What this book covers

Chapter 1, Photoshop Elements Features Overview, firstly introduces you to the new features in this latest version. Not surprisingly, this includes several new artificial intelligence (AI) features - including animated graphics - that I'm sure you'll find useful.

To fully explain Elements, this chapter sets out how the program has been designed to operate and includes a typical workflow scenario as well as a clear explanation of the roles of all five sections of Photoshop Elements: the Home Screen, the Organizer, and, in the Photo Editor section, Quick Edit mode, Guided Edit mode, and finally, Expert Edit mode.

It also explains the importance of the application's organizational heart, the Catalog, plus its panels, panel functions, and the Panel Bin, along with the Create, Share, and Enhance menus. Finally, the chapter wraps up with a look at the relationship between Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, its video editing sibling.

Chapter 2, Setting Up Photoshop Elements from Scratch, helps you overcome the first hurdle of buying and installing the software. Your next move is to learn how to configure the application to produce the quickest and most efficient results. This chapter deals with how to prepare your camera (setting the correct Color Space in its menu), best practices for imaging computers (Windows and Mac), how to review all your media, as well as the all-important media backup strategies.

Following that is a description of the best ways to import picture files into the Organizer, plus all the techniques Elements provides for organizing media, using organizational tools such as Star ratings, Keyword Tagging, Places, Events, People, albums, tags, and metadata.

You'll also find a section on the different characteristics of the most popular file formats, bit depth, how to save your files, saving files as Version Sets, and Managing Catalogs. You'll also discover a new section on digitzing photos using a scanner and a camera. The final part of the chapter explains the basics of color management and screen calibration.

Chapter 3, The Basics of Image Editing, discusses the editing workflow and suggests a number of best practices. It illustrates how to get started with photo editing by covering a range of topics, including an in-depth look at RAW file editing, then 10 ways to get an image file opened in Elements, plus a look at picture resolution (and its impact on image quality). Other techniques discussed here include cropping image files, leveling photos with the Straighten tool, increasing or decreasing file size using a technique called resampling, applying "instant" photo fixes in the Organizer, and using the Auto Correction tools.

Besides getting up to speed with these basics, the chapter also covers how to master contrast, color, sharpness and clarity using the powerful Levels, Hue/Saturation, and Shadow/Highlights features.

At the end of the chapter, you'll discover how to create perfect skin tones using the Smooth Skin feature, plus basic but effective retouching techniques using the amazingly effective Spot Healing Brush tool.

Chapter 4, Getting Started with Simple Solutions. This all-new chapter sets out to answer some of the most popular photo editing queries. There are more than 15 examples - all of them have several possible solutions - these are ranked in order of simplicity.

Some questions include: 'What does the Histogram Do?', 'How do I make a dull picture look great?', 'How do I fix poor contrast?', 'How do I make my shots look sharper?', 'How can I remove someone from the image?', 'How can I add a person from another image?' and 'How do I make my photos look perfect in a print' - and more.

Chapter 5, Easy Creative Projects. In this chapter, features covered include simple but effective "looks" using the massive range of creative filters found in Elements, including the range of Artistic Effects, creating a Lomo Camera 'look', an Effects Collage, making your own hand-coloring effects using the Colorize Photo tool, creating wide-screen and multi-deck panoramas with Photomerge Panorama, and delving into Elements' amazing Photomerge Scene Cleaner and its fun-to-use Photomerge Faces Guided Edit feature.

The chapter finishes with an overview of the easy-to-make slideshow, photo calendar, and greeting cards projects.

Chapter 6, Advanced Techniques: Transformations, Layers, Masking and Blend Modes, moves on from the basics described in previous chapters to turbo-charge your creativity.

The chapter introduces you to perspective correction, resizing pictures in pictures and warping shapes to make 3D shadows and text effects using Transformations. This is the place to discover the power of Layers as well as quick 'Pseudo' Layer masking effects, Adjustment Layers, Adjustment Layer Masking, and finally basic and advanced Layer techniques.

If that isn't enough, the chapter also demonstrates the power of layer based Blend Modes as well as Tool-based Blend Mode effects and Smart Objects.

Chapter 7, Advanced Techniques: Retouching, Selections, and Text, moves on from the power to Layers to look at fully understanding the use of retouching tools - in simple beauty retouching, using the powerful Clone Stamp tool, the magical Healing Brush and Spot Healing Brush tools, and the highly underrated Burn, Dodge, and Sponge tools. If adventurous you could go straight to the new Advanced Retouching section for greater in-depth features.

The chapter also highlights one of Elements' impressive retouching tools - the Object Removal Tool. We also tackle the complex world of selections, which, like layers, will transform how you edit images. There's also three of Elements' more esoteric, but highly effective retouching features: the Blur, Sharpen and Smudge brushes.

