Digital Camera World » Photoshop Elements

Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 review

jmeyer — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 02:00:21 +0000

Adobe’s enthusiast-level photo editor has been upgraded, but are the changes just cosmetic? Find out in our Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 review.

Photoshop CS6 may have demanded all the attention, but its baby brother Photoshop Elements has been quietly growing up. Now at version 11, it’s a mature, sophisticated image-editing program that provides 90% of the functionality of the full Photoshop, at a fraction of the cost.

This time around, there are only a handful of new features as Adobe has concentrated on the look and feel of the program, giving it a bright, fresh appearance with more readable text and clear tool icons.

But the refurbishment is more than just skin deep: Adobe has also made the tools more intuitive, with intelligent walkthroughs and easy adjustments.

The Organiser
The Elements Organiser is the tool for cataloguing, retrieving, printing and filing your images. It offers a range of techniques to make the process easier, from facial recognition to geotagging to straight calendar searches; unfortunately, facial recognition is hit and miss (we were frequently asked to put a name to bits of buildings and other inanimate objects).

You can perform some routine image enhancement tasks with the Organiser, but you have no control over the process: it’s all or nothing, with single buttons to enhance sharpness, contrast, colour and so on. It’s almost always worth opening selected images in the Editor to get  to grips with them properly.

An entirely separate application, files are transferred from the Organiser to the Editor to work on them, and this is a fairly straightforward process. Even tasks offered directly by the Organiser, such as creating calendars and photo books, are processed by the Editor.

The Editor
This is where the main body of Elements resides. It’s divided into three sections, each of which caters to a different level of user: Quick, Guided and Expert.

Although the three modes can act independently  of each other, you can move smoothly between them – and this has huge benefits, particularly when moving from Guided to Expert mode.

In all three modes, the Options bar, which shows tool settings, has moved from the top to the bottom of the screen, and it shows all the parameters in a clear, understandable way.

Together with the tool and side panels, this takes up a lot of screen space; but they can all be moved out of the way, and there’s even a floating panel mode for those who prefer it.

PAGE 1: What’s new in Adobe Photoshop Elements 11
PAGE 2: Using Photoshop Elements 11
PAGE 3: The verdict

Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 announced

jmeyer — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 07:10:42 +0000

Adobe has announced the latest upgrade in its entry-level image-editing software, Adobe Photoshop Elements 11.

The most striking difference in Photoshop Elements 11 is the software’s new interface, which is brighter and easier to read than previous versions, Adobe says.

Also on board is an enhanced Organiser tool which enables geo-tagging and facial-recognition methods of cataloguing images.

A new Quick Edit mode appeals to beginners with an even more simplified interface, while Elements 11 also inherits some of full Photoshop’s more creative tools, such as new lens blur filters, tilt-shift and high- and low-key effects, vignetting and contrast editing tools.

Users will also find new filters such as Graphic Novel, Comic and Pen & Ink that can turn their photos into illustrations.

Photoshop Elements 11 also users to share their photos via Facebook, YouTube, email and more.

The Photoshop Elements 11 price tag is £79.10 / $99.99, or £119.41 / $149.99 in a bundle with Adobe’s video-editing software, Premiere Elements 11. Current Elements users can upgrade for £64.81 / $79.99 or £98.16 / $119.99.

Read our testing team’s Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 review over on our sister site, TechRadar.

Water drop photography: make a splash with high-speed flash

jmeyer — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 10:00:58 +0000

Shooting water drop photography is a fun and simple way to get creative effects, particularly when you use food colouring to make a range of cool colours. By using high-speed flash you’re sure to freeze the action and get impressive results – and it’s so easy to do! In this tutorial we’re going to show you how to make your own home water drop photography setup, and demonstrate how to capture the drops in a split second.

For water drop photography you’ll need your DSLR and a suitable lens for close-ups (a macro lens will work best), a tripod, an external flashgun and a transmitter unit.

We need to use flash in order to freeze the water drops, as this enables you to capture faster movement than your camera’s fastest shutter speed. We’ll be using the Manual setting on our DSLR, and using the transmitter to fire our flashgun.

For the flash to be effective you’ll need to shoot in a fairly dark room, so close the curtains or blinds. By shooting in the dark you’ll also be able to use a narrow aperture in order to get a good depth of field, so that the milk drop is in focus from front to back. We’ll also show you how to enhance the contrast and colours of your milk drop images in Photoshop Elements.

