Photoshop Tricks

5 Comments for this entry

• Michael McKee
  July 4th, 2010 on 4:02 am

  Review by Michael McKee for Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 [OLD VERSION]
  Rating:
  I like Photoshop Elements. I’ve always considered it a good option for photographers who haven’t spent the many, many hours needed to learn the full version of Photoshop. That’s not to mention the extra $560 the full version will set you back.

  I’ve taught Photoshop at a local college since 2000 and use it in my graphic design business. There are real advantages to having the pro version, for pros. However, there are some real disadvantages, too. I see person after person come into my classes having paid the full price for the full version. With very, very few exceptions these people don’t push their program hard enough to exceed Element’s limitations and probably never will. There seems to be the mind set that because these people have spend a bundle on their cameras and lenses they “need” the “better” version of Photoshop. They don’t. Elements can handle a huge percentage of photo editing and design jobs. You may have to use a different tool than what you’re used to but can usually achieve identical results. A better camera can produce better photos. Photoshop CS- whatever isn’t a better photo editing program. The underlying graphics engine is identical in both programs. Elements just has a simpler interface. If you think that Photosho Elements is complicated, try learning CS4.

  To prove my point to a professional photographer friend I had him come up with a dozen photos. He edited them in CS3 and I used Elements 7. Our results were different on a couple of the images but that wasn’t due to Elements but that my interpretation was different from his. Even he agreed.

  That said my recommendation is that if you are getting serious about editing your photos, start with Elements. It will save you a ton of scratch and the vast majority of what you learn will be easily transferable to the full program. If you find that you outgrow Elements some day you haven’t lost anything. Chances are that Photoshop will have a new version out and even the upgrade for Photoshop is half again as expensive as Elements at full retail.

  As to the value of this version of Elements. Some people have written that they find it slower than previous ones. Maybe they had an earlier version of Elements. I haven’t found that to be the case on my pretty middle of the road computer. Are the new tools worth the cost? That’s a tougher question. If you have version 4 or earlier, absolutely. Version 5, I’d say yes. Version 6? Probably. I usually skip a version when upgrading.

  There are some new tools that are nice. The Adobe Photoshop.com isn’t too compelling. I’ve been on Flickr for years and don’t plan to move off. Adobe’s site doesn’t offer an real advantages for me.

  The Scene Cleaner and Smart Brush are both very useful tools. The Action Player lets me run pre-recorded Photoshop actions in Elements. That’s not quite like making my own, but there are hundreds, possibly thousands of pre-recorded Photoshop actions available for download. Actions can perform automated changes to your images and can be quite useful

  Other tools, like the Blue Sky brush have limited functionality. Painting a blue sky over water is easy and cool. Doing so over trees or any complicated horizon is a total pain. The Whiter Teeth brush is handy, though that wasn’t that hard to accomplish before. But keeping with Elements’ philosophy of simplifying photo editing, I can see that it is an obvious inclusion. And the Surface Blur tool, well don’t get too excited about it.

  Adobe’s Photo Organizer is still an excellent tool, though I would have liked to see Adobe include Bridge instead, as they did in the Mac version of Elements.

  Adobe includes some guided activities like creating holiday cards and scrapbooks with Elements. If that appeals to you, there are wizards that guide you through the activities. The results aren’t quite professional looking but probably better than most people could achieve on their own.
• Phlogiston
  July 4th, 2010 on 4:02 am

  Review by Phlogiston for Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 [OLD VERSION]
  Rating:
  What can you say about Photoshop?

  It changed the world of digital photography. If you really want close control over your digital photographs and other digital images, there is simply nothing better available to the non-professional user and few things better available even to professionals!

  If you really don’t know what Photoshop is, well, here are a few examples of what can be done with this fine piece of software:

  1) You can view images

  2) You can edit images (get rid of red eye, scratches and graininess, change colors, light levels, etc. in either the entire image or in just one part and even do complex edits like making your dog look like he has zebra stripes in a particular photo)

  3) You can combine images (e.g. if you can’t get a decent family photograph because in each sample photograph somebody looks bad, then you can take everybody’s best shot and combine them into one single image)

  4) You can take pieces out of images (in addition to cutting and cropping, you can outright cut a person out of the picture)

  5) You can add captions and lettering to images.

  6) You can put all kinds of effects into your images such as lens flares, clouds, etc. You can also create psychedelic effects, make things sharper, duller, blur boundaries between items, etc.

  7) Photoshop also has a full panoply of items that you’d expect to find in any art program (paint brush tools, pencils, erasers, etc.)

  Photoshop allows you to create images in layers, so that you can move and edit one part without affecting others.

  9) Photoshop also makes it easy to scan multiple images from your flatbed scanner at the same time and import them to separate image files. Forget about scanning one at a time or scanning a bunch of photos into one big file and then cutting and pasting. My wife wanted to digitize hundreds of old family photos and this software, literally, saved me dozens of hours of work time and blessed us with a resource that has become a wellspring of wonderful memories.

