Adobe lesson 1

Adobe lesson 1

by (hacrafter) from HGTV’s Holiday message board.

Elements has many different selection tools but there is a quirk with PE3 when using the lasso tools. You can avoid the problem by not using the Maximize Mode. I use cascade but any other mode should work. Here is how to change window mode. Pic 1

Any time you see a black triangle in the lower right corner of a tool on the tool bar you can click it to expand it and select more tools. Elements provides you with several ways to make selections: marquee, lassos, magic wand and selection brush. Get familiar with all of them because some work better than others in different situations. With the lassos and magic wand, you with have some more options that appear on the top bar. Specify whether to create a new selection, add to an existing selection, subtract from a selection, or select an area intersected by other selections. Just click on the correct option above. These are extremely useful in refining your selections.Note the "L" in the Lasso selections and the black square. The square shows the current selection. The "L" is a way to get to the lasso tool from another tool without having to click on it in the tool box. Look at the Lassos on the bar at the top. When the lasso is selected, the current selection shows first, followed by the others. You can click on these to switch between the lassos, there is also a shortcut which I don't remember. This display shows the basic lasso in subtraction mode. More on lassos later. Pic 2

MarqueeThe marquee tools allow you to select specific shapes: rectangle, oval or circle. You click on the upper left of where you want your selection to start and drag to the lower right. You will be able to reposition your selection if you don’t get it exact. If you want a perfect circle, square or specific ratio, there are more options that appear on the top bar when you select the marquee tool to help you out. To create a square or circle instead of an ellipse, the width and height should be the same. PE2 uses the term “Style” instead of mode. If you are editing multiple photos and need to switch between 4x6 and 6x4, click on the arrows between width and height to switch them. PE2 users, you have to retype them, there is no arrow. Pic 3

LassosOnce the lasso is selected you can change between the lassos at the top of the bar.There are 3 different lasso tools.The Lasso tool draws freehand selection borders. This tool is great for making very precise selections. The Magnetic Lasso tool draws a selection border that automatically snaps to edges of objects you drag over in the photo. This makes it easy to draw precise selection borders and works well for quickly selecting objects with complex edges set against high-contrast backgrounds. The Polygonal Lasso tool draws straight-edged segments of a selection border. You can create as many segments as you need to draw a selection border. To close the border manually, drag back over the starting point and click. A closed circle appears next to the pointer when you are over the starting point.To close the border with a freehand magnetic segment, double-click or press Enter (Return).To close the border with a straight segment, double-click while holding down the Alt (Windows) or Option (Macintosh) key.Magic WandThe Magic Wand tool selects pixels within a similar color range with one click. You specify the color range, or tolerance, for the Magic Wand tool’s selection. Use the Magic Wand tool when you have an area of similar colors, like a blue sky or an all white flower.Selection BrushThe Selection Brush tool makes selections two ways. You can paint over the area you want to select in Selection mode, or you can paint over areas you don’t want to select using a semi-opaque overlay in Mask mode. You can first make a rough selection with other tools and then fine-tune your selection with the Selection Brush tool, adding to or subtracting from the selection by switching between Selection mode and Mask mode.Selection Tip: Always zoom in very close to inspect you selection before finalizing it. You can move around the zoomed image around with the hand tool. Select the hand on the tool bar or H from the keyboard. You can Zoom with the magnifying glass and the maginifying glass with the “+” zooms in (Ctrl +) and the one with the “-“ zooms out (Ctrl Pic 4

Take your time when making a selection. Look up very close. Pic 5

You can use the selection tool of choice with the "add to selection" to clean up anything you missed.Because there is a very high contrast between the rock and the water, the magic wand would not have been my first choice in selection tools but I wanted to show you why. Even though it seems to be one big black rock, there is enough variation in the pixels that selecting the wrong part of the rock with the wand can yield this result. With the wand it all depends on where you click, other initial selections weren't so bad. I would typically use the magnetic lasso for an area like this but heed my warning about your window settings. If you use a lasso near the edges in maximize mode it can be hard to control. Pic 6

Now your thinking "Ok, hacrafter why do I care about selection parts of my photos"? If you want to take my other classes, you'll need this. It also important for editing pieces of the photo which don't come out quite right like this one. To change the black blob back to a rock you need to select this to adjust the photo light only there. Pic 7

Here it is fixed up but we aren't done yet. This photo doesn't fit the 4x6 format. However, you'll have to wait for cropping to know how we handle that. Pic 8

This concludes the lesson on selection tools. I hope I didn't upset the class coordinator since I didn't sign up to post this but this makes a good trial run for me to make sure I'm on the right track with the amount of information and how often you want editing topics posted. I'd like to eventually build these into a web page.

