area Palette Well Palette tabs  Palettes provide a flexible interface to tools and options  Some of the most commonly used palettes are the Filters, Layers, How to

Palettes Layers Palette  Layers are independent images that can be manipulated.  The final image will be made up from all of the layers within the image depending on the order that the layers are in and the transparency levels that are set for each layer.  To make a background as a layer click “layer menu->new->Layer From Background”.

 Click Ok in the window that pops up. Layer0 is created and can be manipulated in the layers palette

Filters Palette  Filters let you apply special visual effects to your images, such as mosaic tile, lighting, and three-dimensional effects.  You can also use some filters to clean up or retouch your photos.  You can't use some filters on images in Grayscale mode, or any filters on images in Bitmap

How to Palette  The How To palette provides activities, called recipes, that guide you through different image-editing tasks.  For example, you can view instructions about restoring an old photograph.  The More button shows several options for the palettes eg. closing the palette back to palette well

Toolbox

Options Bar  Photoshop Elements provides several options for every tool in the tool box.The options are displayed below the Menu Bar in the options bar.  The above image displays options for the Horizontal Type Tool Used to enter text in a image

Tools Marquee Used to make square, rectangular, circular or oval shaped selections Right Click on a tool in the toolbox to display available options. Drag the tool on the picture to make a selection of your shape Lasso The lasso and polygonal lasso tools let you draw both straight-edged and freehand segments of a selection border. With the magnetic lasso tool, the selection border snaps to edges you drag over in the image

Tools Move Used to move selections made in a image. Magic Wand The magic wand tool lets you select an area of similar colors (for example, a blue sky) without having to trace its outline. Selection Brush The selection brush tool lets you drag with a variety of soft-edged or hard-edged brushes to define selected areas Crop Tool Cropping is the process of selecting and removing a portion of an image to create focus. You can crop an image using the crop tool.

Tools Custom Shape tool The custom shape tool provides many different shape options for you to use in your images The shapes can be accessed from the options bar Type Tool You can enter text horizontally or vertically, depending on which type tool you select. The length of a line grows or shrinks as you edit it, but it doesn't wrap to the next line Paint Bucket Tool The paint bucket tool fills an area that is similar in color value to the pixels you click Gradient Tool The gradient tools create a gradual blend between multiple colors. You can choose from existing gradient fills or create your own.

Tools Brush tool The brush tool creates soft or hard strokes of color and can simulate airbrush techniques Pencil Tool The pencil tool creates hard-edged freehand lines Eraser Tool If you're working on the Background layer or on a layer with locked transparency, erased pixels change to the background color; otherwise, erased pixels become transparent. Red Eye Tool Red eye occurs in photos when light from a camera flash reflects off the back of a person's eye. You can easily remove red eye from an image using the red eye brush

Tools Blur tool The blur tool softens hard edges or areas in an image to reduce detail. Sharpen Tool The sharpen tool focuses soft edges to increase clarity. Sponge Tool The sponge tool subtly changes the color saturation of an area. In Grayscale mode, the tool increases or decreases contrast by moving gray levels away from or toward the neutral gray. Smudge Tool The smudge tool either smudges the existing colors in your image or smears new color through your image.

Tools Dodge tool Used to lighten an area of the image Use the dodge tool to bring out details in shadows Burn Tool Used to increase the exposure to darken areas on an image. Use the burn tool to bring out details in highlights.. Eye Dropper Tool The eyedropper tool samples color from an image or even your desktop to designate a new foreground or background color. Clone Stamper Tool The clone stamp tool takes a sample of an image, which you can then apply over another image or part of the same image

Tools Hand tool If you have enlarged your image, you can navigate to bring another area of the image into view using this tool Zoom Tool You can magnify or reduce your view using various methods. The window's title bar displays the zoom percentage.

Menu Bar  The Menu Bar is a graphic user interface that is shared with every application.  You can access all Photoshop elements operations in the Menu Bar.  Two important options in the bar is the Image and Enhance

Image Bar  The Duplicate Image makes and instant copy of the image. Working on duplicates will ensure that your original maintains integrity.  The Rotate menu has several options that lets you turn your image in degrees or flip it.

 The Straighten and crop image used to straighten images with perpendicular edges skewed by partial rotation e.g. misplacement while scanning

 The Crop command is useful when you use a rectangular marquee to designate an area you want to crop  The Transform menu is used to change the size, orientation, or distortion of an image.

 The Resize menu is used to change the overall size of the image  You can change the size of the image, canvas (if you want to add a border to the image) or scale the active layer of the image  The Adjustments menu is to create some special effects or make adjustments to the image

 The Equalize command redistributes the brightness values of the pixels in an image so that they more evenly represent the entire range of brightness levels You might use the Equalize command when a scanned image appears darker than the original  The Gradient Map command maps the equivalent grayscale range of an image to the colors of a specified gradient fill  The Invert command inverts the colors in an image. You might use this command to make a positive black-and-white image negative or to make a positive from a scanned black-and-white negative  The Posterize command reduces the number of colors to that specified. Can be used to make fast loading web graphics.  The Threshold command turns all pixels in the image to either black and white.

 The Mode menu determines whether the image contains only gray scale,256 colors or display all colors

Enhance Menu  The Enhance menu specializes in commands that are used to adjust image brightness, contrast and color balance  To enhance the contrast of an image that has an average distribution of color values, use the Auto Levels command

 The Auto Contrast command adjusts the overall contrast and mixture of colors in an image automatically  The Auto Color Correction command adjusts the contrast and color by identifying shadows, and highlights in the image as a whole

 The Quick Fix command lets you adjust the brightness, color, sharpness, and even the rotation of your image in a single dialog box.

 The Adjust lighting,Adjust Color and Adjust Brightness/Contrast commands are used to manipulate the image manually  For example pictures taken in bright light, where shadows are often so dark that they show little detail. You can lighten such shadows using the Fill Flash command.

 The Adjust color menu has submenu to quickly adjust an image's color balance to remove unwanted color casts or to correct color saturation.  The Remove Color can be used to convert an image to black and white

 The Color Variations command lets you adjust the color balance, contrast, and saturation of an image by selecting previews that show the effect of different adjustments

 The Adjust Brightness/Contrast menu is used to change the brightness and contrast of the image

Tutorials Links for Adobe Photoshop Elements V 2.0 Tutorials  