The Editor the part of Elements where you tweak photos works exactly the same way regardless of what kind of computer you’re using, but there are some differences in the Organizer and th
Trang 3Photoshop Elements 10
Barbara Brundage
Beijing | Cambridge | Farnham | Köln | Sebastopol | Tokyo
The book that should have been in the box ®
Trang 4Photoshop Elements 10: The Missing Manual
October 2011: First Edition
Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, the O’Reilly logo, and “The book that should
have been in the box” are registered trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc Photoshop Elements 10:
The Missing Manual, The Missing Manual logo, Pogue Press, and the Pogue Press logo are
trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media, Inc was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps.While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use
of the information contained herein
ISBN: 9781449398507
[TI]
Trang 5Table of Contents
The Missing Credits xiii
Introduction 1
Part One: Introduction to Elements Chapter 1: Finding Your Way Around Elements 15
Getting Started 15
The Welcome Screen 16
Organizing Your Photos 19
Photo Downloader 20
Photoshop.com 21
Editing Your Photos 23
Panels, Bins, and Tabs 25
Elements’ Tools 31
Getting Help 33
Escape Routes 37
Getting Started in a Hurry 39
Chapter 2: Importing, Managing, and Saving Photos 41
Importing from Cameras 41
The Photo Downloader 42
Opening Stored Images 47
Working with PDF Files 49
Scanning Photos 49
Capturing Video Frames 51
Creating a New File 52
Picking a File Size 53
Choosing a Resolution 53
Selecting a Color Mode 54
Choosing a Background 54
Trang 6iv table of contents
Using the Organizer 56
The Media Browser 58
Creating Categories and Tags 61
Albums and Smart Albums 66
Searching for Photos 68
Browsing Through Photos 68
Using Tags and Categories to Find Photos 69
Searching by Metadata 70
Visual Searches 70
Saving Your Work 74
File Formats Elements Understands 75
Changing the File Format 81
Backing Up Your Files 81
Online Syncing and Backups 82
Organizer Backups 83
Making Quick CDs/DVDs 86
Chapter 3: Rotating and Resizing Photos 89
Straightening Scanned Photos 89
Straightening Two or More Photos at a Time 89
Straightening Individual Photos 91
Rotating Images 91
Rotating and Flipping Options 93
Straightening the Contents of an Image 94
Straighten Tool 94
Free Rotate Layer 97
Cropping Pictures 99
The Crop Tool 100
Cropping with the Marquee Tool 104
Zooming and Repositioning Your View 106
Image Views 107
The Zoom Tool 111
The Hand Tool 113
Changing the Size of an Image 114
Resizing Images for Email and the Web 115
Resizing for Printing 119
Adding Canvas 122
Part Two: Elemental Elements Chapter 4: The Quick Fix 127
The Quick Fix Window 128
The Quick Fix Toolbox 130
The Quick Fix Panel Bin 131
Different Views: After vs Before and After 132
Trang 7table of contents
Editing Your Photos 132
Fixing Red Eye 133
Smart Fix 135
Adjusting Lighting and Contrast 138
Color 140
Sharpening 142
Touch-Ups 143
Quick Fix Suggested Workflow 146
Adjusting Skin Tones 147
Chapter 5: Making Selections 151
Selecting Everything 152
Selecting Rectangular and Elliptical Areas 153
Selecting Irregularly Sized Areas 155
Controlling the Selection Tools 155
Selecting with a Brush 156
Refine Edge 159
The Selection Brush 160
The Magic Wand 163
The Lasso Tools 166
Removing Objects from an Image’s Background 169
Changing and Moving Selections 175
Inverting a Selection 175
Making a Selection Larger or Smaller 177
Moving Selected Areas 179
Saving Selections 182
Chapter 6: Layers: The Heart of Elements 185
Understanding Layers 186
The Layers Panel 188
The Background 190
Creating Layers 191
Adding a Layer 192
Deleting Layers 193
Duplicating a Layer 193
Copying and Cutting from Layers 194
Managing Layers 196
Hiding Layers 196
Adjusting Layer Opacity 197
Locking Layers 198
Blend Mode 199
Rearranging Layers 200
Aligning and Distributing Layers 203
Grouping and Linking Layers 204
Merging and Flattening Layers 208
Layer Masks 211
Trang 8vi table of contents
Adjustment and Fill Layers 216
Adding Fill and Adjustment Layers 217
Moving Objects Between Images 220
Part Three: Retouching Chapter 7: Basic Image Retouching 227
Fixing Exposure Problems 228
Deciding Which Exposure Fix to Use 228
Fixing Major Exposure Problems 229
The Shadows/Highlights Command 231
Correcting Part of an Image 233
Controlling the Colors You See 237
Calibrating Your Monitor 239
Choosing a Color Space 241
Using Levels 244
Understanding the Histogram 245
Adjusting Levels: The Eyedropper Method 247
Adjusting Levels: The Slider Controls 248
Removing Unwanted Color 251
The Remove Color Cast Command 252
Using Color Variations 253
Choosing Colors 254
The Color Picker 256
The Eyedropper Tool 257
The Color Swatches Panel 259
Sharpening Images 260
Unsharp Mask 261
Adjust Sharpness 263
The High-Pass Filter 265
The Sharpen Tool 268
Chapter 8: Elements for Digital Photographers 269
The Raw Converter 270
Using the Raw Converter 271
Adjusting White Balance 276
Adjusting Tone 278
Adjusting Vibrance and Saturation 281
Adjusting Sharpness and Reducing Noise 283
Finishing Up 287
Converting to DNG 288
Blending Exposures 290
Automatic Merges 291
Manual Merges 293
Photo Filter 297
Trang 9table of contents
Processing Multiple Files 298
Choosing Files 300
Renaming Files 301
Changing Image Size and File Type 302
Applying Quick Fix Commands 303
Attaching Labels 304
Chapter 9: Retouching: Fine-Tuning Images 307
Fixing Blemishes 307
The Spot Healing Brush: Fixing Small Areas 309
The Healing Brush: Fixing Larger Areas 312
The Clone Stamp 315
Applying Patterns 320
The Healing Brush 321
The Pattern Stamp 322
Recomposing Photos 323
Color Curves: Enhancing Tone and Contrast 327
Making Colors More Vibrant 331
The Hue/Saturation Dialog Box 331
Adjusting Saturation with the Sponge Tool 334
Changing an Object’s Color 335
Using an Adjustment Layer 336
Replacing Specific Colors 337
The Color Replacement Tool 339
Special Effects 341
