Elementary Elements 5.0

December 26, 2006 10:18 AM

I received the new Photoshops elements (5.0 I think) for Christmas but never really used photoshop (only simple things like Picasa, etc).

I will only be using it to monkey around with pics for personal use, fix some old photos and the photoshop people into compromising positions for stupid birthday emails, etc. There are alot of online info it seems and I was wondering if someone has a favorite site for hints or tutorials.

posted by beccaj to computers & internet (3 comments total)

Adobe's own site has a lot of tutorials.

You should also see a tab of "How To"s in the upper right part of your screen (unless it has changed in your version.) These are good step-by step instructions on how to achieve different things.

The best way is to play with it. Just keep in mind that whatever you are doing affects only the selected layer, so keep your layers palette open. Also, you can drag the layers in the layers palette to move them toward the background or toward the foreground. You can also turn off layers by click the "eye" next to it, and you can link layers by selecting one, then clicking the empty box next to a layer you want linked to the selected one. The empty box will show a chain graphic, so when you move one layer, you move all the layers linked to it.

That's just for starters, but I have found those are the most useful things for beginners to understand. It will save you tons of frustration to keep an eye on which layer you are working with. Have fun!
posted by The Deej at 11:40 AM on December 26, 2006

I personally think one of the most useful things to do is to open up the Preferences and make sure you have your cursors set on Precise and Brush Size. This will turn your cursor into an outline representing the size of the current tool's effect instead of the useless icon of the tool.
posted by odinsdream at 1:06 PM on December 26, 2006

I second the learning from experience comment. Fool around with it and you'll pick it up pretty quickly. I also second that understanding layers and brushes are the first things you need to get to grips with, but that you should also tinker with Adjustments (under "Image") and Magic Wand (in the Toolbox) if you are planning to fix old photos and photoshop people into compromising pictures.

If there are particular things you want to do, I found www.kirupa.com useful (although their video tutorials seem to come from www.watchandlearnphotoshop.com, so perhaps that second link will serve you well).
posted by kisch mokusch at 12:30 AM on December 28, 2006