Ok, I will skip to the “important” stuff that people really want to be able to do with Photoshop Elements. I would like to note here that I have used Elements, Photoshop CS2, and Paint Shop Pro, and while I prefer Elements for easy fixes, the steps are pretty much the same, in any of these programs. Even the names of the tools are the same, for the most part. If I know a tool is named something else in a different program, I will make a note of it. If you have ANY questions at all, leave a comment, and I will see if I can’t answer it for you.
Because I just love you all so much, I am going to sacrifice a horrid photo of myself for these lessons. It’s a bad photo, and I don’t like it at all. But in this case, that’s GOOD, because it needs a LOT of work! I thought it might be best to work on this photo in a series of steps. I will show you the different things that need to be done, then I will show you how to do them! Sound like fun? Come on, we ALL have pics we don’t like, usually of ourselves, so now, you can do what I like to call a digital makeover. I told my friend after she commented on a pic of me I had online “Yeah, it’s great, I look much better small, black and white, blurry, and photoshopped for a few hours!” By that I meant a small sized picture, soft focused, and seriously worked on lol.
Here is the pic I will use:
I find that it’s best to look a picture over and decide what needs to be done, before you start doing anything. The reason for this is that it’s much easier to do certain things before others. For example, it’s easier to fix blemishes and such before you soften the overall picture. Now, let’s take a look at this picture specifically and decide what needs to be changed.
-LIGHTING/COLOR- The background is supposed to be very dark in contrast, and the whole picture is pretty washed out. That will need to be warmed up a bit.
-BLEMISHES- It’s no secret, I have bad skin. There are plenty of blemishes that will need to be fixed
-SOFTEN- The whole pic should be softened a bit for a nicer look.
-SMILE- Yes, if you really want, with the right picture, you can create a hint of a smile where there is none. Let’s see if we can’t do that with this picture, shall we?
Those are just a few things that we can start with. Keep an eye out for the next blog, where we’ll start with the first step, the lighting/color.