Chapter 10: Removing and Adding Color 345
Method One: Making Color Photos Black and White 345
Method Two: Removing Color from a Photo 348
Creating Spot Color 350
Brushing Away Color 351
Erasing Colors from a Duplicate Layer 353
Removing Color from Selections 353
Using an Adjustment Layer and the Saturation Slider 354
Colorizing Black-and-White Photos 356
Tinting a Whole Photo 358
Chapter 11: Photomerge: Creating Panoramas, Group Shots, and More 365
Creating Panoramas 366
Manual Positioning with Interactive Layout 371
Merging Different Faces 373
Arranging a Group Shot 376
Tidying Up with Scene Cleaner 377
Merging Styles 379
Correcting Lens Distortion 383
Trang 10viii table of contents
Transforming Images 389
Skew, Distort, and Perspective 389
Free Transform 393
Part Four: Artistic Elements Chapter 12: Drawing with Brushes, Shapes, and Other Tools 397
Picking and Using a Basic Brush 399
Modifying Your Brush 403
Saving Modified Brush Settings 405
The Specialty Brushes 406
Making a Custom Brush 407
The Impressionist Brush 408
The Pencil Tool 408
The Paint Bucket 409
Dodging and Burning 410
Dodging 412
Burning 413
Blending and Smudging 413
Blend Modes 413
The Smudge Tool 416
The Eraser Tool 418
Using the Eraser 418
The Magic Eraser 419
The Background Eraser 420
Drawing with Shapes 422
Rectangle and Rounded Rectangle 424
Ellipse 425
Polygon 425
Line Tool 427
The Custom Shape Tool 428
The Shape Selection Tool 429
The Cookie Cutter Tool 430
Chapter 13: Filters, Effects, Layer Styles, and Gradients 433
Using Filters 435
Applying Filters 435
Filter Categories 439
Useful Filter Solutions 441
Adding Effects 450
Using Actions 452
Special Effects in Guided Edit 454
Adding Layer Styles 456
Trang 11table of contents
Applying Gradients 460
The Gradient Tool 461
Gradient Fill Layers 463
Editing Gradients 465
Saving Gradients 470
Gradient Maps 470
Chapter 14: Text in Elements 473
Adding Text to an Image 474
Text Options 475
Creating Text 478
Editing Text 480
Warping Text 482
Adding Special Effects 485
Text Effects 485
Text Gradients 486
Applying the Liquify Filter to Text 487
Type Masks: Setting an Image in Text 490
Using the Type Mask Tools 491
Creating Outlined Text 492
Artistic Text 495
Adding Text to a Selection 496
Making Text Outline a Shape 498
Creating Your Own Path 500
Part Five: Sharing Images Chapter 15: Creating Projects 505
Photo Collages 505
Customizing Your Project 510
Creating Multipage Documents in the Editor 515
Photo Books 517
Greeting Cards 520
Photo Calendars 520
CD/DVD Jackets 521
CD/DVD Labels 521
Photo Stamps 522
Working with the Content and Favorites Panels 522
The Content Panel 522
The Favorites Panel 524
Trang 12x table of contents
Chapter 16: Printing Photos 525
Getting Ready to Print 526
Ordering Prints 526
Printing at Home 530
Making Individual Prints 530
Positioning Your Image 536
Additional Print Options 539
Color Management 540
Printing Multiple Images (Windows) 543
Contact Sheets 544
Picture Packages 545
Printing Multiple Images (Mac) 546
Contact Sheets 547
Picture Packages 549
Chapter 17: Email and the Web 553
Image Formats and the Web 553
Saving Images for the Web or Email 554
Using Save For Web 556
Previewing Images and Adjusting Color 559
Creating Animated GIFs 561
Emailing Photos 563
Individual Attachments (Mac and Windows) 564
Photo Mail (Windows only) 566
PDF Slideshows (Mac and Windows) 568
Chapter 18: Online Albums and Slideshows 571
Online Albums 572
Sharing a New Album 572
Other Ways to Share 575
Slideshows 576
Full Screen View 577
PDF Slideshows 579
The Slide Show Editor (Windows only) 580
Flipbooks (Windows only) 591
A Few More Ways to Share 594
Trang 13table of contents
Part Six: Additional Elements
Chapter 19: Beyond the Basics 599
Graphics Tablets 599
Stuff from the Internet 602
When You Really Need Photoshop 604
Beyond This Book 605
Part Seven: Appendix Appendix A: Installation and Troubleshooting 609
Index 619
Note: Head to this book’s Missing CD page on www.missingmanuals.com to download two more
appendixes: “The Organizer, Menu by Menu” and “The Editor, Menu by Menu.”
Trang 15The Missing Credits
About the Author
Barbara Brundage is the author of Photoshop Elements 9: The
Missing Manual, an Adobe Community Expert, and a member of
Adobe’s prerelease groups for Elements 3–10 She’s been teaching people how to use Photoshop Elements since it came out in 2001
Barbara first started using Elements to create graphics for use in her day job as a harpist, music publisher, and arranger Along the way, she joined the large group of people finding a renewed inter-est in photography thanks to digital cameras If she can learn to
use Elements, you can, too! You can reach her at barb@barbarabrundage.com and
read her blog at www.barbarabrundage.com (sometimes it’s even about Photoshop
Elements)
About the Creative Team
Dawn Mann (editor) is associate editor for the Missing Manual series When not
work-ing, she beads, hangs out with her cat, and causes trouble Email: dawn@oreilly.com.
Kristen Borg (production editor) is a graduate of the publishing program at Emerson
College Now living in Boston, she originally hails from sunny Arizona, and
consid-ers New England wintconsid-ers an adequate trade for no longer finding scorpions in her
hairdryer
Trang 16Sara Froehlich (tech reviewer) has been in love with computer graphics and
digi-tal photography since she discovered them in 1995, and has been teaching online
classes in Photoshop Elements since its first release (You can see her classes at www.
lvsonline.com.) She’s also the author of Microsoft Expression Design Step by Step Sara
enjoys traveling with her husband, Tom, and their papillon, Jasmine, and is cially fond of Florida, where she can get away from Minnesota winters! Website:
espe-www.northlite.net Email: northie@hickorytech.net.
Carla Spoon (proofreader) is a freelance writer and copy editor An avid runner, she
works and feeds her tech gadget addiction from her home office in the shadow of
Mount Rainier Email: carla_spoon@comcast.net.