I didn't cover the brush options - resizing the selection brush or some of the other options that appear with the various selection tools. You can find help in the tool or feel free to ask questions.Play with the tools. Try different tools with different types of photos and see what works best for you in different circumstances.Tips:Sometimes it is easier to select what you don't want than to select what you do want. Usually the magic wand with handle the full sky. You can reverse the selection by Select-->Inverse from the pull down menu or Sift+Ctrl+I.You can save selections for future use. You can modify their size. Try out some of the options on the Select pull down.Trouble shooting. Each tool remembers what its settings were so if you switch from the lasso which was in add mode to the magnetic lasso which was in subtract mode the last time you used it, you may find yourself subtracting from a selection your trying to add to. Remember that Ctrl Z will undo your last change so you can switch to add mode and redo it.We haven't talked about layers yet so keep this in mind for the future. When you complete your selection, make sure you are on the layer you want to be on before altering your selection. Sometimes you will get an error message that no pixels are selected. This can be for 1 of two reasons: your in the wrong layer and there are no pixels there for the layer in in or your in the wrong mode (in subtract mode when there is no selection to subtract from).


Hacrafer (HGTV’s Holiday message board)
Author’s site:
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/craft2decor8/index_frame.html (craft pages)
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v688/hacrafter/Crafts/ (latest craft pages)

Adobe Lesson 2

Adobe Lesson 2

by Hacrafter on HGTV’s Holiday message board


Photo Elements give you 3 ways to select colors. You have the:
eyedropper tool
color picker
swatches
The eyedropper tool is on your tool bar and looks like an eyedropper. If you hold your cursor over it, it will tell you what the tool is. The eyedropper lets you sample colors from images in your workspace. The Color picker and swatches let you pick your own colors in two different ways which I will explain later. You are allowed two color selections at a time. They are referred to as the forground color (yellow square in front) and background color (square in back). The color you paint with or your new text will be is always the forground color. Some other tools and options ask you if you want to use the forground or background color or give you some other standard choices. You can switch the forground and background colors by clicking the arrow above and between them on the right. Pic 1

When I do my card projects I usually start my color selections with the eyedropper to pick out colors from the photo I'm working with. This way I know they will work with my photo because they are in my photo. To use the eyedropper select it from the tool bar and click on the color you want. You can see your result in the forground color box. Click until you find a color you like. You will note that if you click in what looks like the same spot you may get a different color. The color picker uses the pixel selected and averages a few around it. See how many diffent colors are in the close up. Sometimes I zoom up close if I'm going for a specific color tone. Pic 2

The next tool is the color picker. To bring up the color picker, double click on the forground color. It will also come up when prompted to choose a new color. I have 4 numbers here. 1) The white circle shows my cursor. I can move this around the colored square to pick out the exact shade of red I want.2) If I don't want red I can move the white triangular sliders up and down or use my cursor to click in the bar for the color range I want.3)This is the current color selection. As you move around the colors this box will change to show you how your new color selection compares to your old color selection with brings us to 4.4)This is the current forground color.The color picker always comes up showing you your current forground color. I like the color picker because it makes it very easy to pick out specific color tints, tones, or shades that are related. If I want to pick out mulitple colors in the same range I can see how much variation I'm getting between them. This is a good way to refine color choices made by the eyedropper.Now, what do you do if you want to save these colors for furture use after all you can only have two selected at a time. If you pick a new color what happens to your current selection if you want to go back to it? That brings us to tool number 3, the swatches. You can save colors in the swatch pallet. Pic 3

To select the color swatches select Window-->Color Swatches. Any color you click on in this window will become your current forground color. If you look at the bottom of the swatch pallet, you will see two familure symbols (or they will become so in time). The first symbol is looks like a papper tablet with a rolled up corner. Click here to save your color swatch. It will appear at the end fo the selection. To discard a color swatch you don't want, click on it and drag it to the second icon of the trash can. You can create your own pallet but there is a quirk with this. Once you creat a new pallet it will not show up on the list until you exit and re-enter elements so if you switch between swatch pallets you won't be able to get back to your new one without leaving.It is a great program but it does have it's quirks. Pic 4

When using layers the "background" layer is always protected but not completely. If you erase part of your background layer you will always erase down to your background color. When you erase from any other layer you erase to empty pixles.Now that you understand all about selection your colors here is an assignment for you.Select File-->New-->Blank file for background select white. You now have a blank canvas to play with. Experiment with the brush tools and see what they do. Try coloring in custom shapes. Here is a link to some pictures I "painted" using photoshop in a class I took at the college last summer. You can do the same thing with elements but there are few brushes to choose from. The first one is a recreation of a masters work. This took me many, many hours to do but I learned a lot about the brushes. The next two were from my photos and the last was a class project. It was the warm up for doing the reproduction. Your lesson on selecting colors is now complete. Comments welcome. I know people are looking at these, but is anyone using them. Is anyone using the free tool from this site? If so, is it easy to figure out from what I'm showing here? Please feel free to point out differences here to help others. If you want to post screen shots from your tool but don't know how I can tell you how I do it.We are getting close to being ready for the card tutorial. I'd like to cover one more topic on cropping so you can create the card the size you want. I think those who do glass blocks and scrappers will be interested in that one.

When I get to my class on making the cards and class on twirls you will need to understand layers. There is a lesson on layers is great so I won't be covering that in my own tutorial.

