Getting started: Using tools

                You can use this tutorial with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements versions 7 and 8.

  

Learn how to use the Adobe® Photoshop® Elements tools effectively. Jan Kabili shares productivity-enhancing tips for some of the tools in the Elements toolbox, such as shortcuts and tool tips. 

 

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Requirements

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To complete this tutorial, install the following software:

Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 or later

Try 

Viewing tools

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The Photoshop Elements toolbox does not show all of the tools that are available. There are so many, that some of them have been tucked behind other tools in the toolbox.

1. Start Photoshop Elements.
2. Open a photo in the Editor workspace, and make sure Full Edit is selected. The tools appear on the left side of the workspace, as shown in Figure 1. Notice that some tools, like the Eraser tool, have black triangles on them.
   
   

                                                                                                                               

    

 

 

 

 

Figure 1: Toolbox in the Editor workspace

    3.  Click and hold down the Eraser tool. A menu shows additional tools that are related to the Eraser, as shown in Figure 2.

           





Figure 2: Eraser tools
You can now select the Background Eraser or the Magic Eraser.
    4.  Click the Magic Eraser tool. Now the Magic Eraser is showing in that tool slot.

Using tool tips to identify tools 

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You don't have to memorize the names or locations of every tool. Instead you can take advantage of tool tips. If you see a tool and I have no idea what it is, move the pointer over it. The name of the tool appears.

1. Position the pointer over the tool with the bandage on it. The name of the tool appears. The tool is either the Healing Brush or Spot Healing tool, depending on which one was used last.
2. Use tool tips to locate the Straighten tool and view its tool tip. Notice the letter to the right of the tool name. Those letters are shortcuts.
3. Press the V key on the keyboard. The V key is the shortcut for the Move tool, which is now selected in the Toolbox.
   
   

   Viewing the Options bar

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When you select different tools, the Options bar changes. For example, if you select the Crop tool, you see only options related to cropping. Some of the options are called “sticky.” When you set options for a tool, they remain there in the Options bar when you use that tool again. You can reset the options for one or all of the tools in the toolbox.

1. Click the small arrow at the upper left of the Options bar. You can reset the options for the currently selected tool, or for all tools.
2. Click Reset All Tools and click OK to confirm the selection. All of the options for all tools have been set back to their defaults.
   
   

   Setting foreground and background colors

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   The Photoshop Elements toolbox includes two boxes for controlling foreground and background colors when editing images, as shown in Figure 3.

   

    

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Figure 3: A. Foreground color box, B. Background color box, C. Swap foreground and background colors button
   
   
   Whatever color is showing in the Foreground color box is the color Photoshop Elements uses for tools that use color. For example, the Brush, Pencil, and Type tools all apply the color in the Foreground color box. The Gradient tool uses both the foreground and background colors.
   There are a few different ways to select and apply new colors. The first and easiest way is to click the Eyedropper tool and sample a color from an image.
   

    1.  Click to select the Eyedropper tool.
    2.  Click in the photo to sample a color that you would like to use.

     The Foreground color box picks up the color you select. Now if you were to use the Paint Brush or similar tool, it would use the new foreground color.

         Another way to change the foreground color is to click the Foreground color box  and use the color     picker.

    3.  Click the Foreground color box. The Select Foreground Color dialog box appears, as shown in Figure4.

Figure 4: Select Foreground Color dialog box

     4.  Drag the slider in the middle to a different hue, such as blue.
     5.  Using the large color field on the left, click to select a new shade.

     The color you select shows in the top of the sample color box. The current color appears below it so that   you can compare, as shown in Figure 5.

     Figure 5: A. Sample color box

     6.  Click OK. The Foreground color box changes to the new color.

 

Changing brush tips

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1.  Many tools, such as the Paint Brush, Eraser, Smart Brush, Clone Stamp,  Healing Brush, and Spot Healing Brush, all have a collection of brush tips. These brush tips change the size, look, or effect of the tool. For example, the Spot Healing Brush tool is used to cover up unwanted elements in a photo. It copies pixels from nearby in the photo and blends those pixels into the area that you are trying to cover up. To do that, change the brush tip so that it is the right size.

    

You can use the brush tip options in the Options bar, but there is a more efficient way.

1. Select the Spot Healing Brush tool in the toolbox. 

   Notice the current brush tip options are shown in the Options bar, as shown in Figure 6. You can change the size and type of brush, or choose from several preset brushes.

   

    Figure 6: Spot Healing Brush options

   1. Use the Size option in the Options bar to change the brush size.
   When you change the brush size in the Options bar, you have no idea how large a brush tip your choice gives you.
   2.  Click the sample brush stroke in the Options bar. A collection of preset brush tips opens, as shown in Figure 7.
   ·         You could try to select something here. But again, these are meaningless sizes until you  get the brush tip back down into the image and begin painting.
   3. Choose a small brush tip from the Presets menu.
   4.  Position the pointer over the part of the image you want to edit. The pointer  represents the size of the brush tip.
   5.  Press the right bracket key on the keyboard, which is two keys away from the P  key. 
   
