Photoshop Elements and post processing.

AMOMENT · Oct 10, 2011

How much are you doing and what are you doing? I know this is relative to the photo/genre/ type but perhaps you guys can throw out some standard but very effective tips. I have photoshop elements 9. To be honest I am not doing much post processing.
I recently got photoshop elements and do not know my way around it too thoroughly yet. Most of my photos have had the saturation and contrast slightly increased and eyes sharpened. That's it. I'm still learning the layers concept. I tend to not use layers; probably because I don't totally understand them. I get that it is a process of hiding "masking" and exposing/selecting certain aspects of the photo but I end to get messed up in the progression of multiple layers. Also, I often use the quick selection tool which is, of course subject to the flaw of movement of my hand, to outline people. Once I have outlined them I sometimes work on brightening just them and then select the inverse to work on background., as you can see, I'm an amateur! I have a Nikon D31oo a standard lens it came with 18055mm f/4.8.......and a 50mm f/1.4 lens. I shoot either RAW or RAW/fine jpg.

AMOMENT · Oct 10, 2011

When I sharpen the eyes, I literally use the quick select tool to outline both eyes and then unsharp mask and sharpen. I know this has got to be wrong and vulnerable to flaw!

MTVision · Oct 10, 2011

Check out photokaboom.com - I think that's the address. It has tutorials on everything you need to know in elements 9. I used that website a lot when learning elements 9. The great thing about layers is you aren't touching the original image during editing so you can go back and change/erase the things you have done.

KmH · Oct 10, 2011

Become a forum member at www.elementsvillage.com.

When you have Elements open, press F1 on your keyboard to access Adobe Community Help and a wide range of tutorials.

The Photoshop Elements 9 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)

shootermcgavin · Oct 10, 2011

youtube.com live it, breathe it.... ha ha seriously you could just add a couple things to favorites and it would make a huge difference. I'm still learning about layers everyday but the more I learn the more I go back to old photos and make them even better. One thing to remember is there's like 10 different ways to do the eyes so you have to figure out what you like. In elements I used quick lasso and got both eyes and then I think I did some kind of layer, now that I have CS5 I'm doing a curve layer followed by a dodge and burn. I think Elements has almost everything I needed except for some HDR features which was enough to make me want to change. The more tutorials you watch the more you'll have a photo where you're like damn if I duplicate layer and change it to soft light or whatever, and throw in a curve layer or saturation layer it'll look exactly the way I want. Below is an example of what I'm talking about, this is a recent shoot I did and it looked ok with just the eyes done and I did a mild surface blur to areas on the skin but a soft layer just made it look that much better, there may be other ways to achieve the same thing but I like using soft light layer and playing with opacity.

I think what happens with most professional photographers is they find the editing style they like and stick with it, normally it will fit what they like to shoot. I notice local childrens photographers seem to saturate colors in the background or that kids are wearing, your feedback from people will probably help direct you in the right direction.