We also look at its effective Subject Selection feature, how to save your selections, Feathering selections, the Refine Selection Brush tool and the Refine Edge tool, before getting to grips with more advanced selection features like the Marquee and Lasso tools. We also take a look at the excellent Magic Wand tool, the Selection Brush tool, the Quick Selection tool, and the Auto Selection tools.

What many never appreciate is that Elements also features some great graphics tools, including the handy Horizontal Type tool—used, of course, to add text to images—plus all the different type and font options, as well as how to find, download, and use cool custom fonts for special projects.

Chapter 8, Additional Tools and Features, moves on from the power of RAW file editing and the basics of the Levels and Hue/Saturation tools and illustrates dozens more really excellent features to be found in Photoshop Elements. Some are AI-driven, while many others stem from the mightily handy Guided Edit mode.

In this chapter, you'll find a selection of more than 20 fabulous features that you might have passed by when performing routine edits. Some are hugely visual in their nature, some are designed for fixing photo problems, while others are there just for fun.

These include to Adjust Color Curves, the Blur, Sharpen, and Smudge brushes, the Eraser tools, Smart Brush, Paint Bucket, the Gradient tool, the Haze Removal tool, the Content-aware Move tool, the Recompose tool, the useful new Extend Background feature, the Move and Scale Object tool, Moving Photos, Quote Graphics, Convert to Black and White, Duotone Effect, B&W Color Pop, Old Fashioned Photo, Perfect Landscape, Perfect Portrait, the Perfect Pet feature, Adjust Facial Features (including its scary Face Tilt feature), and an equally scary but handy Open Closed Eyes feature.

Chapter 9, Advanced Drawing, Painting and Illustration Techniques, explains that Elements comes with a wide range of credible graphics and illustration tools, making it more of an all-around creative powerhouse than many might give it credit for.

To kick off this chapter, we highlight the best ways to master the handy design and layout helpers that you'll find under the View menu, plus the benefits of using Brush and Pencil tools (and their various behaviors).

This chapter also demonstrates the Cookie Cutter tool, the Color Replacement Brush and the Impressionist Brush - before moving on to cover some basic drawing techniques.

Elements has a large range of graphics tools - including scalable Vector Graphics, a handy Custom Shape tool, and a good selection of preset Text Graphics. We look at a basic DIY custom greeting card project, as well as advanced vector designs, Texturizing and other Artistic Effects. The back of this chapter encompasses scrapbooking projects, Auto Page Layout features, and amazing (free) downloadable Custom Brushes. The final section in this chapter takes you up another level with a Photobashing exercise demonstrating how to bring a wide range of photographic and graphic elements together to make your own custom illustrations. Finally there's a short section on graphics tablets.

Chapter 10, Exporting Work, Sharpening and Plug-ins. In this chapter, we look at the various resolution requirements for different social media platforms, as well as how to prepare files for print. Because so many photographers are now so reliant on the internet, it's important to get a handle on how to prepare pictures for display (using the Save for the Web feature), as well as how best to sharpen files for different print and online applications using the industry-standard Unsharp Mask tool, the excellent Shake Reduction tool, High Pass Sharpening effects, and the generic sharpen filters.

A new section deals with expanding the power of Elements by using third party Plug-ins - for sharpening your image files, for adding cool special effects - there are even plug-ins designed for converting your photographic images into something that looks a lot more like a painting. The sky's the limit!

Finally, this chapter takes a good look at how to export multiple instances of your work (with the Export as New Files feature), as well as how to bulk-process and even copyright files using the effective Process Multiple Files utility.

Chapter 11, Troubleshooting and Additional Techniques, deals with how to fix all the things that can go wrong when trying to manage a database of thousands, or tens of thousands, of images, and how to deal with image files that are not quite perfect. The chapter starts by explaining file-saving protocols: what options to go for. We also investigate what to do if files get lost or disconnected from the catalog, how to fully utilize the features of the powerful Find menu, adjusting dates for different time zones, as well as how to re-instate a lost or damaged Catalog. There's also information on how to fix resolution issues - typically when using low resolution files in print - using Resampling techniques.

You will also find a section on how to fix skin tone color (Adjust Color for Skin Tones), fix a color cast (Remove Color Cast), alter reality by adding Lens Flare, correcting Lens Distortion, creating your own Depth of Field Effects, plus how to change eye color and use the amazingly quirky Liquify filter.

Chapter 12, Feature Appendix, highlights all the tool features, panels, processes, and menus in Photoshop Elements. Use it to get more information on all the features in Elements, and check out the author's personal feedback on how effective or important many of these features might be for beginners.