Photo Editing Workflow using Photoshop Elements The Elements Orgainzer has a downloader to move your photos from the camera to the computer and catalog them. They are not actually stored in the organizer, just indexed there. You can click on an image and drag the Zoom slider at the top to make it bigger or go back small to see many thumbnail images on the screen. Click on the image you want to work with, click Edit and choose Quick Fix, Guided Edit or Full Edit. A Raw image will automatically open in the Raw Converter. A jpg will open in the Editing mode you chose. After converting the Raw image by moving the sliders, you can click Open to open the image in the Editor to make other adjustments, crop, resize, sharpen, etc. If you open a jpg image, adjust lighting with Levels, adjust shadows and highlights, adjust color, crop, resize, sharpen, clone out unwanted items, etc You can print your images directly from the program if you have a photo printer, or upload them to an online photo processor, or put them on a CD and take it to a local photo processor.. 1. If not using the Organizer, go to File > Open to open one (or more) imge(s). 2. Rotate your image if you have taken it in portrait (vertical) orientation. Go to Image > Rotate 3. Cropping is one of the simplest things you can do to enhance a photo, yet many people neglect this step. By cropping your photos, you can remove unnecessary and potentially distracting elements so viewers will be able to focus on the important parts of your picture. You can also improve the composition of a picture by cropping according to the Rule of Thirds. In addition, cropping can significantly reduce file size, which is important for photos you intend to post on the Web or send via email. In Elements, you can crop to a specific size by entering the numbers in the boxes at the top after selecting the crop tool or use the drop down that lists specific sizes. Then drag the box to define the crop you want. If you set it to 6 in x 4 in then you are set to print a 6 x 4 right from Elements, or save it later to a CD to take to a photo processor. For email only, just crop the picture however you want it so it looks best and later you can resize it to a smaller pixel size. NOTE: It’s a good idea to do all the editing for tone and color and cloning/painting on the full size image but don’t sharpen it and then save it as a .psd native Photoshop file under File > Save As as your uncropped Master file. This will also save your Layers if you have used Adjustment layers instead of working on the actual photo (background layer) or added other layers such as Text layers.Then you can crop it for printing or the web and sharpen at that time and save that version marking it by naming it [image]5x7.jpg or whatever size it is. BE SURE to use SAVE AS so you don’t save over your original if you don't rename it! The Organizer may have protection built in when you save an image by automatically giving it a different name but check to see! You can also use the crop tool to straighten crooked horizons or subjects by dropping the pointer down under one corner till it becomes a two-headed arrow and drag it up or down until the angle of the top or bottom of the crop box matches the angle of the horizon. When you click the check mark to crop the image, it will also straighten the horizon/image. Some people prefer to use the Straighten tool instead and then crop. 4. Tone and Contrast Adjustments: First you should check the lighting for underexposure, overexposure, and contrast. Levels is an easy tool to use for tone and contrast correction. Levels is found under Enhance > adjust brightness/contrast > Levels. However, the best approach is to create a Levels adjustment layer. In the layers palette, click on the Adjustment Layer icon and choose Levels.You'll see a histogram that shows you a diagram of all the lightness levels in your photo. The darkest tones are on the left and the lightest tones are on the right.You should see three little triangular sliders underneath the histogram. The black slider is for the shadow values, the white slider is for highlight values and the gray slider is for midtone values. Drag the black and white sliders in from each side to the “bottom of the hill” on the histogram to start with. If the white end of the histogram already goes up the right side, leave it alone and use the middle (mid-tone) slider instead to brighten the mid-tones. Darken the shadows if the image has low contrast and looks dull. You can also use the shadow/highlight tool under Adjust lighting. This can't be done with an adjustment layer. It is amazing for lightening shadows and evening out tones in a high-contrast photo. Just don’t go too far with it and be sure to increase the Contrast slider if you lighten it very much. The other main tool for adjusting tones in an image is the Color Curves adjustment. Curves can be adjusted only on the image, there is no adjustment layer. To keep a non-destructive workflow, duplicate the background layer and work from it. Start with the Presets and see if that works for you. Otherwise, move the sliders to get the effect you want. 5. Color Adjustments: Now is the time to examine the overall color of your image and adjust for color casts if necessary. It's important to get color and tones corrected before moving on to retouching or other types of image enhancements. Adjust color by going to Enhance> Auto Color OR Adjust Color and use the tools under it. Hue/Saturation is used a lot by photographers to add more depth of color by saturating the colors. This will make most photos look better unless your camera saturates the colors enough. For Raw images, adjust the saturation first in the Raw Converter using the Vibrance and Saturation sliders. Vibrance is best as it doesn’t saturate any colors that are already fully saturated. There are also a tool for removing color casts under Adjust Color. Another great color and tone adjustment is Color Curves found under Enhance > Adjust Color > Adjust Color Curves. In
