1. Photoshop Elements Compared To Photoshop

Version note: This tutorial on using Content-Aware Fill is for Photoshop CS5. Here's a photo that suffers from a couple of distracting elements, especially.

Adobe’s consumer-level, hobbyist-targeted image editor, Photoshop Elements, has long been a great next step for those who’ve outgrown iPhoto. It’s great for beginners, yet it gives your skills room to grow—plus it plays nicely with and is available with a perpetual license.isn’t the most feature-packed upgrade ever, but it’s now Retina display-happy and it’s got some timely new stuff for beginners: creating a personalized Facebook Cover image, crop suggestions, variations on Quick mode’s effects, a new selection refinement tool, three Guided Edits for converting photos to black and white, plus tutorials that are more easily discoverable.

There’s even a new Photomerge Compose command that steps you through copying an item in one photo and pasting it into another, with matching lighting, to boot! However, the only offering for experts is the Fill dialog’s new Content Aware option—lovingly lifted from big brother —that, with the right image, can make removing objects a snap.Organizer updatesElements 13 is now optimized so that its interface and your photos are much sharper on Retina displays.

If you use it to import and manage photos, the first noticeable changes are in the Organizer. An eLive button gives you access to online tutorials and photographic inspiration (the button’s available in the Editor, too), as well as a direct link to the Adobe Elements online support page. Media view now displays photos flush against each other in a grid, sans image details (ratings, capture date, etc.) or the Organizer’s gray background.

Albums and folders sport their own tabs, enabling you to view them separately. Opening the Tags panel—to add keywords, face, place, and event info—reveals checkboxes to each tag’s left, making them easier to apply. Slideshow creation was also simplified, and you can now use any email program to send photos from Elements.Elements 13 lets you create a profile and cover image that are more reflective of your personality, complete with text. The zoom slider is circled here.Facebook Cover imagesIn the Elements 13 Editor, you’ll find a Facebook Cover command in the Create menu that summons a variety of photo themes you can use to create a custom Facebook page cover and profile image. Clicking a theme downloads it from Adobe’s servers, enabling them to add new ones. Once you pick a theme, Elements opens it in a new, correctly-sized document and plops open photos into the template’s image slots. You can drag to reposition photos within frames or rearrange them from one frame to another, and a handy slider lets you change a photo’s zoom level.You can edit any text the template includes or add your own, and you can take control of the design by using the Graphics panel or by entering Advanced Mode, which reveals Expert mode’s Layers and Tools panels.

Click the Upload button and Elements sends the imagery to your Facebook album and plays a video instructing you on how to apply the imagery. Unfortunately, there’s no API that lets Elements tunnel into Facebook and change profile and cover images.

In comparison, iPhoto can change your profile image, but not your cover image, nor can you create the latter in iPhoto.New effects variations and Guided EditsThe popular Effects in Quick mode now include four variations on each of the 10 effects, for a total of 50 single-click treatments. Switch to Expert mode and you’ll find the effects applied to a duplicate layer, complete with a layer mask that, with some skill, lets you hide the effect from parts of your image. IPhoto’s effects are adolescent in comparison and they can only be applied to the whole photo.Clicking an effect in Elements 13’s Quick mode presents you with four variation thumbnails, circled here in the Pencil Sketch category.Guided mode also got three new edits involving black and white. B&W Color Pop lets you pick a color to “pop” (remain in color) from four presets—red, yellow, blue or green—while the rest of the photo goes grayscale, something that’s impossible in iPhoto. To isolate a different color (say, purple), use the Select Custom Color eyedropper. The Fuzziness slider lets you tell Elements 13 how picky to be regarding what remains in color; drag left for fewer tones or right for more. Handy Add and Subtract buttons in the Refine Effect section let you easily fine-tune the behind-the-scenes masking.Using the new B&W Color Pop Guided edit, you can easily produce a partial color effect.

In this example, only the red and yellows remain visible (the super handy Refine Effect brush cursor is visible).The B&W Selection edit walks you through using the Quick Selection tool to hide the black and white effect from certain spots in your image (also impossible in iPhoto), and a useful Invert checkbox lets you reverse what’s in color and what isn’t. The Black and White edit converts an image to black and white, and lets you add a diffuse glow for a more ethereal look.Expert mode improvementsGrab the Crop tool in Expert mode and Elements 13 analyzes your photo for content (faces and horizon lines) and displays four crop suggestion thumbnails in the Options bar, nice starting points for beginners.

Any aspect ratio restriction you make is preserved in the crop suggestions (yay!).The Quick Selection tool inherited a Refine Selection Brush that lets you drag across selection edges to have Elements 13 reanalyze them. As you drag, the brush switches between add or subtract modes based where you drag (inside or outside of the selection); the inner circle of the brush cursor snaps more closely to edges and the outer circle produces softer edge-snapping. The brush also has an edge smoothing mode which keeps selections from being so jagged. (iPhoto can’t make selections at all.)Once you get the hang of using the Refine Selection Brush (circled) it can be helpful, though you’ll still need the Refine Edge dialog box’s more powerful controls for selecting hair or fur.A new Photomerge Compose command nestled in the Enhance menu helps you cut something out of one photo and paste it into another, also impossible task in iPhoto.