01 Set the stage
Use a table or worktop surface with a wall behind to lean your backdrop against. For the backdrop use coloured paper, and position the bottom half of the paper on the table to create an infinity curve.

Fill a glass bowl with water (you can also use milk and other liquids), and place it on top of the paper. Next fill a bottle with water and food colouring, and shake well!

02 Position the bottle
We’ve used a couple of stands, a pole, a clamp to hold the bottle in place and some gaffer tape to attach the clip to the pole. If you don’t have any stands, you could place a curtain pole across a couple of chairs and tape your bottle to it. Keep the cap on the bottle for now, as we’re not ready to start dripping yet.

03 Position the camera and focus
Place your camera on a tripod and angle it down overlooking the bowl, with the surface of the milk filling most of the frame. Set the camera to Manual focus, hold or suspend a ruler or pen over the centre of the bowl roughly where you expect the milk drops will hit the surface, and focus on it.

04 Set up the flash
Set your flashgun to Slave mode and place it next to the bowl on its stand to one side, then attach the transmitter to your camera’s hotshoe (if your camera doesn’t have this feature built in). Set the transmitter and the flashgun to the same channel. Close the curtains or blinds to darken the room, and set the flash to at least 1/16 power to start with – you may need to adjust this once you’ve set your exposure.

05 Set the exposure
Set your camera to Manual mode, and set the shutter speed to 1/125 sec to sync with the flash. Next select a narrow aperture, such as f/13, so that you can capture a wide depth of field to ensure the milk drops are in focus, and set the ISO to 100 to capture all the detail of the effect. Fire off some test shots, and fine-tune the exposure or flash settings if required.

06 Start shooting
When you’re all set to go, remove the bottle cap and wait a few moments for the milk to start dripping. For the best effects you want to capture a drop just as it hits the surface of the water; it’s all about timing, and some trial and error will be involved, so keep checking the results every few shots. You can add different colours to the water for different effects.

07 Contrast and colour
Open your Raw image in Adove Camera Raw. For our example, we set Exposure to +0.15 and Recovery to 15 to pull back some highlights. To boost the contrast we set Blacks to 20 and Contrast to +50. We also set Clarity +50 – this really brings out the fine patterns in the liquid, and makes a big difference to the effect. To boost the colours we set Saturation to +6.

08 Crop and sharpen
Click Open Image to open the file in the Elements editor. Select the Crop tool, and crop the image to remove extraneous background areas; a portrait or square crop will work best. Use the Clone Stamp tool to tidy up any distracting splashes, then sharpen the image; we’ve used Unsharp Mask, setting Amount to 85%, Radius to 6 pixels and Threshold to 3.

How to create a Photoshop Elements slideshow with a soundtrack

jmeyer — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 13:00:24 +0000

Are you looking for new ways to enjoy your photos. One fun thing to do is to create a Photoshop Elements slideshow and add an audio soundtrack, which you can play back on your TV. All you need is Photoshop Elements 8 or above, which boasts a very good (and often overlooked) photo slideshow facility. Here’s how to do it…

01 Choose your preferences
Click the Create tab and select the Slideshow option, You can set durations for slide viewing, as well as transition styles.

02 Add media
To add photos as well as music for a soundtrack, click the Add Media button at the top of the window and select the relevant files from folders on your computer.

03 Send to TV
The ‘Send to TV’ option enables standard and high-definition playback for connected TVs. You can also burn it to disc for playback on a DVD player.

Photoshop Elements Tips: turn a grey sky blue

jmeyer — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 10:30:40 +0000

Flat, grey skies are a common difficulty when the sky in your scene is much brighter than the land beneath, especially towards the beginning and end of the day. The classic solution is to use a graduated Neutral Density (ND) filter. However, they can be fiddly to set up, especially when using lenses in which the front element rotates. Follow our Photoshop Elements tip’s three steps below and you’ll find a much easier way to transform your dull, grey skies into a darker blue.

Find out below how to avoid this!

One popular solution for fixing grey skies is to apply some negative Exposure Compensation to ensure that the sky doesn’t wash out to white, but you may find that the underlying land looks too dark (find out more about using exposure compensation with our free photography cheat sheet).

This can be the case even when using dynamic range optimisation controls in-camera. To achieve the best results, you’ll need to apply a little after-shot image editing.