the Adjust Color Curves window, select the Style that takes care
of your picture's biggest problem. You can only choose one style at a time or experiment with the Default Style. You can also remove redeye, smooth skin tones and remove wrinkles and blemishes. The blur tool works well for wrinkles and you might want to set it at 30 - 50% to start with. The Healing Brush or Spot Healing brush is wonderful for facial retouching and other things that should be removed like spots on the sensor. 6. Sharpening like a pro: In Elements, go to Enhance> Adjust Sharpness. If you use Adjust Sharpness, be sure to choose Lens Blur in the box, not Gaussian blur. Remember that it will not look as overly sharp printed as it does on the screen. However if it looks way too sharp when you click OK, go to Edit > Undo and then redo it. If you use Unsharp Mask, for starters, have the Threshold set at 3, the Radius set to 1 (pixel) for most photos, and the Amount you can play with. Generally use from 50 to 200 depending on the image size you have chosen and the original sharpness. For small web/email images, 50 is good. For printing, from 120 - 200 is the range most photographers use. Another method that can be used effectively is to set the amount to 200, the radius to only .2 and the threshold at 3 and apply this. Then apply it again at the same level. See how it looks and if necessary, do it again. Remember that a photo which is full size (not reduced for email or posting on the web) will take much more sharpening than one reduced to 600 - 800 pixels which should only use about .5 radius and 50 amount, threshold 3. Always sharpen AFTER reducing or enlarging the photo! It's generally the last thing you do before printing or saving the image for the Web. It is a good idea to save your Master image without sharpening if you plan to use it again for a different purpose or at a different size. 7. You will need to use your software's resize and/or resample command to adjust the size and resolution. If your image is going to be printed, you will need to make sure the resolution is somewhere between 180-360 ppi (pixels per inch). If your image is intended for the Web, you will want to use a resolution of 72 ppi and enter the desired pixel dimensions. If you use Save for Web it will automatically be 72 ppi. Be sure in the Save for Web screen that the image type is set to Jpg and not Gif which is how it is set when you first use it! Choose a quality setting of 3 (medium) for most photos. Resizing For Printing Keep in mind that you won’t have to resize for printing if you have already cropped the image to a specific size. However if you prefer to do a custom (freehand) crop that is not a standard size, then you will need to resize the image before printing. Go to Image > Resize > Image size. When the dialog box comes up, UNCHECK the resample image box. Then set your size such as 7 inches wide etc. You only have to set one dimension and the other will set itself accordingly when the constrain proportions box is checked. Click OK. Go to File > Print and then click on Setup, then on Properties or whatever name your printer uses. This is where you pick your paper such as heavyweight matte or glossy photo paper, and whether you want it landscape or portrait orientation. Choose landscape if you are printing a larger photo such as 5 x 7 or 8 x 10 that is wider than it is tall. Also pick the size of the paper if you are using 4 x 6 sheets. Then click OK on each box until it starts printing. At this point you might want to save the photo as a printable copy. Name it whatever_print.jpg to indicate it’s for printing. Go to File>Save As to keep from saving it over your original which you might want to use again to print at a different size. If you save it as a .psd you won’t have the same file name so you can’t save over the original. You should save it as a master before it is resized so you can reopen it later and resize it differently if desired. This eliminates re-editing the picture later if you decide you want to print a 5 x 7 or 8 x 10 instead of a 4 x 6. Don’t sharpen the master, sharpen after sizing manually or with the crop tool. Bit Depth (Important for Raw images!) When you open an image into the Editor after doing the Raw conversion, your image will be a 16 bit image unless you choose 8 bit in the Raw Converter. You can do several adjustments on it such as Levels and use some Filters but many tools, adjustments and filters will not be available, they will be grayed out. To access all the tools and filters, you will have to convert the image from 16 bits to 8 bits. Go to Image > Mode > 8 bit and that's it. You MUST do this if you want to use the Save As command under File to save it as a jpg for email or to upload to a photo sharing or photo printing service! They don't normally take any other format but jpg. If you go to Save As and try to select jpg without changing to 8 bit you wil not see jpg listed. After changing it, then you can select jpg and click save and a box will come up and you want to select the highest quality for an image to print (10 or 12). If you are saving it for the Web, then choose 3. When you use Save As, the EXIF camera info is preserved so that if you post your image at flickr.com or pbase.com, smugmug.com or ImageEvent.com or other photo-sharing site, the people who view your images can see what focal length, aperture, shutter speed, ISO etc that was used. Save for Web does NOT preserve the EXIF info. Tutorials and info for Elements: http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/ Some free movie tutorials but most of their resources are by paid subscription. My Elements Resources page: http://digitalphotographyclass.net/page/elements_links.htm I also list the latest good books for sale via amazon.com http://lynda.com has excellent tutorial videos for only $25 per month. |