It uses a combination of the Quick Selection tool, the new Refine Selection Brush, and an Outline tool that detects edges as you drag. Elements copies and pastes the object into another photo, where you can reposition and resize it. You also get masking controls enabling you to hide or reveal extra bits, which is great if you didn’t have a good selection to start with. Windows 10 upgrade assistant slow. The Auto Match Color Tone button helps you match lighting conditions between the photos, though you can adjust lighting manually via four sliders.There’s also a new Content Aware option in the Fill dialog box, which is pure magic for removing objects from photos.

Simply put, Elements analyzes pixels surrounding your selection and then intelligently fills it. If you have plenty of free background pixels around the selection (grass, sky and so on), it works wonders! While you can remove very small items using iPhoto’s Retouch brush, you can’t really zap anything larger.Bottom lineIf you’ve exhausted iPhoto, or if you’re a beginner looking to be more creative, Elements 13 gives you some very nice new features; however, with enough skill, you can do all of that stuff in version 12’s Expert mode. That said, if Elements’ old photo email system drove you crazy, or if you routinely remove objects from your photos, you’ll benefit from the upgrade.

But what if you need to use another area of your photo for the fix instead of surrounding pixels? That's where the Patch tool shines. In this column, you'll learn how to use both options safely.STEP ONE: Open an image with a medium- to large-sized object to delete, like this light post. If you're working with a single-layered document, duplicate it by pressing Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J). If you have multiple layers, activate the topmost layer and create a stamped copy of all visible layers by pressing Shift-Option-Command-E (PC: Shift-Alt-Ctrl-E). Double-click the duplicated layer's name and rename it. We called ours 'pole be gone.'

Photoshop Elements Compared To Photoshop

Tip: To ensure you have plenty of background pixels for Photoshop to work with, do the pixel zapping before cropping.CREDIT: ISTOCK, JACOMSTEPHENS, IMAGE #12353812STEP TWO: Activate the Quick Selection tool by pressing Shift-W until you see its icon in the Toolbox. In the Options Bar, turn on the Auto-Enhance checkbox for a slightly smoother and more accurate selection.STEP THREE: Click-and-drag to paint a selection onto the light post. As you paint, Photoshop adds similarly colored pixels to the selection, though the quantity of pixels selected is directly proportionate to the size of the tool's brush cursor. For this image, we used a larger brush for the lights (30 pixels) and a smaller one for the pole (9 pixels). If you select too much of the background, Option-drag (PC: Alt-drag) across those pixels to subtract them from your selection.STEP FOUR: Expand the selection to include some background pixels by choosing SelectModifyExpand. If you're working with a small image like this one, try entering a number between 8 and 20 pixels into the Expand Selection dialog (20 was used here); you'll need to use a higher number on bigger images.

Click OK.STEP FIVE: Choose EditFill and from the Use menu, choose Content-Aware. Click OK and Photoshop fills the selection with surrounding pixels and blends them.

The voodoo it uses to fill your selection is random and changes each time you use the command. So if at first you don't succeed, try choosing EditFill again.

Press Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to deselect. Here's the final result, with plenty of room for text.REMOVING OBJECTS WITH CONTENT-AWARE PATCH TOOLIf the object you want to delete isn't surrounded by enough background pixels, you can tell Photoshop to use an entirely different area of your photo with the Patch tool. Here's how:STEP ONE: Open an image and press Shift-Command-N (PC: Shift-Ctrl-N) to create a new layer.

In the resulting dialog, give it an appropriate name, and click OK.CREDIT: ISTOCK, JPBCPA, IMAGE #4364448STEP TWO: Activate the Patch tool by pressing Shift-J repeatedly until you see its icon appear in the Toolbox. In the Options Bar, choose Content-Aware from the Patch drop-down menu and turn on the Sample All Layers checkbox. Don't change the Adaptation drop-down menu just yet.STEP THREE: Click-and-drag to create a loose selection around your target area (the person in the green shirt in this example). If necessary, expand the selection to include more background pixels by choosing SelectModifyExpand. Tip: You can use the Quick Selection tool to create your selection and then switch to the Patch tool. If you do, turn on the Quick Selection tool's Sample All Layers checkbox in the Options Bar so Photoshop can see through the empty layer to where pixels live on layers below.STEP FOUR: Click inside the selection and drag it to the area you want to use for the fix, such as the area next to the goalpost in this image (let's call this the source area).

Photoshop shows you a preview of what the fix will look like as you drag. Try to match any horizontal or vertical lines as best you can and release your mouse button when you're finished.STEP FIVE: The Adaptation drop-down menu in the Options Bar lets you determine how much blending Photoshop performs in the target area. Your choices range from Very Strict to Very Loose, for very little or lots of blending, respectively. Experiment with this menu to see what looks best (Very Loose was used here). When you're satisfied, press Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to get rid of the selection. Note: In Photoshop CC 2014, the Adaptation drop-down menu (gear icon) has a Structure and Color field. After you apply the patch, experiment with these fields for the best blend.STEP SIX: Repeat these steps to remove the other people in the background.

Be sure to perform each removal on a new layer for maximum editing flexibility, and experiment with using areas on the left side of the image for the removal. If necessary, use the Clone Stamp or Spot Healing Brush tools for cleanup, as detailed here use URL for Lesa's Safe Healing and Cloning article that was recently posted on PlanetPhotoshop.com. Here's a before and after version of the image.As you can see, Photoshop did a remarkable job of removing the people from the background, creating a less distracting background (photo journalists!).This article is courtesy of Photoshop User magazine, the official publication of KelbyOne, which provides quality online education for creative people. For more information, visitThis entry was posted in,. Bookmark the.