Julie Hawks (indexer) is an indexer for the Missing Manual series She is currently
pursuing a master’s degree in Religious Studies while discovering the joys of warm
winters in the Carolinas Email: juliehawks@gmail.com.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Sara Froelich and Ray Robillard for reading this book and giving me the benefit of their advice and corrections I’m also grateful for the help I received from everyone at Adobe, especially Bob Gager, P Ram Prasad, Priyanka Azad, Deepak Sawant, Krishna Singh Karki, and Chhaya Pandey
Special thanks also to graphic artist Jodi Frye (lfrye012000@yahoo.com) for
allow-ing me to reproduce one of her Elements drawallow-ings to show what can be done by those with more artistic ability than I have My gratitude also to Florida’s botani-
cal gardens, especially McKee Botanical Garden (www.mckeegarden.org), Historic Bok Sanctuary (www.boktower.org), Heathcote Botanical Gardens (www.heathcote-
botanicalgardens.org), and Harry P Leu Gardens (www.leugardens.org) for creating
oases of peace and beauty in our hectic world Finally, I’d like to thank everyone in the gang over at the Adobe Photoshop Elements support forum for all their help and friendship
The Missing Manual Series
Missing Manuals are witty, superbly written guides to computer products that don’t come with printed manuals (which is just about all of them) Each book features a handcrafted index and cross-references to specific pages (not just chapters)
Access 2010: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald Buying a Home: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner CSS: The Missing Manual, Second Edition, by David Sawyer McFarland Creating a Website: The Missing Manual, Third Edition, by Matthew MacDonald David Pogue’s Digital Photography: The Missing Manual by David Pogue Dreamweaver CS5.5: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland
Trang 17xv
the missing credits
Droid X: The Missing Manual by Preston Gralla
Droid X2: The Missing Manual by Preston Gralla
Excel 2010: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Facebook: The Missing Manual, Third Edition by E.A Vander Veer
FileMaker Pro 11: The Missing Manual by Susan Prosser and Stuart Gripman
Flash CS5.5: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover
Google Apps: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner
Google SketchUp: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover
iMovie ’11 & iDVD: The Missing Manual by David Pogue and Aaron Miller
iPad 2: The Missing Manual by J.D Biersdorfer
iPhone: The Missing Manual, Fourth Edition by David Pogue
iPhone App Development: The Missing Manual by Craig Hockenberry
iPhoto ’11: The Missing Manual by David Pogue and Lesa Snider
iPod: The Missing Manual, Ninth Edition by J.D Biersdorfer and David Pogue
JavaScript: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland
Living Green: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner
Mac OS X Snow Leopard: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
Microsoft Project 2010: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
Motorola Xoom: The Missing Manual by Preston Gralla
Netbooks: The Missing Manual by J.D Biersdorfer
Office 2010: The Missing Manual by Nancy Connor, Chris Grover, and Matthew
MacDonald
Office 2011 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover
Palm Pre: The Missing Manual by Ed Baig
Personal Investing: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual by Lesa Snider
Photoshop Elements 9: The Missing Manual by Barbara Brundage
PowerPoint 2007: The Missing Manual by E.A Vander Veer
Premiere Elements 8: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover
QuickBase: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner
Trang 18QuickBooks 2011: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore Quicken 2009: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Snow Leopard Edition by David Pogue Wikipedia: The Missing Manual by John Broughton
Windows 7: The Missing Manual by David Pogue Word 2007: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover Your Body: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald Your Brain: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald Your Money: The Missing Manual by J.D Roth
Trang 19Introduction
It’s a visual world these days Want your Facebook friends to see what you’re
hav-ing for lunch? Post a picture Need an extra whatchamacallit from the hardware
store? Just show them a photo It’s just so much easier than trying to describe
such things with words Everybody has a digital camera now Most likely, even your
cellphone is a pretty competent little camera But there are two problems with all this
photo-y goodness: People’s expectations of photos are pretty high now, and keeping
track of so many images can be a nightmare that may make you long for the days
when all your family photos fit in one shoebox
Enter Photoshop Elements Not only does Elements 10 give you terrific tools for
edit-ing and improvedit-ing your photos, but you also get a free account at Photoshop.com,
making it incredibly easy to share photos on your personal Photoshop.com web
page, back them up automatically, and sync them between your computers.
Note: For now, you have to be in the United States to use Photoshop.com If you’re in another country, you
can create and share online albums at Adobe’s Photoshop Showcase (www.photoshopshowcase.com), a
site first created for folks using Elements 6 Alas, a few features are available only with Photoshop.com, so for
now, these features are U.S.-only.
Elements also includes a great photo organizer (aptly named the Organizer), which
used to be available only in the Windows version of Elements, but now Mac folks get
it, too And since more and more people are using a mix of Windows computers and
Macs, as long as you buy the boxed version (not the download) you can install the
same copy of Elements 10 on either platform, so you don’t have to buy two separate
versions of the program (see page 610 for more about this)
Trang 20Why Photoshop Elements?
Adobe Photoshop is the granddaddy of all image-editing programs It’s the Big Cheese, the industry standard against which everything else is measured Every pho-
to you’ve seen in a book or magazine in the past 15 years or so has almost certainly passed through Photoshop on its way to being printed You just can’t buy anything that gives you more control over your pictures than Photoshop does
But Photoshop has some big drawbacks: It’s darned hard to learn, it’s horribly pensive, and many of the features in it are just plain overkill if you don’t work on pictures for a living
ex-For several years, Adobe tried to find a way to cram many of Photoshop’s marvelous powers into a package that normal people could use Finding the right formula was
a slow process First came PhotoDeluxe, a program that was lots of fun but came up
short when you wanted to fine-tune how the program worked Adobe tried again
with Photoshop LE, which many people felt included all the difficulty of full shop, but still gave too little of what you needed to do top-notch work
Photo-Finally—sort of like “The Three Bears”—Adobe got it just right with Photoshop ments, which took off like crazy because it offers so much of Photoshop’s power in
Ele-a progrEle-am thEle-at Ele-almost Ele-anyone cEle-an leEle-arn With Elements, you too cEle-an work with the same wonderful tools that the pros use Elements has been around for quite a while now and, in each new version, Adobe has added lots of push-button-easy ways to correct and improve your photos
What You Can Do with Elements 10
Elements not only lets you make your photos look great, but also helps you organize your photos and gives you some pretty neat projects in which to use them The program even comes loaded with lots of easy ways to share photos The list of what Elements can do is pretty impressive You can use it to:
• Enhance photos by editing, cropping, and color-correcting them, including ing exposure and color problems
fix-• Add all kinds of special effects to images, like turning a garden-variety photo into a drawing, painting, or even a tile mosaic
• Combine photos into a panorama or montage
• Move someone from one photo to another, and even remove people (your ex?) from last year’s holiday photos
• Repair and restore old and damaged photos
• Organize your photos and assign keywords to them so you can search by subject
or name
• Add text to images and turn them into things like greeting cards and flyers
• Create slideshows to share with friends, regardless of whether they use dows, a Mac, or even just a cellphone
Trang 213
introduction
• Automatically resize photos so they’re ready to email either as regular email
at-tachments or in specially designed emails
• Create digital artwork from scratch, even without a photo to work from
• Create and share incredible online albums and email-ready slideshows that will
make your friends actually ask to see your vacation photos.
