Hello, welcome to this video tutorial! Let's get a general overview on the
newest Adobe Photoshop Elements 2019 and on everything you need to start
as a beginner.
Leave us tips and suggestions inside the comment section to improve our
next video guides dedicated to Adobe Elements products!
Photoshop Elements is a photo-editing software used to organize, adjust and
edit photos and pictures. It is an easier version of Photoshop CC and comes
with a perpetual license with no subscription needed. It also includes
Adobe Organizer, used to manage and organize photos and their metadata.
When opening Photoshop Elements the Home Screen opens, showing tips,
tutorials and videos. You can also get additional help and information on
a specific theme by using the Search bar on top.
On the right, you can start with any of your most recent files, or open
any Adobe Elements product, such as Adobe Organizer, to manage photo
information, ratings, location and people; Photoshop Elements with Photo
Editor; and Premiere Elements with Video Editor, if you have it installed.
To learn more about Organizer or Premiere Elements, check out our dedicated
video guide inside the video description!
The main interface of Photoshop Elements is divided in three different
workspaces on top: Quick, Guided and Expert. Quick is the most simple
workspace, used to apply very easy and quick corrections to your pictures;
Guided collects several basic and advanced adjustments for your photos with
guided steps; Expert is the most advanced workspace similar to Photoshop
CC, with professional tools and features inside.
In this beginner tutorial we are going to see just the Quick and the Guided
workspaces, but you can learn more about the Expert one inside our guide.
Let's see how to adjust pictures with the Quick workspace!
To open pictures and photos, just drag and drop these on the interface
directly. You can also use the Open button in the top left corner to browse
for files you want to import, from any folder or hard-drive.
All the images and the photos imported are collected inside the Photo Bin
panel at the bottom, that you can hide and show with the Photo Bin button.
The big preview on the center shows the photo selected from the Photo Bin
panel, that you can zoom in and out by using your mouse wheel while holding
down the ALT key and pan with the Space bar key, clicking and dragging on
the picture.
Around the preview you have all the tools and features to edit your picture:
the toolbox on the left, with several tools to brush on the picture; the
adjustments and the effects on the right; and other useful buttons at the
bottom, such as the Rotate buttons to rotate by 90 degrees, Organizer to
open Adobe Organizer and Home Screen to come back to the Home Screen page
seen before.
Let's take a look at the toolbox. Select the picture from the Photo Bin
panel and enable any tool on the left to start editing the picture directly
on its preview. You can adjust settings and options for the current tool
or switch to another similar tool on the Tool Options panel at the bottom.
Use the Straighten Tool to align the picture according to a defined segment.
Draw a segment by clicking and dragging on the picture. When you release,
the picture rotates according to such segment and gets cropped to save its
original orientation and aspect ratio.
Use the Crop Tool to crop the picture and remove parts of it. When enabling
the tool, a rectangular grid shows up on the preview, representing the part
of the picture you are going to save. Click and drag it to move it, use
its nodes to scale it properly, saving the aspect ratio if you hold down
the Shift key. Click and drag outside the grid to rotate it. Below, use the
Cancel to undo the crop, or Commit to apply it.
In case you make any mistake, you can undo with CTRL+Z, or use the Undo and
the Redo buttons below.
The Eye Tool is used to remove red eyes from people's faces by clicking
and dragging on these. Inside Tool Options you can adjust the radius and
the color to apply on the eyes.
Use Whiten Teeth to improve teeth by making these brighter.
The Healing Brush is an advanced tool to apply corrections and adjustments
on the content of the picture. With Spot Healing Brush you can click on the
photo to correct the imperfections falling within your cursor. With Healing
Brush Tool you correct wider parts of the picture by brushing on it,
according to a reference point you define.
First of all, hold down the ALT key and click to fix a reference. Then,
brush on the picture, dropping pixels from the reference point, represented
as a small cross. The adjustment applied depends on the settings inside the
Tools Options.
