Photoshop Elements 2 Solutions
There are a lot fewer books available for Elements 2 than there are for Photoshop and this book was one of the first to address Elements 2 specifically and in detail. The introduction highlights some of the differences between the first releases of Adobe Elements and Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 and provides a very vague list of the differences between Elements 2 and Photoshop. The book flows well for the beginner who is using Elements 2 for the first time, but can also be a good resource for the more advanced user who may not be taking full advantage of the power of this software. Chapter 1 discusses the very important preparation necessary in getting your preferences and work area set up correctly and covers basic information about files and organization. Chapter 2 delves into many of the basic first moves that might be applied to images such as crop, rotate, resize, levels, color casts, B&W & tints, removing scratches, sharpening and framing. Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 7 quickly jump ahead to application examples, such as faces, outside shots, products shots, real estate shots, using the tools and commands in Elements 2. Initially I was disappointed to see this approach, but later realized that although I had no interest in any of these applications, the examples did give a good idea of what the tools and commands do and how to use them most efficiently. None of the examples in this book discuss the specific challenges you'll be faced with when color correcting underwater photographs, but give a good overview of the same tools you'll be using for your own images. For details on correction of underwater images with Adobe Elements 2, see our course Intermediate Digital Workflow & Image Manipulation for Underwater Photography. This book would be a good prerequisite to this course. Chapter 6 details how to create Photo-Realistic Composites. In Chapter 8 you'll learn how to create panoramics using Photomerge. Chapter 9 discusses the type functions of Elements 2 including special type effects and creating fancy headlines. Chapter 10 is very important if you're planning to put images on the web. It gives a very detailed account of what's necessary and how to do it. The JPG file format is examined in detail in Chapter 11. This is another very important topic for digital photographers (doing it wrong can have grave consequences for your images). Chapter 12, Sharing and Processing Images covers the use of desktop printers, online photo services, the use of Picture Package, batch processing, and creating PDF slide shows. Also included is A Reference to the Tools and Features of Photoshop Elements, which covers layers, effects, selection tools, viewing and navigation tools, brushes, filters, and liquify. The accompanying CD ROM contains practice images, plug-ins, utilities, and more. The suggested retail price of the book and CD ROM is $40.00 but can be purchased at Amazon.com for less. |
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Mikkel Aaland