• Store photos online so you can get to them from any computer You can
orga-nize your photos online, and upload new images directly to your personalized
Photoshop.com website You can also keep an online backup of your photos,
and even sync albums so that when you add a new photo from another
com-puter, it automatically gets sent to your home comcom-puter, too
• Create and edit graphics for websites
• Create wonderful projects like collages and calendars that you can print or share
with your friends digitally Scrapbookers—get ready to be wowed
It’s worth noting, though, that there are still a few things Elements can’t do While
the program handles text quite competently, at least as photo-editing programs go,
it’s still no substitute for QuarkXPress, InDesign, or any other desktop-publishing
program And Elements can do an amazing job of fixing problems in your photos,
but only if you give it something to work with If your photo is totally overexposed,
blurry, and the top of everyone’s head is cut off, there’s a limit to what even Elements
can do to salvage it (C’mon, be fair.) The fact is, though, you’re more likely to be
surprised by what Elements can fix than by what it can’t.
What’s New in Elements 10
Elements 10 doesn’t have quite as many new features as the last few versions have
had, since this time around Adobe put a lot of their effort into fixing bugs in the
underlying code, but it’s still got some great new features:
• Text on a path (page 495) In Elements 10 you can create text that runs around
in a circle or follows the outline of a shape or an object in your photo
• Brush-on textures (page 237) The Smart Brush tools now let you add textures
to areas in your photos These new settings are especially nice for creating the
digital equivalent of photographer’s backdrops
• New crop overlays (page 101) When you decide to trim down a photo,
Ele-ments 10 has a new overlay feature to help you decide where to crop it You can
choose a basic grid or one that helps you position your subjects according to the
Rule of Thirds or the Golden Ratio
• New Guided Edits (page 34) Elements 10 gives you two new Guided Edits,
where the program walks you through the steps for creating effects that might
be difficult to figure out on your own You can now create the popular Orton
effect (where everything is dreamily blurred) or make a photo look like it’s been
split up into many photos And there’s one to help you create the look of a
shal-low depth of field, with only the subject in focus, from photos where everything
in the background was originally in focus, too
Trang 22• New Organizer searches (page 70) Elements has been able to search for and
identify people in your photos for a while now, but Elements 10 can also search through your photos to find pets or objects
• Mobile app compatibility If you have a touch-sensitive tablet like an iPad, you
can use Adobe’s special apps to help control Elements or to create new colors
or artwork and send them wirelessly, straight to Elements (As of this writing, these apps are only for iPad, but Adobe plans to make them available for An-droid tablets, too.)
• Windows screen resolution fix If you’ve used past versions of the Windows
Organizer, you know it had some problems if you set your screen resolution too high, like not being able to read the bar at the top of the Organizer These have been fixed in Elements 10
Elements vs Photoshop
You could easily get confused about the differences between Elements and the full version of Adobe Photoshop Because Elements is so much less expensive, and be-cause many of its more advanced controls are tucked away, a lot of Photoshop afi-cionados tend to view Elements as some kind of toy version of their program They
couldn’t be more wrong: Elements is Photoshop, but it’s Photoshop adapted for use
with a home printer, and for the Web
The most important difference between Elements and Photoshop is that Elements doesn’t let you work or save in CMYK mode, which is the format used for commer-cial color printing (CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and blacK Your inkjet printer also uses those ink colors to print, but it expects you to give it an RGB file, which is what Elements creates Don’t worry—this is all explained in Chapter 7.)Elements also lacks several tools that are basic staples in any commercial art depart-
ment, like the ability to write actions (to help automate repetitive tasks), the extra
color control you can get from Selective Color, and the Pen tool’s special talent for creating vector paths Also, for some special effects, like creating drop shadows or bevels, the tool you’d use—Layer styles—doesn’t have as many settings in Elements
as it does in Photoshop The same holds true for a handful of other Elements tools.And although Elements is all most people need to create graphics for the Web, it doesn’t come with the advanced tools in Photoshop, which let you do things like automatically slice images into smaller pieces for faster web display If you use Ele-ments, then you have to look for another program to help out with that
The Key to Learning Elements
Elements may not be quite as powerful as Photoshop, but it’s still a complex program, filled with more features than most people ever use The good news is that the Quick Fix window (Chapter 4) lets you get started right away, even if you don’t understand every last option that Quick Fix presents you with And you also get Guided Edit mode (page 34), which provides step-by-step walkthroughs of some popular editing tasks, like sharpening a photo or cropping it to fit on standard photo paper
Trang 235
introduction
As for the program’s more complex features, the key to learning how to use
Ele-ments—or any other program, for that matter—is to focus only on what you need to
know for the task you’re currently trying to accomplish
For example, if you’re trying to use Quick Fix to adjust the color of your photo and
crop it, don’t worry that you don’t get the concept of “layers” yet You won’t learn to
do everything in Elements in a day or even a week The rest will wait until you need
it, so take your time and don’t worry about what’s not important to you right now
You’ll find it much easier to master Elements if you go slowly and concentrate on
one thing at a time
If you’re totally new to the program, then you’ll find only three or four big concepts
in this book that you really need to understand if you want to get the most out of
Elements It may take a little time for some concepts to sink in—resolution and
lay-ers, for instance, aren’t the most intuitive concepts in the world—but once they click,
they’ll seem so obvious that you’ll wonder why they were confusing at first That’s
perfectly normal, so persevere You can do this, and there’s nothing in this book that
you can’t understand with a little bit of careful reading
The very best way to learn Elements is just to dive right in and play with it Try all
the different filters to see what they do Add a filter on top of another filter Click
around on all the different tools and try them You don’t even need to have a photo
to do this See page 52 to learn how to make an image from scratch in Elements,
and keep an eye out for the many downloadable practice images you’ll find at this
book’s companion website, www.missingmanuals.com Get crazy—you can stack up
as many filters, effects, and Layer styles as you want without crashing the program
About This Book
Elements is a cool program and lots of fun to use, but figuring out how to make it
do what you want is another matter Elements comes only with a quick reference
guide, and it doesn’t go into as much depth as you might want Elements’ Help files
are very good, but of course you need to know what you’re looking for to use them
to your best advantage (Elements’ Help files are online now; you can download
a PDF of them from Adobe’s Elements support pages at www.adobe.com/support/
photoshopelements.)