  10) Photoshop allows you to enlarge and shrink images and will even help minimize pixelation in enlarged images.

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  Now, for those of you who DO know what Photoshop is and what it can do, here are a few things you might want to know if you are considering upgrading to or buying this piece of software.

  1) The first thing one notices is the new welcome screen. You can opt to enter the program or the organizer, as usual, or you can opt to interact with[...], an online resource for photoshop users, where one can either work with others or store one’s images (among other services) online.

  2) The interface is fairly similar to Photoshop Elements 6, but it offers some interesting new features. For instance, one can edit the features of the desktop (make it darker, to pop the photos or brighter if one likes brightness).

  3) In the “New File” option, one can now use a pull down menu to create a scrapbook file (when one is working with a blank file), which is good for scrapbookers. My wife likes it, but I don’t use it too often.

  4) When you’re working with guided edit, you can now use an “Automated Actions” feature that allows one to take advantage of what Adobe calls the “Action player”. It is, essentially a wizard that gives one step by step instructions on various edits, such as “Lose weight”, “Resize and crop” or “Special effects”.

  5) The bug that made it tough to move objects with the arrow keys has been fixed in this version of Elements.

  6) If you weren’t impressed with what the “Action player” could do in #4, well, take heart. You can create your own actions so that, once you have executed a complex series of edits in one photo, you can do the same for every subsequent one by simply executing an action. Not only that, you can share your actions with friends and download actions off the net. Tons are available.

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  In truth, there are a lot more features and uses than the ones I have mentioned. Photoshop, like any piece of enormously robust software, is simply beyond an easy summary. However, Elements 7 is an exciting hint at where this mainstay of graphical software is heading. There are a lot of new good ideas and it really feels like a winner.
• Swimmy
  July 4th, 2010 on 4:08 am

  Review by Swimmy for Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 [OLD VERSION]
  Rating:
  RATING = 1 STAR as delivered / 4 STARS with supplemental book from the library!!!!

  I’m new to Photoshop Elements. I really need a good digital photo editor because my pictures don’t always turn out. I was going to order PSE6 and then saw PSE7 was coming out in October so I pre-ordered PSE7 on Amazon.

  When I first installed this program I thought it was REALLY, REALLY slow to use, and there is really no documentation provided on how to use it. CRAZY! I figured out how to do basic things as best I could and tried figuring out how to get help from Adobe’s website – just generally not intuitive.

  Well – being resourceful and not ready to give up I got Photoshop Elements for Dummies from the library. I’m currently on Page 18, and I’m finally getting it – It’s a miracle. There are things that you would NEVER figure out on your own (ex: hover and blue text will appear and you can click on the blue text to get specific help for that functionality!!!!)

  My advice – buy the software and then ahold of some good documentation that will help you figure out how to use this!!!
• Steven Sprunger
  July 4th, 2010 on 4:37 am

  Review by Steven Sprunger for Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 [OLD VERSION]
  Rating:
  I have been an avid user of Photoshop Elements for years and recently ‘upgraded’ to PE 7.0. I am still looking for some sort of added value over PE 6.0. While the program functions adequately, it seems slower than the previous version, even on my quad-core system. Save your money until Adobe comes out with something that actually makes the price of this ‘upgrade’ worth your hard earned dollars. I would recommend picking up an older version of the software and saving yourself some money.
• DandL's Mom
  July 4th, 2010 on 5:35 am

  Review by DandL’s Mom for Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 [OLD VERSION]
  Rating:
  I have used PE4 successfully for quite awhile. I tried upgrading to PE6 a few months ago, but found the software too slow and buggy. I am working on large files and it was much slower than PE4. I went back to PE4 and waited for PE7. I have only had PE7 for a few days, but so far I am not impressed. Loading and converting my catalogs went smoothly, but PE7 is still a memory hog and buggy. PE7 is much slower than PE4 — there is noticeable and annoying lag trying to generate thumbnails in my catalog in the organizer. When trying to use the editor, the program only works for a few minutes before giving me an error and randomly shutting down, resulting in a lot of lost work. There are some software upgrades that look very promising (if I can get to work). In particular, the automated action feature is an improvement over PE4. And, you can now adjust the background of the organizer so it is lighter than PE6 (although still not as user friendly as PE4 in my opinion). I will keep looking for a solution, but so far I am very disappointed with this software.
  
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  I am updating my review in response to comments. I am reasonably competent on the computer, but I am not a power user and don’t want to waste a lot time troubleshooting. I use PE extensively for photo editing and digital scrapbooking. I don’t have a cutting edge system (I’ll post exact specs later when I have more time), but I have updgraded it, including bringing it up to 2GB RAM. My system runs XP. It is a very good, but not brand new system that ran PE4 like a dream. If you are like me and looking to upgrade, expect problems and save your money until you can also by a new computer. If you have a brand new computer, you will probably enjoy this software.