You can also add text and titles with the Type Tools. There are several
ways to add text on your photos.
Use the Horizontal or the Vertical Type Tool to type pieces of text on the
picture, spreading horizontally or vertically. Click and drag on the
preview to define a dashed box, used to delimit the text content. Make sure
this is big enough or you won't see anything inside when you type in.
You can adjust the text properties, size, style, distribution and color
from the Tool Options panel. Consider that these changes are effective just
on the pieces of text that are selected on the preview.
To apply text, just click on Commit.
Enable the Text on Shape Tool to type text along the perimeter of a shape.
Choose the shape in the Tool Options and click and drag on the preview to
drop it. Then, click on any point to start typing. Make sure to size text
properly or you won't cover the perimeter as you like. Use the Commit
button to apply.
A similar tool is the Text on Custom Path Tool: draw any path freehand and
type text along it after defining a starting point.
All these pieces of text are independent objects that can be managed and
edited with the Move Tool. When this is enabled, you can move any text by
clicking and dragging it; scale it by using its nodes; and rotate it by
clicking and dragging outside its box. To apply your changes, use the
Commit button. To edit the text content, just double-click on it.
You can also move, scale and rotate text while editing its content by
holding down the CTRL key.
The panel on the right lists several corrections and effects from
Adjustments to Frames. On Adjustments, you get all the major corrections
you can apply to your picture to improve its appearance and color. When
choosing a correction, you can sets its value by sliding on its bar on top,
or picking a ready template at the bottom. You can hover over these to
check the result on the preview and click on a template to apply it
definitely. Use Auto to apply the best template automatically. To undo,
just choose the template with the revert symbol.
With Smart Fix you can apply a basic correction on the brightness and the
colors of your picture.
Use Exposure to correct its exposure level.
Use Lighting to adjust the brightness and the contrast levels on the darkest
sides of the pictures (with Shadows), the lighter sides (with Highlights)
and the middle ones (with Midtones).
Inside Color, adjust the overall color intensity with Saturation, change
the colors to use with Hue, and increase the intensity of the weakest
colors with Vibrance.
With Balance you can apply advanced color filters with Temperature and Tint.
Use Sharpen to reduce blurriness and recover details from the picture.
As you edit the picture, you can use the View bar in the top left corner to
check the picture in progress (as After) and the original one as it was
(Before), in order to make comparisons and see the differences.
By default all these corrections are applied on the whole picture, unless
you define limited portions of it with the Selection Tools, collected
inside the third button of the toolbox.
Quick Selection Tool selects all the parts of the picture you brush on,
extending the region until it meets different colors or borders.
The Selection Brush Tool selects just the parts where you brush without
any extension. All these sections are cumulative: you can refine these by
holding down the ALT key and remove any section with the Escape key.
The Type Mask Tool is another kind of selection tool, since they select
parts of a picture by following the shape of the text you type. These work
just like the standard Type Tools just seen.
Selected regions can also be cut from the rest of the picture and become
independent objects. Once a region is selected, hold down the CTRL key and
click and drag to cut and move.
Besides the Adjustments, you can also apply Effects, Textures and contours
with Frames. Just choose the one you like and click on it to apply it,
using CTRL+Z to undo. These effects are always applied to the entire
picture, ignoring any selected region you have.
The Guided workspace collects several advanced effects you can apply to
your photos through a very easy and guided process. First of all choose the
modification you want to apply from the Basics section to Photomerge.
Once chosen, the effects opens on the right panel on the Quick workspace,
with detailed explanations and direct buttons to enable and use. At the
bottom, use the Next to go to the following step and use Cancel to undo all.
To save your picture adjusted and edited, go to File and then to Save As.
Set location, its name and also its file format, such as Photoshop
project (.psd) and any rendered format, such as .jpg and .png.
You can also use Create and Share to export your photos into slideshows,
DVDs and collections, or directly online on social websites.
Thanks for watching this video! Check out our complete guide to discover
more about Adobe Elements!