You’ll find a slew of Elements titles at your local bookstore, but most of them assume
that you know quite a bit about the basics of photography and/or digital imaging It’s
much easier to find good intermediate books about Elements than books designed
to get you going with the program
That’s where this book comes in It’s intended to make learning Elements easier by
avoiding technical jargon as much as possible, and explaining why and when you’ll
want to use (or avoid) certain features of the program That approach is as useful to
people who are advanced photographers as it is to those who are just getting started
with their first digital cameras
Trang 24Note: This book periodically recommends other books, covering topics too specialized or tangential for
a manual about Elements Careful readers may notice that not all of these titles are published by Missing Manual parent O’Reilly Media While we’re happy to mention other Missing Manuals and books in the O’Reilly family, if there’s a great book out there that doesn’t happen to be published by O’Reilly, we’ll still let you know about it.
You’ll also find instructions throughout this book that refer to files you can
down-load from the Missing Manual website (www.missingmanuals.com) so you can
prac-tice the techniques you’re reading about And in various spots, you’ll find several different kinds of short articles (a.k.a boxes) The ones labeled “Up to Speed” help newcomers to Elements do things, or they explain concepts with which veterans are probably already familiar Those labeled “Power Users’ Clinic” cover more advanced topics that won’t be of much interest to casual photographers
A Note About Operating Systems
This book covers using Elements with both Windows computers and Macs, and you’ll see both platforms represented in the illustrations (Frankly, you’ll see more Mac screenshots here simply because some things are easier to read in the Mac ver-sion of the program For example, pop-out menus are more likely to have a white background on a Mac instead of a dark one.) The Editor (the part of Elements where you tweak photos) works exactly the same way regardless of what kind of computer you’re using, but there are some differences in the Organizer and the projects avail-able to you, and those are noted as necessary Also, most of the keyboard shortcuts you use to run commands are different in Windows and on Macs; page 10 explains how those shortcuts are listed in this book
Note: If you bought Elements 10 from the Mac App Store, you got a special version that doesn’t include
the Organizer component, so the parts of this book about Organizer’s features (like tagging and ing photos) don’t apply However, the Editor is exactly the same in all versions of Elements.
categoriz-So remember: It doesn’t matter which version of the program is shown in the trations; unless the book says otherwise, the differences are just slight cosmetic ones, like the fact that you close Mac program windows by clicking a button on their left, whereas in Windows the button is on the right
illus-Note: Adobe’s video-editing program, Premiere Elements, also uses the Elements Organizer, and if you
install both programs, your Photoshop Elements menus will show a lot of Premiere Elements choices, too These are normally turned off when you install only Photoshop Elements, but if they get turned on by mistake, you can turn most of them off if you don’t care to see them; page 58 tells you how (Appendix B,
which you can download from this book’s Missing CD page at www.missingmanuals.com/cds, explains all
the Organizer’s menus Appendix C, also online, covers the Editor’s menus.)
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introduction
About the Outline
This book is divided into seven parts, each focusing on a certain kind of task:
• Part One: Introduction to Elements The first part of this book helps you get
started with the program Chapter 1 shows how to navigate Elements’ slightly
confusing layout and mishmash of programs within programs You’ll learn how
to decide where to start from and how to customize Elements so it best suits
your working style, and how to set up your Photoshop.com account You’ll also
read about some important keyboard shortcuts, and where to look for help
when you get stuck Chapter 2 covers how to get photos into Elements, the
ba-sics of organizing them, and how to open files and create new images from
scratch You’ll also find out how to save and back up your images, either on
your home computer or using Photoshop.com Chapter 3 explains how to rotate
and crop photos, and includes a primer on that most important digital imaging
concept—resolution
• Part Two: Elemental Elements Chapter 4 shows how to use the Quick Fix
window to dramatically improve your photos Chapters 5 and 6 cover two key
concepts that you’ll use throughout this book: making selections and layers
• Part Three: Retouching Having Elements is like having a darkroom on your
computer In Chapter 7, you’ll learn how to make basic corrections, such as
fixing exposure, adjusting color, sharpening images, and removing dust and
scratches Chapter 8 covers topics unique to people who use digital cameras,
like Raw conversion and batch-processing photos In Chapter 9, you’ll move on
to more sophisticated fixes, like using the clone stamp for repairs, making
pho-tos livelier by adjusting their color intensity, and adjusting light and shadows in
images Chapter 10 shows you how to convert color photos to black and white,
and how to tint and colorize black-and-white photos Chapter 11 helps you to
use Elements’ Photomerge feature to create a panorama from several photos,
and to correct perspective problems in your images
• Part Four: Artistic Elements This part covers the fun stuff: painting on photos
and drawing shapes (Chapter 12), using filters and effects to create more artistic
looks (Chapter 13), and adding text to images (Chapter 14)
• Part Five: Sharing Images Once you’ve created a great image in Elements,
you’ll want to share it, so this part is about how to create fun projects like photo
books (Chapter 15), how to get the most out of your printer (Chapter 16), how
to create files to use on the Web and in email (Chapter 17), and how to make
slideshows and share them online (Chapter 18)
• Part Six: Additional Elements You can get hundreds of plug-ins and
addi-tional styles, brushes, and other nifty tools to customize your copy of Elements
and increase its abilities; the Internet and your local bookstore are chock full
of additional info Chapter 19 offers a look at some of these resources, as well
as information about using a graphics tablet with Elements, and suggests some
places to turn after you finish this book
Trang 26• Part Seven: Appendixes Appendix A helps you get your copy of Elements up
and running, and suggests what to do if it starts misbehaving Appendixes B and C—which you can download from this book’s Missing CD page (see page 11)—cover all the menu items in the Organizer and Editor, respectively
For Newcomers to Elements
This book contains a lot of information, and if you’re new to Elements, it can be a tle overwhelming But you don’t need to digest it all at once, especially if you’ve never used any kind of photo-editing software before So what do you need to read first? Here’s a simple five-step way to use this book if you’re brand new to photo editing:
lit-1 Read all of Chapter lit-1.
That’s important for understanding how to get around in Elements
2 If your photos aren’t on your computer already, then read about the Photo Downloader in Chapter 2
The Downloader gets your photos from your camera’s memory card into Elements
3 If you want to organize your photos, then read about the Organizer (also in Chapter 2).
It doesn’t matter where your photos are right now If you want to use the nizer to label and keep track of them, then read Chapter 2
Orga-4 When you’re ready to edit your photos, read Chapters 3 and Orga-4.
