Hello, welcome to this complete tutorial dedicated to Adobe Photoshop
Elements 2023, a great photo editor for beginners and amateurs! It belongs
to the Adobe Elements bundle under a perpetual license for both Windows and
MacOS. No subscription plans!
When opening Photoshop Elements its Home Screen page opens with useful
articles, tips and videos. On top use the Search bar to look for any
specific feature and on the right get quick links to your most recent
projects under a PSD file format. You can also open other products from the
bundle such as Adobe Organizer to manage and organize your photo
collections and Premiere Elements to create videos from your media files.
Click on Photo Editor to open Photoshop Elements.
Catch our link in the video description to learn more about Adobe Premiere
Elements 2023!
At first the main workspace is completely empty. You can import your photos
by clicking and dragging these on the workspace or simply browse for them
by going to Open in the top left corner. All photos will be collected at
the bottom under the Photo Pin panel, where you can also change the photo
to preview above. You can also zoom in and out with your mouse wheel while
holding down the ALT (or the Option) key and pan around while holding down
the Space bar key.
Around the preview you get several editing tools and useful panels for more
advanced editing. This is the basic Quick workspace, the simplest one you
can use to edit your photos as a beginner. You can switch to other
workspaces from the top, but we are going to see them in a while. Photoshop
Elements does not support any dark screen mode.
Now let's see how to edit a picture. At the bottom you get several tools
such as the Rotate buttons to rotate the picture by 90 degrees and the Undo
and Redo buttons to undo or redo if you make any mistake. You can also
click on Organizer to open Adobe Organizer and on the Home Screen to open the
Home Screen page seen before.
On the left you get the toolbar with other amazing tools. When you enable
any of these tools, the Tool Options at the bottom updates, showing all
their properties and other tools related.
Enable the Straighten Tool and click and drag on the preview to set how the
photo must be aligned, in a vertical or horizontal manner. This operation
will also crop the photo automatically.
Enable the Crop tool to crop the image by cutting what is outside the
rectangular grid. You can click and drag it to move it, drag from its
notes to scale it - holding down the Shift key to save the aspect ratio -
and drag from outside to rotate it. Then use Commit or Cancel to approve
the crop or undo.
When correcting portraits you can enable the Eye tool to remove red eyes
by clicking and dragging over these. Make sure to include eyes completely
to get the best correction.
Whereas enable the Whiten Teeth tool to brush on the teeth and make these
brighter.
For more advanced corrections you can enable the Healing Brush tools. From
the Tool Options choose the right tool to use. With the Spot Healing Brush
tool you can click once on the picture to remove small imperfections from
it. Whereas use the Healing Brush tool to correct large portions of the
image by pasting pixels from a given reference cross point.
To use this tool hold down the ALT (or the Option) key and click on the
picture to fix the reference. Then brush with the tool by copying in the
pixels under the cross.
With the Type Tools you can drop text content on the photo. Click and
drag on the preview to create a text box and type in, horizontally or
vertically depending on the text tool selected. If you do not see text
completely make sure to extend the text box enough.
You can also select text and adjust its properties at the bottom, including
font family, style, size and color. Click on Commit to apply.
With Text on Shape tool you can drop any selected shape by clicking and
dragging on the photo. Then click on the shape perimeter to type around
it. Make sure to resize text if this is too big.
Whereas with Text on Custom Path you can draw a path freehand, apply it,
and specify any point to start typing on it.
To manage these pieces of text you can use the Move Tool. Click and drag
to move, drag from the nodes to scale and drag from outside to rotate.
You can also double-click within the box to edit text.
On the right you get several panels to apply advanced corrections, from
Adjustments to Frames. With Adjustments you can apply color corrections and
enhancement by using the sliders or picking any ready template. Use CTRL
(or CMD) and Z or click on the Revert button to undo any change.
Open Smart Fix to adjust brightness and contrast and switch to Exposure and
Lighting to set exposure and brightness levels on the image in different
regions such as Shadows, Midtones and Highlights.
With Color you can adjust the color intensity with Saturation, its range
with Hue and its appearance with Vibrance. Open Balance to apply color
filters with Temperature and Tint and use Sharpen to reduce blurriness
over the photo.
As you edit the photo you can change the View mode to see the effect of
your modifications by comparing the original image (Before) with the final
one you have got (After).
The adjustments always correct the entire image unless you specify a
selection region within dashed contours that limits the enhancement within
such area. Consider that Effects, Textures and Frames won't interact with
these selected regions.
To create these regions you have to use any of the selection tools from
the Tool Options. With the Quick Selection tool you can click and brush to
select all the regions sharing the same color. Switch to the Selection
Brush tool to select only the regions you brush on or to Auto Selection to
click and drag over any shape to select it quickly. Use the Escape key to
undo all selections made.
From the Tool Options adjust the selection properties. For example select
New to make a new selection every time; Add to make a cumulative selection
or Subtract to refine the existing selection. This Subtract mode can be
enabled anytime when holding down the ALT (or the Option) key while you
brush.
Besides these selection tools you can also enable the Type Mask Tools to
drop selections by following any text shape. Check it out!
You can also switch to Guided to apply more advanced corrections through
step-by-step explanations or open the Enhance tab for more custom effects
to apply. Check these out!
To get the most from Photoshop Elements you have to open the Expert
workspace. This collects the tools from the Quick workspace plus several
ones from Adobe Photoshop. For example you get the Blur and Sharpen
tools to adjust blurriness where you brush, the Smudge tool to drag pixels
and the Sponge tool to desaturate or saturate colors while you brush. You
can also enable the Dodge and the Burn tools to increase or decrease
brightness and the Brush and the Pencil tools to draw freehand, adjusting
brush properties and colors at the bottom.
The Expert workspace allows you to work and manage with multiple objects
(or layers) on the preview. If you open the Layers panel you can select the
photo or each single piece of text added and enable the Move tool to move,
scale and rotate these as you like. You can also hide and show any layer
from the panel.
You can also overlap two images. In this case open any image through its
tab and use the Rectangular Marquee tool to select the entire image. Copy
it with CTRL (or CMD) and C and paste it where you like with CTRL (or CMD)
and V. The image will be pasted as a new layer.
You can also select any portion of image and use CTRL (or CMD) and X to
cut it and CTRL (or CMD) and V to paste it. The piece will be an
independent layer, separated from the original image that will present a
transparent (checkerboard) area without any pixel.
To learn more about the Expert workspace make sure to catch our dedicated
video from our channel!
To save the resulted preview go to File, Save As. Select PSD to recover
your modifications and layers anytime, with either Photoshop Elements
or Adobe Photoshop. Whereas choose JPG or PNG to render the project into
an image to export it - saving any transparency with PNG.
You can also go to Create or Share if you want to export your project to
DVDs, collections or online platforms.
Thank you very much for watching this tutorial! Make sure to check our
YouTube channel and our official website to get more tips, videos and
free giveaways!