Dear all, welcome to this new tutorial dedicated to Adobe Photoshop
Elements 2021, a great photo-editing product for beginners and amateurs
that want to adjust and edit photos with easy and professional tools.
This is available under a perpetual license without subscription plans and
it is part of the Adobe Elements bundle among Adobe Organizer and Premiere
Elements.
Visit our YouTube channel and our website to discover more about photo
editing, video-editing and other amazing skills for free!
When you open Photoshop Elements its Home Screen page opens. Here you get
several tips, tutorials and suggestions and also a search bar you can use
on top. At the bottom you can open any existing project or any product
from the bundle such as Organizer to manage and organize your photos and
Video Editor to open Premiere Elements, in order to make your own videos.
To know more about Premiere Elements, check our dedicated video in
this guide!
Click on Photo Editor to open Photoshop Elements, completely empty at
first. You can drag and drop photos from any folder or browse for these
from the Open button in the top left corner. All these files make your
own collection inside the Photo Bin panel, shown at the bottom.
Photoshop Elements comes in three different workspaces shown on top.
Quick is the simplest one, offering tools to make fast and easy
corrections. Guided lists all the adjustments and effects you can apply to
your photos by following easy steps. With Expert you get the complete
toolset available and the possibility to combine multiple photos together.
We won't see this advanced section in this tutorial but you can check it
on a dedicated video in our YouTube channel!
On the Quick workspace you get a big preview on the photo that is selected
from the Photo Bin panel. You can zoom in and out with your mouse wheel
while holding down the ALT key and pan around with the Space bar key.
To start editing the current photo you can either use the toolbox on the
left, the buttons at the bottom or the panels on the right side. For
example you can use the Rotate buttons to rotate the photo by 90 degrees;
Organizer to open Adobe Organizer and Home Screen to come back to
the Home page.
Let's see how to use the editing tools on the left side. You can set their
properties and options from the Tool Options panel at the bottom.
Enable the Straighten Tool to click and drag to draw a segment on the
preview, taken as reference to align the photo. The image is also cropped
to keep its original aspect ratio. Whereas use the Crop Tool to crop the
photo according to its rectangular grid. You can resize it through its
nodes, holding down the Shift key to save its aspect ratio, drag it to
move and click outside it to rotate. Use Cancel or Commit to undo or
apply the crop.
To adjust people's faces you can enable the Eye Tool and click and drag
on red eyes to remove these, adjusting properties from the Tool Options.
Whereas use Whiten Teeth to brush on teeth and make these brighter.
You can also apply advanced corrections with the Healing Brush Tools. Use
Spot Healing Brush to correct small imperfections by clicking over these.
Whereas enable Healing Brush to correct wider parts of the photo by
dropping pixels from a given reference point, shown as a cross and setting
properties from the Tool Options. To fix the reference, just hold down the
ALT key and click on the interested point.
Remember to use the Undo and Redo buttons at the bottom to undo or redo
your actions as you work with your photos.
With the Type Tools you can drop great pieces of text on your photo.
Enable the Horizontal or the Vertical Type Tool and click and drag on the
preview to define a text box and type inside. The text orientation is
either horizontal or vertical according to the proper tool chosen.
You can also select any piece of text and adjust its color, format and
style from the Tool Options at the bottom. Use Commit to apply all.
Besides these you can also use Text on Shape and Text on Custom Path Tool
to type text laying on any shape border or 2D curve. Just click and drag on
the preview to drop the chosen shape or draw freehand. Then click on it
to start typing. You may need to resize text in case this is not able to
follow the shape correctly. Remember to apply with Commit.
Once these pieces of text are in place you can edit and adjust these with
the Move Tool. You can click and move these on the preview and use their
nodes to scale or rotate. Double-click to type inside.
On the right you can open the Adjustments panel to apply advanced
corrections to your photos through several sections. On each of these you
can drag on the sliders or pick any ready template shown. You can hover
over any to get a quick preview and use the revert button to undo.
Use Smart Fix to make fast adjustments on brightness and contrast. You can
also adjust Exposure and use Lighting to set the brightness level of the
photo Shadows, Midtones and Highlights. Open Color to adjust the color
intensity with Saturation, color range with Hue and appearance with
Vibrance. Switch to Balance to apply color filters with Temperature and
Tint. Whereas use Sharpen to reduce blurriness from the photo.
In the top left corner you can switch the photo View and check the result
of your corrections under After in respect to the original appearance
under Before.
By default all these adjustments are applied on the whole photo. You can
affect limited portions of it by using the Selection Tools. Just define any
custom region and then apply any correction on it.
Enable Quick Selection and Selection Brush to select regions by brushing
on the picture. The first one extends the selection on areas that share the
same color. The second one follows your brush instead.
All these selected regions are cumulative, unless you hold down the ALT
key to refine or remove part of these. Use the Escape key to remove all
selections made.
You can also use the Type Mask Tools to define selected regions that follow
the shape of a piece of text. Check it out!
Next to the Adjustments you also add Effects, Textures and Frames, using
CTRL+Z to undo. These do not take into account any selected region.
You can switch to the Guided workspace to choose between loads of advanced
effects and manipulations, including the newest Duotone effect. All you
need to do is to follow the steps suggested and explained on the right
side, using Next to apply and continue!
Other great effects can be found inside the Enhance tab, including the
new Moving Photos... feature, which transform your photos into a GIF image
with outstanding 3D motion.
To save the current photo selected go to File, Save As... You can select
several file formats, such as .psd for Photoshop or .jpg or .png to
export it. You can also go to Create and Share to export your photo on
slideshows and DVDs, add quoted graphics or share it on socials.
Thank you for watching this tutorial! Make sure not to lose our free
guides in our YouTube channel to discover and build your new skills!