Chapter 3 explains how to adjust your view of photos in the Editor Chapter 4 shows you how to use the Quick Fix window to easily edit and correct photos Guided Edit (page 34) can also be very helpful when you’re just getting started
If you skipped Chapter 2 because you’re not using the Organizer, go back there and read the part about saving photos (page 74) so you don’t lose your work
5 When you’re ready to print or share your photos, flip to the chapters on ing images
shar-Chapter 16 covers printing, both at home and from online services shar-Chapter 17 explains how to email photos, and Chapter 18 teaches you how to post photos
at Photoshop.com
That’s all you need to get started You can come back and pick up the rest of the info
in the book as you get more comfortable with Elements and want to explore more of the wonderful things you can do with it
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introduction
The Very Basics
This book assumes that you know how to perform basic activities on your
com-puter like clicking and double-clicking your mouse buttons and dragging objects
onscreen Here’s a quick refresher: To click means to move the point of your mouse
or trackpad cursor over an object on your screen, and then to press the left mouse
or trackpad button once To right-click means to press the right mouse button once,
which calls up a menu of special features To double-click means to press the left
but-ton twice, quickly, without moving the mouse between clicks To drag means to click
an object and then to hold down the left button (so you don’t let go of the object)
while you use the mouse to move the object Most onscreen selection buttons are
pretty obvious, but you may not be familiar with radio buttons: To choose an option,
click the little empty circle next to it If you’re comfortable with basic concepts like
these, then you’re ready to get started with this book
In Elements, you’ll often want to use keyboard shortcuts to save time, and this book
tells you about keyboard shortcuts when they exist (and Elements has a lot) In this
book, unless otherwise specified, keyboard shortcuts are always presented as
Win-dows keystroke/Mac keystroke So if you see a sentence like, “Press Ctrl+S/-S to
save your file,” that means that if you use Windows, you should hold down the
Con-trol key while pressing the S key, and if you have a Mac, you should hold down
the key while pressing the S key There’s one slight exception to this: When you
see “right-click/Control-click,” if you have a Mac and a two-button mouse, you can
right-click But if you have a one-button mouse, you can Control-click instead—that
means to press the Control key on your keyboard and then press your mouse button
once
About➝These➝Arrows
Throughout this book (and the Missing Manual series, for that matter) you see
sen-tences like this: “Go to the Editor and select Filter➝Artistic➝Paint Daubs.” This is
a shorthand way of helping you find files, folders, and menu items without having
to read through excruciatingly long, bureaucratic-style instructions So the sample
sentence above is a short way of saying this: “Go to the Editor component of
Ele-ments In the menu bar at the top of the screen, click the word ‘Filter.’ In the menu
that appears, choose the Artistic section, and then go to Paint Daubs in the pop-out
menu.” Figure I-1 shows you an example in action
Trang 28“Go to the menu bar, click Image, slide down
to Rotate, and then, from the pop-up menu, choose Free Rotate Layer.”
Mac file paths are shown using the same arrows Windows file paths, on the other
hand, are shown in the conventional Windows style, so if you see, “Go to
C:\Docu-ments and Settings\<your user name>\My DocuC:\Docu-ments\My Pictures,” that means you
should go to your C drive, open the Documents and Settings folder, look for your user account folder, and then find the My Documents folder In that folder, open the
My Pictures folder that’s inside it When there are different file paths for Windows 7, Vista, and Windows XP, then you’ll find them all listed
Like keyboard shortcuts, file paths are shown as Windows file path/Mac file path when all versions of Windows use the same file path Otherwise, all the different versions are specified If you’re using Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion), there’s one special chal-lenge finding some of the files mentioned in this book; specifically, the ones located
in the Library folders (Figure I-2 explains.) Also, if you buy Elements from the Mac App Store, all the files are actually inside the Application itself, which means your file paths will be different, so you’ll see different instructions for the App Store ver-sion throughout this book
Note: If you’re using a 64-bit version of Windows, you have two folders labeled “Program Files.”
Windows puts 64-bit programs into the folder simply called “Program Files,” but Elements, like many programs you may install, is a 32-bit program, and Windows puts 32-bit programs into a folder called
“Program Files (x86).” If you have a folder called “Program Files (x86), that’s where you should always
look for Elements’ files This book includes a reminder note every time this applies, such as, “Go to C:\ Program Files [Program Files (x86) if you have a 64-bit system]\Adobe\Elements 10 Organizer.”
Trang 2911
introduction
Figure I-2:
In Mac OS X 10.7, a.k.a Lion, Apple has made it a little harder
to find your Library folders The one you’ll need most often is the Library folder that resides at the very top level of your hard drive This isn’t exactly hidden in 10.7, but it never appears unless you change your settings to make it accessible To do that, in the Finder, go to Finder➝Preferences➝Sidebar and, in the Devices section, turn on the “Hard disks” checkbox (circled) After that, you can always find the Library folder by just clicking the name of your hard drive in the list on the left side of a Finder window.
The other Library folder you may need is the one for your user account, which is a hidden file in Lion To make it visible, in the Finder, open the Go menu and then press the Option key Your user account’s Library folder will appear in the menu just below your Home folder.
About the Online Resources
As the owner of a Missing Manual, you’ve got more than just a book to read Online,
you’ll find example files so you can get some hands-on experience You can also
communicate with the Missing Manual team and tell us what you love (or hate)
about the book Head over to www.missingmanuals.com, or go directly to one of the
following sections
Missing CD
This book doesn’t have a CD pasted inside the back cover, but you’re not missing out
on anything Go to www.missingmanuals.com/cds to download sample files
men-tioned in this book as well as a few tutorials and two additional appendixes And
so you don’t wear down your fingers typing long web addresses, this book’s Missing
CD page also offers a list of clickable links to the websites mentioned in these pages
Trang 30Registration
If you register this book at oreilly.com, you’ll be eligible for special offers—like
dis-counts on future editions of Photoshop Elements 10: The Missing Manual ing takes only a few clicks To get started, type http://tinyurl.com/registerbook into
Register-your browser to hop directly to the Registration page
Feedback
Got questions? Need more information? Fancy yourself a book reviewer? On our Feedback page, you can get expert answers to questions that come to you while read-ing, share your thoughts on this Missing Manual, and find groups for folks who
share your interest in Elements To have your say, go to www.missingmanuals.com/
feedback.
