Photoshop Elements supplies you with all types of adjustment and manipulation tools. In addition to image enhancement, Photoshop Elements can also be considered a powerful design from scratch application. With the vast array of brushes, tips, and shape drawing tools that are supplied, Photoshop Elements helps you produce the images, either enhanced or developed from scratch, which you might need for virtually any conceivable project.

Brushes come in all sizes and shapes, and can be controlled with a mouse or drawing tablet. Since the shape of the tip controls brushes, Photoshop Elements gives you access to several sets of pre-defined brush tip shapes, or you can create you own customized sets. As for shape drawing tools, Photoshop Elements doesn’t limit your creativity to just drawing circles and squares; it gives you instant access to dozens of pre-defined shapes. When it comes to Editor’s paint and drawing tools, your choices are limitless, based only on your knowledge of the available tools, and a creative imagination—the more you know, the more you can do with Photoshop Elements.

And, when all the drawing is said and done, there will be a need for cleaning up. With the various Eraser tools, you can make quick work of touching up those small problem areas. Photoshop Elements provides straight eraser tools, eraser tools that erase to a definable edge, and even eraser tools that target specific color values.

When enhancing an image, you might want to apply a gradient. Gradients can be something as simple as black and white, or as complex as one that contains the colors of the rainbow. Gradients can be applied to an image; completely covering the original image information, or they can be controlled through targeted selection, and creative uses of blending modes.

The Foreground and Background colors, located near the bottom of the toolbox, are the way of identifying your primary painting color, as well as the color Photoshop Elements uses in conjunction with the Background layer. When you select any of the painting or drawing tools, the color applied to the document will be the foreground color—that’s its purpose. Hence, it’s sometimes referred to as the active color. The Background color serves several functions—its primary purpose is to instruct Photoshop Elements how to handle erasing on the Background layer. When you use an eraser tool on a layer, by default, the pixels are converted to transparent. However, when you use an eraser tool on the Background something different happens. Since the Background does not support transparency, it replaces the erased pixels with the current background color.

Change the Active Foreground and Background Colors

Use any of the following methods to change the active foreground or background colors:

• Select the Eyedropper tool on the toolbox, and then click anywhere in the active document to change the foreground color.

  Hold down the Alt key, and then click to change the background color.

• Click on a color swatch in the Swatches palette to change the foreground color.

  Hold down the Ctrl key, and then click to change the background color.

• Create a color in the Color palette. Click the Foreground or Background thumbnail to choose the color’s destination.

• Click the Foreground or Background Color box to open the Color Picker dialog box, select a color or enter color values, and then click OK.

The Brushes palette provides access to brush tips you can use with brush and painting tools. The Brushes palette is, by default, located on the Options bar. You access the Brushes palette by selecting a brush tool, or a tool that requires the use of a brush, such as the Eraser tool, and then clicking the Brushes list arrow on the Options bar, which is next to the currently selected brush. The Brushes palette displays another list arrow at the top where you can select a brush set, also known as a library, and the current brush set at the bottom. The Brushes palette comes with 14 pre-defined brush sets.

The Brushes palette comes in many forms; you can view brushes as strokes, or you can choose thumbnails, or even text descriptions. The form of the Brushes palette does not impact its performance, only how you view the available brush tips. Choose the version that best suits your current design needs, and then change the view as needed. When you select a brush, it becomes the default for that tool only. This gives you the ability to choose a default brush for each of the brush-specific tools.

The Brushes palette comes with 14 pre-defined sets. Each set, organizes specific brush tips by name. Since more than the paintbrush tool uses brush tips, it’s important to have the right tool (brush tip) for the right job. Using or making do with the wrong brush tip is akin to digging a swimming pool with a teaspoon. You wouldn’t paint a portrait with a house-painting brush, so don’t settle for anything less than the exact brush tip you need to get the job done.

The Brushes palette gives you many choices for brush tips. Any good designer will tell you that no matter how many brush tips you have, you’ll always want more. For example, you’re working on a 100-year-old photograph, and you need a specific brush to add hair details to the blown-out areas of the image. It’s a special type of brush that literally creates the illusion of wavy hair. In an effort to help keep you organized, Photoshop Elements gives you the ability to create your very own customized brush tips, and then save them later in organized sets.

