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Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Wish I Had Known This Earlier!

I did something very unexpected today...are you ready for this...I read my Photoshop Elements Manual!!


Yep, I dug it out of the drawer and took my own advice about "Reading The Manual"and I actually learned something~


Here we go:
I'm always applying Layer Masks...and erasing...and selecting...and masking...and blah blah blah...
Today I read up on the Selection Brush Tool which I have NEVER used before!


It's basically another option for painting the areas you want or masking the areas you don't want. 
It's kinda hard to explain...I'll just show ya~


1. I opened my original pic in Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac.



2.  Then I chose my Selection Brush Tool which is here, hiding under the Quick Selection Tool:





3.  What I want to do now is "Mask" the parts of the photo I don't want to manipulate, so I make sure Mask is selected in the options bar:








4.  What I'm going to attempt here is to mask part of the photo then turn the rest of it black & white.
     I'll size my brush to the size I'm wanting and click on the parts I don't want affected (her eyes).
     I duplicated my Background first...make sure to work on the copy layer.  Here's my little alien child    
     with her eyes masked red:



5. Now I'll go to Enhance - Convert to Black and White and choose which B&W option I want.  The idea here is for everything except the masked parts to affected:




Here's what I end up with...my selections weren't perfect, I got some of her hair in them, but this is just to give you an idea of what this tool can be used for.



Now, just because I have nothing else at all to do today, I'll show what the other option for the Selection Brush does:


1.  Open my original pic in PSE:



2.  Choose the Selection mode in the options bar for the Selection Brush:



3.  I duplicate my layer then paint with the brush the parts of the photo I want to Select or manipulate (her sweater):



4.  The sweater has a little bit of a blue tone to it so I'll try to alter the saturation to see if I can get rid of that.  I choose Enhance - Adjust Color - Adjust Hue/Saturation:



5.  Now I'll scale back the Saturation slider and watch the screen until the color looks how I want it to.  In this case I scaled it all the way back:




So here's my final after selecting (so easily!) what I wanted to change then applying the adjustment. If I were doing this "for real" I would have made sure not to desaturate the weeds too, but I was too lazy to deselect them...you get my point!



And because I'm a Before & After freak....here's the B&A!



I am so LUVN this handy dandy little tool I found!  
Why didn't anybody tell me about this earlier?!?!



14 comments:

AmyBean said...

hahaha... I should probably read my PSE manual too. Thanks for sharing this!

solveig said...

hmmm yes, if everything else fails, read the manual! good point :)
ps. are those really the color of her eyes!! oh my gosh absolutely stunning!

LiaL said...

PSE came with a manual!?!?!? Guess I'll go find it!! Thanks for sharing this.

way outnumbered said...

Solveig~
Yes ~ her eyes are a stunning color of blue.
Nope ~ they don't look like that straight out of the camera!
That photo was pre-edited for dramatic effect!

Marylin said...

There's a manual?? Really? :O

I will need to have a rummage around for mine then... hehe ;)

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for posting this!! I cannot wait to try it out. I wonder when PSE stopped putting manuals in their software? I didn't get one for 6 or 8:/

way outnumbered said...

Marcee~
This is news to me that there was no manual with newer PSE! I've been using my trusty old PSE 4 version, never even checked about the version 6...

Well, if your PSE didn't come with an actual manual then first I would suggest using your Help that's included along the Menu Bar.
Second, I would suggest the "photoshop elements book for digital photographers" by Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski. Just the version that corresponds to your software: 6,7,8....

Third...keep checking back on my blog! I'll do my best to pass along any tips I find!!

Anonymous said...

I know it's odd that they don't include one:/ Maybe because so much info is online now? Thanks for the book recommendation:) I love your blog! Thanks for all the time you put into sharing your knowledge with us!

Anonymous said...

PS-I tweeted and FB'd your Brush Selection post. Hope that is ok:)

Anonymous said...

Such great pointers. I think it is time for me to bust out the manual. Thanks again for sharing!

Mom of Mix Kids said...

Manual? What manual?!?! lol thanks for the tips.

Ashlea said...

? How do I remove the red-eye after converting the image to b&w using Enhance please? Thanks so much for the great and easy tutorial. Ashlea x

way outnumbered said...

Ashlea~
To remove the alien red eye go to the Menu bar and hit Select - Deselect to remove your selection. Or hit Command/Control + D for (deselect).
Hope this helps....get back with me if this wasn't what you were needing:)

jaltom said...

I am thrilled to have found this blog!! I am amazed at how helpful you are. You give awesome tips! I have searched and searched for practical hints from someone who knows what they are doing. Well, persistence paid off. :-)

 
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