   As you press the right bracket key, notice the brush tip getting bigger until it's large enough to cover what you want to. If you want to make your brush tip smaller then, use the left bracket key on your keyboard right next to the P key.
   These productivity enhancing tips are just a few for using tools in Photoshop Elements. There is no need to memorize every tool. But it is important to know how to make your tools work efficiently. Using tools efficiently saves you time and effort as you work on your photos in the Editor workspace.
   
    
   
   
   Figure 7: Selected Brush Presets 
   
   

   Where to go from here

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   If you enjoyed this tutorial, check out these other resources to help get you started using Photoshop Elements. 

   • Photoshop Elements Essentials for Windows tutorials on lynda.com 

   • Photoshop Elements shows on Adobe TV 

   • Photoshop Elements Help and Support 

   • Saving files 

   • Manual selection tools 

   • Automatic selection tools  
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Introduction

Just before Christmas I scanned a heap of old family photos, including many black and white ones containing my parents and grandparents when they were young. A number of these very precious photos were in need of some restoration, so after scanning I began cleaning them up in Photoshop CS. I was curious to see how effective it might be to hand-colour them in.

Although I spent a considerable amount of time finishing the example image below, I did an initial "rough draft" of this image in about 15 minutes that looked 90% as good.

Original vs Hand-Coloured Image

 

The thing I particularly like about it is that it not only looks like a "real" hand-tinted photograph, but the technique is actually quite similar to that used with photographic paints (apart from having the benefits of zoom and undo). While I'm using a black and white photo of my grandparents' wedding day back in 1944, you could also use any coloured image, desaturate it, and follow the same process to provide a unique look.

Workflow

 

Firstly, open the image in Photoshop and perform any initial restoration tasks you intend to do, such as enhancing contrast, noise reduction, dust and scratch removal, healing blemishes or generally cleaning things up until you have a nice clear, clean black-and-white (or sepia) image, such as that shown below.

Ready to Begin

 

Next, duplicate the current layer by selecting the Background layer in the Layers window (on the right hand side), and then Choosing "Duplicate Layer..." the "Layer" menu. When prompted for a name for the new layer, enter something descriptive such as "Colouring Layer" to indicate that this layer adds the colour to your image.

 

Duplicate Layer

 

Select the new layer, and set its mode to "Color" and opacity to "70%" using the drop-down controls that appear in the Layers window (circled on the right-hand side in the screenshot below).

Opacity and Brush Settings

 

To start colouring, select the "Brush" tool from the toolbox as shown on the left-hand side of the window, ensuring the Brush mode is also set to "Color" (refer to top of screenshot above). Finally, choose the colour you wish to start tinting with. With this particular image, I will start with some skin-tones.

You will notice the image becoming tinted as you paint over the image with the brush. Adjust the brush settings (size, soft edge, opacity, etc.) to achieve various effects such as softly merging colours or giving sharp edges where appropriate. This screenshot below shows the result of tinting the bride's face with a single colour. You can begin to see the effect, but it needs more work. I prefer to fill in the large areas with roughly the correct tint first, and then go over it in more detail afterwards.

Colouring in the face areas

 

Now I start to fill in the features of the face below; applying red lipstick, brown hair, making the eyes green with white around them, and white teeth. It is important to note that skin-tones are generally not one uniform colour. I have found that with Caucasian people, the skin seems to often get redder as it goes into shadow and more yellow around highlighted areas. Also, certain areas such as cheeks and lips are naturally pinker than, say, the forehead. You may also want to "apply makeup" if you think it is appropriate (in the example below, I have applied lipstick and perhaps a little blush).

                                                           Applying "makeup"

That's basically the technique. Simply keep going with appropriate colours throughout the image, and your eyes will tell you what works and what doesn't. If you are working on an "important" photo, I think it is well worth doing a bit of behind-the-scenes research to get the colours exactly right.With this project, I searched the web for images of the WW2 New Zealand Air Force uniform to get the colours of my grandfather's uniform correct (don't forget the badges, shirt, tie, etc) and also found out what flowers my grandmother had in her bouquet on her wedding day. When I showed the finished photo to my grandmother, she immediately noticed both of these details and was very happy that I had taken the time to make sure they were correct.
Below is another screenshot showing the "Colouring Layer" at full 100% opacity (instead of the 70% we initially set it to). This simply highlights and illustrates the variations in colour I used when painting the skin-tones, and shows the "real" colours I picked to get the end result. Depending on how saturated the colours are you are painting with, and your tastes in general, you may want to use a different opacity level for the layer.

 Hand-Colouring Revealed

 Conclusion

So here is the final product. Just some parting tips:

• I find that for my own taste, I'd rather err on the side of subtlety than over-saturate the image.
• Also, adding a subtle sepia effect to the whole image helps maintain the aged character of the photo.
• As I was trying to achieve the effect of a photograph that was hand-tinted in the traditional manner, I didn't colour the background, which also ensures that the background does not detract from the main focus of the photograph.

                                         Final Product

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Splashup

 Splashup is the only full-featured, free range, image editor online. Create new images, edit existing images and manipulate layers with filters, layer effects and brushes almost every feature of Photoshop will be available in this Online tool. This is the home page of Photoshop. You are also given provision to use Splashup Light which is lighter version and is compatible of running on any computer as well as your mobile PC’s.

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