After looking through the brush tip sets that come with Photoshop Elements, you don’t see the one that suits your needs. You can modify an existing brush tip that is close to the one you want to create a new brush. Simply select the brush tip you want to modify on the Brushes palette, make the changes you want, and then save it as a new brush tip. If you no longer want to use a brush tip, you can quickly remove it from the Brush palette.

Once a brush tip is created, it becomes a part of the current set. However, the brush has not yet been permanently saved in Photoshop Elements. Although the new brush tip will reappear every time you access the Brushes palette, if you choose the option to reset the palette, the new brush will be lost. To keep brushes you must save them into customized sets.

The Brush and Airbrush tools were designed to reproduce the visual effect of applying paint to a canvas. You have full control over the brush tip, color, size, opacity, and even the brush’s blending mode. Control over the image is achieved by using additional layers to hold the brush strokes—adding additional layers increases the file size of an image document. Since layers have their own control systems, such as opacity, fill, and blending modes, you achieve even greater control over the final design, and once the brush stroke is correct, you can always merge the brush-stroke layer into the image to conserve file size.

The Brush tool also includes a set of controls, known as brush dynamics, that let you define how a brush tip is applied to the active image. Features, such as Scattering, Spacing, and Hardness let you further customize your brush tips so you can create that specialized brush for your image enhancement needs.

The Pencil tool is exactly what its name implies... a pencil. The Pencil tool is limited to hard brush tips of any size or shape, and creates freeform lines using the current foreground color. In fact, the major difference between the Pencil and Brush tools, is the Pencil tool’s inability to draw anything but a hard edge line. A unique feature of the Pencil tool is its ability to switch between the current foreground and background colors using the Auto Erase feature.

The Auto Erase feature lets you automatically switch the Pencil tool’s painting color using the current foreground and background color swatches. The trick is where you start drawing the line. If you start dragging the brush tip from a new location in the document, the Pencil tool creates a line in the active foreground color. If you then place the brush tip on a previously drawn line and drag, the Pencil tool creates a new line in the active background color. Since the Auto Erase feature doesn’t really erase anything, it will perform exactly the same way on a transparent layer as it does on the background layer.

The Impressionist and Smudge tools were designed to reduce or blur the details in an image. The Impressionist Brush tool changes the existing colors and details in an image to look blurred, like it was painted with a stylized brush. The Smudge tool simulates dragging a finger through wet paint. You have full control over the brush tip, size, opacity, and even the brush’s blending mode. The Impressionist Brush and Smudge tools also provide tool specific options. The Impressionist Brush includes tools that affect the style, area and tolerance of the brush stroke, while the Smudge tool includes tools that affect the strength and color of the smear.

The Paint Bucket tool is not new, in fact it’s been around almost as long as Photoshop Elements. The paint bucket’s primary function is to fill an area with the active foreground color, but that’s not all it’s capable of doing. The Paint Bucket tool can fill areas with a selected pattern and, much in the same way that the Magic Wand tool selects image information, the fill area can be controlled by the shift in brightness of image pixels. Combine those features with the ability to change the paint bucket’s blending mode, opacity, and you have a tool with a lot of horsepower.

The Pattern Stamp tool allows you to paint with a pattern from a predefined set on the Patterns palette or defined from your image, and then apply it over the same or another image. For example, you could use the Pattern Stamp tool to apply a pattern to an image or add something to an image. When you select the Aligned check box on the Options bar, you can reuse the most current sampling point, no matter how many times you stop and resume painting. When Aligned is deselected, you’ll reuse the same sampled pixels each time you paint. When you select the Impressionist check box on the Options bar, you can paint the pattern using the paint daubs to create an impressionist effect.

The basic Eraser tool converts image pixels in a layer to transparent pixels. While the primary function of the eraser tool has not changed, it has been greatly improved upon. For example, you can use the eraser tool to remove a specific color or to erase around the edge of an image object. You can instruct the Eraser tool to remove a specific color while protecting another color and at the same time, increase or decrease the tools’ tolerance (the range of selection). If you use the Eraser tool on a layered document, the tool will erase to transparency. If the Eraser tool is used on a flattened document (flattened documents do not support transparency), the Eraser tool will use the active background color to perform the eraser. As you can see, the eraser tools do more than blindly erase image information. As you master the eraser tools, you just may find those complicated image eraser jobs becoming easier and easier. The Background Eraser tool lets you select specific colors within an image and erase just those colors.