Errata
In an effort to keep this book as up to date and accurate as possible, each time we print more copies, we’ll make any confirmed corrections you’ve suggested We also note such changes on the book’s website, so you can mark important corrections into your own copy of the book, if you like To report an error or view existing correc-
tions, go to http://missingmanuals.com/library.html, click the title of this book, and
then click the “View/Submit Errata” link on the page that appears
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Trang 31Part One: Introduction to
Elements
Chapter 1: Finding Your Way Around Elements
Chapter 2: Importing, Managing, and Saving Photos
Chapter 3: Rotating and Resizing Photos
Trang 33chapter 1
Finding Your Way Around
Elements
Photoshop Elements lets you do practically anything you want to your digital
images You can colorize black-and-white photos, remove demonic red-eye
stares, or distort the facial features of people who’ve been mean to you The
downside is that all those options can make it tough to find your way around
Ele-ments, especially if you’re new to the program
This chapter helps get you oriented You’ll learn what to expect when you launch
the program, how to use Elements to fix photos with just a couple of keystrokes, and
how to sign up for and connect to all the goodies that await you on Photoshop.com
You’ll also learn how to use Guided Edit mode to get started editing your photos
Along the way, you’ll find out about some of Elements’ basic controls and how to get
to the program’s Help files
Getting Started
Unlike the past several versions of Elements, with Elements 10 there’s not much
dif-ference in how you start up the program, regardless of whether you have a Mac or a
Windows computer
When you install Elements in Windows, the installer creates a desktop shortcut for
you Just double click that to launch Elements
Trang 3416 photoshop elements 10: the missing manual
Getting Started
In the Mac version, you can launch Elements as the last step in the installation process (page 609 explains how to install Elements), or you can go to Applications➝Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 and double-click its icon there (Incidentally, the only other thing in there besides the uninstaller is a folder called Support Files [you won't see this if you have the App Store version] That’s where you’ll find the actual Editor ap-plication.) If you want to make a Dock icon for future convenience, start Elements and then go to the Dock and click its icon Keep holding the mouse button down till you see a menu, and then choose Options➝Keep in Dock
Note: If you don’t care for Elements’ dark color scheme, unfortunately you’re out of luck in Elements 10
While some previous versions gave you a way to choose a lighter color for the background of the gram’s windows, this is gone from Elements now On the plus side, the contrast between the program’s background and the text on it is a bit better than in previous versions.
pro-UP TO SPEED
Which Version of Elements Do You Have?
This book covers Photoshop Elements 10 If you’re not sure
which version you’ve got, the easiest way to find out is to
look at the program’s icon (the one you click to launch
Ele-ments) The icon for Elements 10 is a dark blue square with
a stylized outline of two photographs on it in lighter blue.
If you’re still not sure, in Windows, click once on the
Elements icon on your desktop, and Windows displays the
full name of the program—including the version number—
below the icon, if it wasn’t already visible You can also
check the Windows Start menu, where Elements is listed
along with its version number On a Mac, check in your
Ap-plications folder to see the version number Or, if Elements
is already running, go to Help➝About Photoshop Elements
in Windows or Adobe Photoshop Elements Editor➝About Photoshop Elements on a Mac.
You can still use this book if you have an earlier version
of Elements because a lot of the basic editing procedures are the same But Elements 10 is a little different, so you’d probably feel more comfortable with a reference book for the version you have There are Missing Manuals for Elements
3 through 9, too, and you may prefer to track down the book that matches your version of Elements (For Elements
6 and 8, there are separate editions for the Mac and dows versions.)
Win-The Welcome Screen
When you launch Elements for the first time, you’re greeted by the Welcome screen (Figure 1-1) This is where you sign up for your free Photoshop.com account (which you can only get if you live in the U.S.; page 21 explains how), which also registers Elements (If you have a Mac, you also have the option to create your account while installing Elements, as well as doing that here.)
Note: The App Store version has no Welcome Screen and no option for a free Photoshop.com account
When you launch this version, you go straight to the Editor (page 23).
Trang 35in the right part of the window changes oc- casionally, so it may not exactly match this image The left part of the window is always the same, though; it’s where you choose whether to organize or edit photos The bottom
of the screen has links for signing into your Photoshop.com account, if you have one You can’t bypass the Welcome screen just by clicking the upper-right Close (X) button If you do that, this screen goes away—but so does Elements Fortunately, the box on page 18 tells you how to per- manently say good- bye to this screen
The Welcome screen is a launchpad that lets you choose which part of Elements you
want to use:
• Organize button This starts the Organizer, which lets you store and organize
your image files
• Edit button Click this for the Editor, which lets you modify your images.
You can easily hop back and forth between the Editor and the Organizer—which you
can think of as the two halves of Elements—and you probably won’t do much in one
without eventually needing to get into the other But in some ways, they function as
two separate programs For example, if you start in the Organizer, then once you’ve
picked a photo to edit, you have to wait a few seconds while the Editor loads And
when you have both the Editor and the Organizer running, quitting the Editor doesn’t
close the Organizer—you have to close both parts of Elements independently
In the upper-right part of the Editor’s main window is a button that you can click
to launch the Organizer or switch over to it if it’s already running Click the word
“Organizer” or the dark blue square with four smaller light blue squares on it If you
Trang 3618 photoshop elements 10: the missing manual
Getting Started
want to do the opposite—get photos from the Organizer to the Editor—select the photo(s) and then either right-click/Control-click one of the selected thumbnails and choose “Edit with Photoshop Elements;” go to Fix➝Edit Photos; or click the down arrow to the right of the word “Fix” and choose Full, Quick, or Guided Edit Whichever method you use, your photo(s) appear in the Editor so you can work on them Once both programs are running, you can also just click the Editor’s or the Organizer’s icon in the Windows taskbar or the Mac Dock to switch from one to the other
One helpful thing to keep in mind is that Adobe built Elements around the tion that most people work on their photos in the following way: First, you bring photos into the Organizer to sort and keep track of them Then, you open photos
assump-in the Editor to work on them and save them back to the Organizer when you’ve finished making changes You can work differently, of course—by opening photos directly in the Editor and bypassing the Organizer altogether, for example—but you may feel like you’re always swimming against the current if you choose a different workflow (The next chapter has a few hints for disabling some of Elements’ features
if you find they’re getting in your way.)The Welcome screen can also serve as your connecting point for signing onto Pho-toshop.com Page 21 has more about this website, but for now you just need to know that a basic account is free if you’re in the United States (it’s not available in other countries), and it gives you access to all the interesting features in Elements that require an Internet connection
If you’re already signed into Photoshop.com, you can see how much of your online storage you’ve already used by looking at the graph at the bottom of the Welcome screen There’s also a reminder of your personal URL at Photoshop.com and links
to online help, tips, and tricks for using Elements However, you can also get to all these things from within the Editor or the Organizer, so there’s no need to keep the Welcome screen around just for that The box below explains how to get rid of the Welcome Screen
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION
Say Goodbye to the Welcome Screen
How do I get rid of the Welcome screen?
If you get to feeling welcomed enough, you may want
to turn off the Welcome screen so you don’t have to
click through it every time you start Elements To tell the
Welcome Screen you don’t want to see it anymore, click
Settings in the upper-right corner This displays a
pop-up window where you can choose to have the Editor or
the Organizer start from now on instead of the Welcome
Screen Just choose the program you want from the list
that appears (If you’ve used an earlier version of Elements, this is a great change from the persistent Welcome screen
of old.)