For your source image,  shoot in raw and apply sufficient Exposure Compensation so that there’s colour in the blue sky. For cloudy blue skies, ensure there’s some detail in the clouds as well. P

rocess the raw file to create two separate JPEG images, one in which the sky is as shot or even a little darker.

For the second, brighten the raw file so that the land is sufficiently light. You can then merge the two – see below.

01 Open the files
Open both the light and dark versions of your image in Photoshop Elements. For the lighter shot, go to File>Select All, then Copy (Ctrl+C) and Paste it (Ctrl+V) as a new layer onto the darker version.

02 Create a Layer Mask
Next, you need to add a Layer Mask to the upper, lighter layer by clicking the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette, and then clicking on the mask’s white rectangle (see above).

03 Select and fill
Finally, use the Quick Selection tool to carefully select the sky area, then fill it with black by going to Edit>Fill and selecting Black from the drop-down. This will reveal the darker sky from the layer below.

Abuse your raw files for a striking high-key portrait

jmeyer — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 15:35:01 +0000

A high-key portrait tends to be lit from the front, creating a relatively shadow-free image. The over-exposed highlights help to smooth out skin tones and dial down distracting details so that key features such as the eyes and lips stand out more dramatically.

The challenge with high-key portrait photography comes when deliberately over-exposing a shot to produce bright flat skin tones while preserving shadows and midtones on the eyes and lips.

It’s all too easy to go too far and lose valuable detail throughout the entire tonal range, especially if you shoot in compressed JPEG format, rather than raw format.

So here, we’ll show you how to unleash the power of the Photoshop Elements Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) editor to increase the brightness of a correctly exposed portrait and create the flat wash of bright highlights associated with high-key photography.

Our original image

Because raw files have more tonal information than a JPEG, you can reveal as much highlight detail as you like post-shoot, while giving the tones of key features such as the eyes and lips an independent tweak to produce a portrait that has far more punch.

Because our subject is blonde, we’ll demonstrate how to use Adobe Camera Raw’s Exposure slider to blow out the highlights in her hair so that it merges with the white studio background, creating a clean and delicate high-key look that flatters her feminine features.

We’ll also show you how to tone down the image’s colour intensity to create a delicate palette that complements the overall effect.

Click here to see step-by-step how to make a high-key portrait with your raw files.

For more on editing raw files, check out our ongoing Raw Tuesday series.

Make portraits with character: tease out detail with Photoshop’s Dodge and Burn tool

jmeyer — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 02:00:58 +0000

It’s often said that a face is like a visual biography. Deep wrinkles, smile lines and faded scars all hint at a life that’s been full of incidents, regrets and laughter. If you can capture these features effectively, you’re half way to achieving the most crucial aspect of  any portrait – character.

To shoot these details, strong directional light works best (we’ve used the evening sun). Expose for the highlights and you’ll record perfect skin texture with rich shadows.

But Photoshop offers ways to tease out even more detail, so if a face really is like an autobiography, we can make the chapter titles stand out in big bold lettering with a few subtle enhancements.

Photoshop’s Dodge and Burn tools enable you to selectively lighten or darken areas, so are ideal for this type of work. We’ll show you how to use them, and apply the Shadows/Highlights command to reveal even more detail, but only in the areas that really need it.

01 Convert to mono
Open your portrait and press Cmd/Ctrl+J. Double-click the layer name and call it ‘Black and White’. Go to Enhance > ‘Convert to Black and White’. Click the Newspaper preset. Drag the Red slider to the left slightly. Hit OK.

02 Burn the lines
Duplicate the layer again, using Cmd/Ctrl+J. Call the new layer Dodge/Burn. Grab the Burn tool from the Tools panel. In the Options bar, set Range to Shadows and Exposure to 10%. Zoom in and paint over the wrinkles to darken them.

03 Dodge the ridges
Switch to the Dodge tool. Set Range to Highlights and Exposure to 10%. Paint over the tops of the ridges to lighten the highlights and accentuate the lines around the eyes and forehead. Use the ] and [ bracket keys to resize your brush tip.

04 Use Shadows/Highlights
Duplicate the layer. Call the new layer Shadows/Highlights. Go to Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Shadows/Highlights. Set Lighten Shadows to 0, Darken Highlights to 15 and Midtone Contrast to +15. Hit OK. Hold Alt and click on Add Layer Mask.

05 Mask the details
Grab the Brush tool and hit D to set the colour to white. Press 5 to set Opacity to 50%. Make sure the Layer Mask thumbnail is highlighted in the Layers panel. Paint over the lighter skin areas to gradually reveal the Shadows/Highlights effect.