The Magic Eraser tool functions the same way the Magic Wand selection tool functions, except instead of selecting an area it erases it. The Magic Eraser tool works on any traditional layer, including the Background. Clicking with the Magic Eraser tool converts image pixels into transparent pixels. Since the Background layer does not support transparency, using the Magic Eraser tool causes Photoshop Elements to convert the Background into a traditional layer.

While most of the paint and drawing tools let you select and paint with a single color, the gradient tool lets you paint with a veritable rainbow of colors. The gradient tool comes packaged with several sets of pre-designed gradients, or you can create and save your own customized gradient sets. The process of creating a gradient is simple; you select a gradient along with a specific type, and then drag in the document window. The length and angle of the drag, determines how the gradient is applied. Since gradients, by default, overwrite the image, it’s a good idea to create gradients in separate layers.

Customized gradients are easy to create and essential when you just can’t find what you want in the predefined sets. It doesn’t matter how many gradients Photoshop Elements provides for you, there will always be that one instance where they just don’t do the required job. With just a few clicks of your mouse, you can create your own customized gradients. You can start with one of the predefined gradients, and modify it to your needs. You can also start completely from scratch; the choice is yours, and so are the rewards of creating that one-of-a-kind stunning gradient you can use for your current project and in the future.

The Color Replacement tool lets you replace a specific color in your image. For best results use soft brushes with this tool, to help blend the colors into the original image. Have you ever captured that perfect picture of a family member or friend, only to see the resulting image with red eyes? Or maybe there’s a part of your image where the color draws attention away from the focal point. Either way, the Color Replacement tool is a great feature that allows you to take control of the image output.

Shape are created in shape layers. They are useful for creating buttons, navigation bars, frames, backgrounds, and other elements for web pages. You can add one or more shapes to a shape layer depending on the shape area you select. The shape area options allow you to add a shape, remove areas, show intersecting shapes, and remove overlapping areas. You can change shape color and apply effects, such as bevels and shadows, to all shapes on a layer.

After you create shapes in a layer, you can use the Shape Selection tool to select one or more of them by clicking each one. After you select one or more shapes on the same layer, you can move or modify them. To a move a selected shape, you simply drag it to a new location. If you simplify a shape (covert it into a bitmap element) using the Simplify button on the Options bar, you can no longer use the Shape Selection tool. You need to use the Move tool instead, which you can also use the move all the shapes on the same shape layer at the same time.

The Line tool lets you draw lines by dragging from one point in the active document and releasing in another. Lines drawn at precise 90- or 45- degree angles are achieved by holding down the Shift key as you drag. Select the Line tool, or if you have any drawing tool selected, you can choose the Line tool from the Options bar. Then configure the Line tool, using the Options bar. It’s also a good idea to create the lines in a separate layer. That way once the line has been drawn, it’s as easy as selecting the Move tool, and repositioning the line to the desired position.

Creating standard shapes, such as polygons or rectangles with rounded corners is a simple matter of selecting a shape tool, choosing a color, and then drawing the shape. A shape is a vector graphic made up of lines and curves instead of pixels, which allows you to move, resize, and change it without losing quality. As with any of the drawing functions, control is maintained with the use of additional layers. The standard shapes consist of rectangles, rounded rectangles, ellipses, polygons; and each one of the shape tools comes with additional options to control exactly how the shape appears when drawn, including extensive layer effects to colorize the shape, add a drop shadow or bevel, even apply a gradient or pattern to the shape.

Having the ability to draw a perfect polygon or rounded-corner rectangle is nice, however, Photoshop Elements went way beyond standard shapes when it introduced the Custom Shape tool. Photoshop now comes packaged with dozens of pre-designed shapes, or you can even create your own. User-defined shapes can be literally any vector objects. For example, a company logo can be converted to a custom shape. Custom shapes have many timesaving applications. As previously mentioned, a company logo, if used frequently, is only a mouse click away. Any vector form, outline, or shape used on a recurring basis, can be converted to a custom shape and saved for future use. Select the Custom Shape tool or, if you have any shape drawing tool selected, click the Custom Shape button from the Options bar, and then configure the shape using the options on the Option bar.