Hacrafer

Author's sites:
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/craft2decor8/index_frame.html
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v688/hacrafter/Crafts/

Adobe Lesson 3

Adobe Lesson 3

Pic 1

Pic 2

Pic 3

Pic 4

Preparation for Adobe Lesson 3

If you don't have a photo or a scanner to scan one you are welcome to use my photo for this class and your personal use only. You can copy if from (see photo 3) or I can send you a copy that isn't cropped and reduced like this one.

If you are investing in the software, I highly recommend this book (for your software version) if you have Elements.

Mommydearest posted this site to download a free 30 day trial but you will want to wait until we know for sure when I'll be posting the class details so your trial doesn't run out before you have a chance to play. I wouldn't buy from that site, their prices were very high.There is an excellent on-line video tutorial on layers on this site that I recommend if you've never worked with them. Scroll down to the image of the tiger. This is listed under PE3 but it applies to all PE versions. I'll assume you understand that. It may also help to go through the scrap booking one as well.Txbarbire posted this site for a freeware package that should work for this project. My screen shots won't match exactly but if you don't want to buy or already have the Adobe software this is a good alternative.Before class:Get your software and install it. Play around with it some on your own.Go through the on-line tutorials I pointed out.PM me if you have any questions on things before class starts.Find a photo. It's spring you should be able to go out and take lots of fun photos of blossoming tree branches, flowers etc. It will be more fun if everyone has there own photo, uses their own colors etc and posts their project afterwards.Basic TipsConvert your photo to a format other than .jpg when you save it. If your working with adobe products it will be saved as a .psd until you ask it to save to another format. Every time you save as a .jpg you loose a little quality. I recommend .png or .tiff for Adobe products others may support .gif which is fine too. For many web sites you need to save as .jpg or .gif and there you don't care as much for quality. If you save for the web to share, always save as a copy. Do NOT replace the original or it will not be printable and the quality lost for good. The Elements has a "save for web" feature which is really nice.

PE2 users. The layers tablet is on the top right hand corner as one of the tabs. Click on the tab to open. Initially it may come up to small. You can enlarge the pallet by clicking on the lower right hand corner of the pallet and dragging it.PE3 and 4 users, the layers pallet is open by default when you enter standard edit. Photoshop users, I believe this is also the default and you don't have to worry about the different edit modes, you only have 1.

I'm about 1/2 way through the book. I found it very useful. The funny thing is that I would learn one way and make all these updates, get further through the book and learn something that was even better.The book got me around a known program bug when using the lassos and wonderful tricks with doing the selections I wouldn't have figured out on my own. I'll cover some of this in my class because you have to make selections for parts of it. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions before class and I'll try to help you out.

You really should go through the book and follow things step by step. I was tempted to skip sections and then read them anyway and I'm glad I'm going through it from start to finish. I would have missed a lot of tips and shortcuts. PE3 will be great for you to organizer you graphics and make them easy to find. I have a separate catalog that I created just for crafting because I can find and resize craft patterns so much easier.Always start out with the best resolution possible and if you need to resize smaller, save the changes as a copy. I usually save it as ImageXYZ_5x7 or ImageXYZ_4x6 so I know what it is resized for. Did you know you can crop to a specific size ratio? This would be perfect for the glass blocks. There are also really nice text effects you can do if you do words. PE doesn't support windows meta files but I found a way around that using irfanview to convert the file format. I used it for the scrapbook page I did. When finding clip art .TIFFs are easier to use because they are supported directly.

I really like this, standard to most editors if you can find it. If you select "Fixed Aspect Ratio" for the mode you can type in whatever you want. To make a 6x4 a 4x6, click on the arrow between them. Since most glass blocks are square you could really type in anything 4x4, 2x2 etc. This allows you to crop an image before printing so you know exactly what it will look like and don't waste ink printing off parts you don't want. When you drag the cursor from top left to low right it will keep the ratio. I'm trying to find where you can switch to center out but cannot find where it said that. Most digital cameras do not take standard 4x6 format so if you don't crop them your self your at the mercy of the store to do it right for you. This is important for card makers to if they want to match the picture size for a specific card demension.If you don't want anything cropped you can cheat by adding canvas and then cropping with the ratio. When your prints come back just trim off the extra white space. These are tips you won't find in the book but if you understand the system and tools it isn't hard to figure out. See photo 4.

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Part 1 is offered on this site free of charge. It is also useful to go through some of the others. If you are interested in my twirls class, I also recommend the "Change color" tutorial on this site. I have one more that I wanted to do on tools for cropping which which will be useful for anyone with a digital camera who sends photos off to be printed and anyone using graphics for glass blocks etc.The best way to learn any tool is to use it. I read a section of the book, play with the concepts, read another section play some more etc. I want you to have time to really use it before presenting to much. Although some of you already know the basics and are looking for the fun stuff. If youu already feel comfortable using the tool, I found another on-line tutorial that I haven't had a chance to try yet but it looks like a lot of fun. It is written for photoshop for I believe it can be done with at least the later versions of elements. If anyone trys this before me I'd love to see your snow globe. So by breaking this down into smaller parts is once a week a good pace? Are you ready for cropping this week?

Hacrafter

Author's craft samples:
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/craft2decor8/index_frame.html
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v688/hacrafter/Crafts/