06 Make tonal tweaks
Click the Create Adjustment Layer icon and choose Photo Filter. Select Warming Filter (85) and set Density to 40%. Next, add a Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer and push contrast to 15. Tweak as necessary using Adjustment Layers.

Photoshop Tip
QUICK TIP! Whenever you’re dodging or burning, set a low exposure value of about 10% and then build up strokes gradually.

Master the Photoshop Unsharp Mask tool in 10 minutes or less

jmeyer — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 10:45:03 +0000

There are many reasons why you might want to sharpen a photo, but generally it will be to bring soft areas into greater focus. By using built in tools in Photoshop, you can increase the crispness of your images. Both Photoshop Elements and Photoshop CS2 and above come with sharpening tools you can use to enhance your pics. In the quick guide below we’ll show you how the Photoshop Unsharp Mask can give your print-ready photos.

1. Open Unsharp Mask

Open your start image and zoom to 100 per cent. Now select Unsharp Mask by going to Enhance> UnsharpMask in Photoshop Elements or Filter> Sharpen>UnsharpMask in Photoshop CS. Unsharp Mask works by boosting contrast along the edges of an image. The Amount slider is pretty self-explanatory, controlling the amount of sharpening applied.

2. The Radius slider

Increasing the Radius value increases the number of pixels from the edges in your photo that are sharpened. The larger the radius, the more extreme the result. Try a setting of between 0.9 and 1.2 if you‘re sharpening to improve screen display and between 1.5 and 2.0 if you‘re sharpening for print.

3. The Threshold slider

When the Threshold slider is at 0 every pixel will be sharpened. Increasing the slider will decrease the number of pixels that are sharpened by telling Photoshop to ignore pixels that are similar in contrast to the edge pixels. Avoid going higher than 20.

4. Smart previewing

There‘s a small preview window in the Unsharp Mask window, but it‘s far more sensible to just move the Unsharp Mask window to the side and look at the effect on the photo itself. Check and uncheck the Preview button to monitor the changes you make

5. Balancing act

It can be hard to find the right level of sharpening - you don‘t want to oversharpen in case artefacts (digital noise) or halos (bright lines around the edges of objects) appear, but you don‘t want a ‘soft‘ photo either. Aim to find the best combination of sliders.

6. Push it up

To find the right level of sharpening try setting a high amount, such as 200 per cent, and then experimenting with the Radius and Threshold sliders until you‘re happy. You can then decrease the amount of sharpening to a safer level. Click OK to apply.

How to add flare in Photoshop for a cool retro photography look

jmeyer — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 13:00:00 +0000

These days, we try to avoid lower contrast and flare, but it’s part of the charm of most retro photography. However, achieving flare is quite a hard effect to replicate unless you’re shooting in ideal light conditions, with the sun in, or close to the edge of, the frame. To save time and effort, here’s how to add a convincing flare effect in Photoshop Elements.

It helps if you start with an image where the sun is positioned close to the edge of the frame (even if there isn’t any flare) as the lighting will be consistent with the flare, so the effect will be more convincing.

Step 1: Adjust Levels
Open your original image – our download ours seen here, flare_before.jpg from http://goo.gl/tPqrE – and open it in Photoshop Elements. Click on the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and select Levels. To lighten the highlights, drag the right-hand slider to the left. Drag the middle slider to the left to lighten the midtones.

Step 2: Colour adjustment
With the basic tones adjusted you now need to adjust the individual colour channels. Select Red from the drop-down menu in the Levels Adjustment Layer and drag the middle slider to the left to a value of around 1.30. Select Green and again drag the middle slider to the left, this time to around 1.10.

Step 3: Stretch the canvas
To position the ‘sun’ in the correct position you need to expand the canvas size by going to Image>Resize>Canvas Size. Choose Percent from the drop-down menu and enter 130%, then make sure that the Anchor graphic shows the square in the middle of the arrows. Click OK.

Step 4: Add flare
Duplicate the Background layer by pressing Ctrl+J, then go to Filter>Render>Lens Flare. In the new window, choose 105mm Prime and set the Brightness to 120%. Drag the cross-hairs that indicate the flare origin up to the top right and click OK. To finish, crop the image to the original size.

Top Tip: Try a filter
Using a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer is a simple but effective way to tone to your image. Simply add it to the top of the layer stack and choose from a huge range of cool or warm filters, setting an  Opacity of around 20%.