If you change your mind later on about how you want ments to open, at the top right of either the Editor or the Organizer, just click the little house icon to bring back the Welcome Screen, then head back to the Settings menu de- scribed above and make your change.
Trang 37chapter 1: finding your way around elements
Organizing Your Photos
Organizing Your Photos
Organizing Your Photos
The Organizer is where your photos come into Elements and go out again when it’s
time to print or email them The Organizer catalogs and keeps track of your photos,
and you automatically come back to it for many activities that involve sharing
pho-tos, like emailing them (page 563) or creating an online gallery of them (page 572)
The Organizer’s main window (Figure 1-2), which is sometimes called the Media
Browser, lets you view your photos, sort them into albums, and assign keyword
la-bels to them (In some previous versions of Elements it was called the Photo Browser,
so you may hear that term, too.)
Figure 1-2:
The Media Browser is your main Organizer workspace Click the Create tab in the up- per right and you can start all kinds of new projects with your photos, or click the Share tab for ways
to let other people view your images
Click the arrow to the right of the Fix tab (circled) for a menu that gives you
a choice of going to Full Edit, Quick Fix, or Guided Edit The Fix tab gives you access
to some quick fixes right in the Organizer The Organizer also gives you another way to look at your photos, Date view, which is explained in Chapter 2
The Organizer has lots of really cool features you’ll learn about throughout this book
when they’re relevant to the task at hand The next chapter shows you how to use the
Organizer to import and organize your photos, and online Appendix B covers all the
Organizer’s different menu options (head to www.missingmanuals.com/cds) What’s
more, if you sign up for a Photoshop.com account (page 21), then you can access and
organize your photos from any computer, not just at home
Trang 3820 photoshop elements 10: the missing manual
Figure 1-3:
Adobe’s Photo Downloader is yet another program you get when you install Elements Its job is to pull photos from your camera (or other storage device) into the Organizer To use the Downloader
in Windows, just click “Organize and Edit using Adobe Elements Organizer 10.0” (circled) in Windows 7’s or Vista’s AutoPlay dialog box (If you use Windows XP, you’ll see a dialog box with similar options.) After the Downloader does its thing, you end up in the Organizer.
In Windows, the Downloader appears as one of your options in the Windows dialog box that you see when you connect a device If you want to use the Downloader, then just choose it from the list
On a Mac, you launch the Downloader from the Organizer by going to File➝“Get Photos and Videos”➝“From Camera or Card Reader.” There’s no way to make the Downloader run automatically on a Mac—you have to go through the Organizer to start it
You can read more about the Downloader in Chapter 2 If you plan to use the nizer to catalog photos and assign keywords to them, then reading the section on the Downloader (page 42) can help you avoid hair-pulling moments
Trang 39chapter 1: finding your way around elements
Photoshop.com
UP TO SPEED
Where the Heck Did Elements Go?
If you’ve installed Elements but can’t figure out how to
launch it, no problem
Windows automatically creates a shortcut to Elements on
your desktop when you install the program (If you need
help installing Elements, turn to Appendix A.) You can also
go to the Start menu, and then click the Adobe Photoshop
Elements 10 icon If you don’t see Elements in the Start menu, then click the arrow next to All Programs, and you should see it in the pop-up menu.
On a Mac, go to Applications➝Adobe Photoshop Elements 10.0, and then double-click the Adobe Photoshop Elements
10 icon.
Photoshop.com
Adobe also gives you easy access to its Photoshop.com service as part of Elements A
basic account is free, and it’s nicely integrated into Elements, making it super simple
to use With a Photoshop.com account, you can:
• Create your own website You can make beautiful online albums that display
your photos in elaborate slideshows—all accessible via your own personal
Pho-toshop.com URL (web address) It’s great for dazzling friends and family They
can even download your photos or order prints, if you choose to let them (see
page 574)
• Automatically back up and sync your photos You can set Elements to sync
the photos from your computer to storage space on Photoshop.com, creating a
backup, just in case What’s more, you can upload photos to your albums from
other computers, and they automatically appear in the Organizer the next time
you start Elements See page 82 for more about how to use this feature
• Access your photos from other computers When you’re not at home, pop over
to your Photoshop.com account to see and even organize your photos That
way, when you visit friends, you don’t need to lug your computer along—just log
into your account from their computers
• Download extra goodies The Content panel (page 522) displays thumbnails
for additional backgrounds, frames, graphics, and so on, that you can download
from Photoshop.com
• Get lots of great free advice Call up the Photoshop Inspiration Browser (page
35), and you can choose from a whole range of helpful tutorials for all sorts of
Elements tasks and projects
Note: These Photoshop.com features are available only in the United States, though Adobe has said
for years that it plans to expand these offerings worldwide—someday As of this writing, folks outside the
United States can get some of the same features, like the ability to create online albums and galleries, at
Adobe’s Photoshop Showcase site http://photoshopshowcase.com (See page 612 for more about the
regional differences.)
Trang 4022 photoshop elements 10: the missing manual
Photoshop.com
You automatically get your Photoshop.com account when you register Elements If you created an Adobe ID or entered an existing one the first time you launched Ele-ments (in Windows) or when you installed Elements (on a Mac), you’re all set If you didn’t create an account or log in, here’s how to sign up for a free account:
1 Tell Adobe you want an account.
Just click the Create New Adobe ID button on the Welcome screen (page 16)
or at the top of either the Organizer’s or Editor’s main window (FYI, this also registers Elements—see page 612.)
2 In the window that opens, fill in your information to create your Adobe ID.
You need to enter the usual—address, phone, email, and so on—and pick what you’d like as your unique Adobe web address (Hint: something like
http://johnspictures.photoshop.com is probably already taken, so you may need
to try a few alternatives When you click Create Account, you get a message if the web address you chose is already in use.) Turn on the checkbox that says you agree to Adobe’s terms and conditions Finally, for security purposes, you need to enter the text you see in a box on the sign-up screen
3 Create your account.
Click the Create Account button Adobe tells you if it finds any errors in what you submitted and gives you a chance to go back and fix them
4 Confirm your account.
You’ll get an email from Adobe that contains a link Just click the link to confirm that you want to create an account, and you’re all set (You need to click the link within 24 hours of creating your account, or you may have to start the whole process again.)
Once you have an account, you can get to it by clicking Sign In at the top of the Editor or Organizer After you sign in, you see “Welcome <your name>” instead of
“Sign In,” and you can click that to go to your account settings (You can also look
at the bottom of the Welcome screen to see how much free space you have left, as shown in Figure 1-4.)
Figure 1-4:
Once you sign into your Photoshop.com account, the bottom
of the Welcome screen shows how much online storage space you’re currently using and includes
a link for managing backups and syncing You also see a link
to your personalized web address.