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Adobe Photoshop ElementsPhotos 1 2What's a pixel?Pixels are the tiny squares that make up a digital image. If we magnify an image sufficiently, we'll see them. You most often become aware of pixels when you make a picture larger on your screen and the edges look very jagged or you might print out a large version of a photo and it looks very grainy. Here's a movie showing you what a pixel is. Resizing an Image Despite their small size, today's digital cameras are producing very large images. You usually discover this when you go to e-mail a photo to a friend and find that it is too big to e-mail or they can't see the entire photo if they do get it. Learn how to use Adobe Photoshop Elements to resize an image through this movie demonstration. Print instructions for resizing an image are available on another page. Using the Browse Feature Sometimes, we're just not that organized in terms of where we store photos on our computer. There are a number of small programs that can help you find those missing photos. Adobe Photoshop Elements has a Browse feature in it that you might find useful. Here's how it works. Magnetic Lasso Tool - used to select an irregular area in a photo Using a selection tool such as a lasso is very common in digital photo manipulation. However, it can also be very finicky. Many programs have come up with a "magnetic" version that allows you to click on an edge of the element in the photo you want and then it will follow along without much effort on your part. Here's a movie showing how to use the tool. The Crop Tool The crop tool allows you to select an area of your photo and then with a click of the mouse, remove all the rest. It is always a good idea to do the following: 1. Use the crop tool BEFORE you resize your photo. I say this because you'll get a far better result later on. 2. Rename the final result so that you don't save over top of your original photo. Too often you will wish later that you had the original and you can't glue the pieces back together a few days later. Here's a movie showing how to use the crop tool in Adobe Photoshop Elements. Note: The symbol for the crop tool is pretty much standard across all photo editing software. The crop tool also works the same way in nearly all programs. You can learn from this how to use it even if you don't own Photoshop Elements. Print instructions for using the crop tool are available on another page. Using Layer Styles to Create a Sidebar Graphic These short instructions will give you a quick way to create some fancier graphics if you haven't yet been experimenting. Examples are provided. |