8 ‘alternative’ ways to convert to black and white in Photoshop

jmeyer — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 09:30:43 +0000

There are many ways to skin a cat in Photoshop and converting to mono is no exception. Here are some other popular ways to convert to black and white
Photoshop’s ultimate mono conversion tool is the Black & White tool, which offers an intuitive, flexible way to convert to black and white.

However, messing about with the Black & White tool’s color channels without restraint can lead to serious image quality issues such as haloes, blocking and noise.

There are many ways to skin a cat in Photoshop and converting to mono is no exception. Here we’ve compile 8 of the most popular alternative ways to convert to black and white.

For more on black and white photography, check out our in-depth guide Black and White Photography: what you need to know for perfect mono pictures.

1. Greyscale
Simply changing the Mode of your image from Colour to Greyscale actually offers a pretty reasonable mono conversion. Click Image> Mode>Greyscale, then click OK when asked if you want to ‘Discard colour information’. The problem is that you have zero control over the result. Switching to Greyscale also blocks many Adjustments and Filters, and you need to choose Image>Mode>RGB Colour to free them up again. If you’re really pressed for time this might be just the job, though.

+ Reasonable results almost instantly
- No control over result

2. Lab Color
Another quick and easy conversion technique. Again there’s no control, but it does generate a particularly light, airy and smooth looking result that’s well suited to delicate subjects and/or high-key or low-contrast treatments. Click Image>Mode>Lab Colour. Now click Window>Channels and click on the Lightness channel. To finish, choose Image>Mode>Greyscale and click OK.

+ Creates smooth, airy results quickly
- No control over result

3. Desaturation
Clicking Image>Adjustments>Desaturate is even quicker than converting to Greyscale, but the result is just slightly rougher and again you have zero control. Desaturation via Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation, however, provides much more control and more pleasing results. First drag the Saturation slider to -100, then use the drop-down Edit menu to selectively vary the Lightness of the Reds, Yellows, Greens, Cyans, Blues and Magentas to taste.

+ Lightness control over individual channels
- Limited control compared with RAW

4. Calculations
Calculations (Image>Calculations) enables you blend two source channels to create a mono conversion. By default, the channels are set to Red and the Blending Mode to Multiply. It’s worth experimenting with different combinations, but for non-portrait shots, this set-up plus a reduction in Blending Mode Opacity will usually produce the best results.

+ A quick way to create dramatic results
- Limited number of conversion settings

5. Channel Mixer
The Channel Mixer is a formidable device, allowing precise blending of the Red, Green and Blue channels to create a wide variety of mono effects. Choose Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Channel Mixer. Check the Monochrome box and vary the Source channels, ideally keeping the overall percentage total to around 100.

+ Great control and good results
- Requires time and experimentation

6. Gradient Map
For harder, high-contrast results, try the Gradient Map. Click Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Gradient Map and click OK. Set your Foreground Colour in the Tools Palette to Black, choose the Foreground to Background gradient and click OK. Refine the contrast by dragging the Colour Stop and Smoothness sliders.

+ Punchy results and fine-tuning available
- Best for mid to high contrast subjects only

7. Adobe Camera Raw: HSL/Greyscale
The Camera Raw HSL/Greyscale tab offers an effective method for converting RAW image to mono. Once you’ve primed your shot using the standard Camera Raw controls, click the HSL/Greyscale tab and choose Convert to Greyscale. You can then separate and enhance the individual tones using the eight Greyscale Mix colour controls. Further refinements are then possible within Photoshop.

+ Offers vast array of controls and effects
- Changes must be applied to entire image

8. Plug-ins
You can re-create in Photoshop virtually all of the effects offered by third-party plug-ins such as ‘Black & White Studio’ and ‘Film Grain’ by Power Retouche. For example, you could track down grainy traditional 35mm films, scan them in and turn them into mono grain filters. For those without the time or inclination to do this, dedicated plug-ins can be used.

+ Extensive new controls and effects
- Quality plug-ins don’t come cheap

Making sense of RGB and greyscale
The colour in digital images is created by combining three different colour channels: red, green and blue (RGB).

Each of these channels can record just 256 shades of that colour, but when these channels are combined they can record more than 16 million possible colour combinations (256x256x256).

A greyscale image, meanwhile, is a black-and-white conversion made up of just 256 shades of grey, ranging from pure black to pure white.