Examining the image window

Not surprisingly, the image window’s tools and features are most useful when an image is open in the window. To open an image in the image window, shown in Figure 3-3, follow these steps:

1. Choose File ⇒ Open.

   The standard Open dialog box appears; it works like any ordinary Open dialog box that you find in other applications.

   You can always click one or more photos in the Organizer and click the Editor button to open the selected photos in the Photo Editor.

2. Navigate your hard drive (by using methods you know to open folders) and then select a picture.

   If you haven’t yet downloaded digital camera images or acquired scanned photos and want an image to experiment with, you can use a sample image. Both your operating system and Photoshop Elements typically provide sample images:

   • On your operating system, sample images are typically found in your Pictures folder, which is one of the default folders in both Windows and OS X installations.
   • In Elements, you can store photos anywhere on your hard drive and access them in your Organizer.

3. Select a picture and click Open.

   The photo opens in a new image window in Elements.

You can open as many image windows in Elements as your computer memory can handle. When each new file is opened, a thumbnail image is added to the Photo Bin at the bottom of the workspace (refer to Figure 3-1).

Notice that in Figure 3-1, filenames appear as tabs above the image window. Additionally, photo thumbnails appear in the Photo Bin. To bring a photo forward, click the filename in a tab or double-click a thumbnail in the Photo Bin. To close a photo, click the X adjacent to the filename or choose File ⇒ Close.

To close a photo in the image window but keep it open in the Panel Bin, click the minimize button in the top-right corner (Windows) or top-left corner (Mac).

Here’s a look at important items in the image window, as shown in Figure 3-3:

• Filename: Appears above the image window for each file open in the Photo Editor.
• Close button: Click the X to the right of the filename to close the file. (On the Mac, click the red button in the upper-left corner.)

• Scroll bars: These become active when you zoom in on an image. You can click the scroll arrows, move the scroll bar, or grab the Hand tool in the Tools panel and drag within the window to move the image.

  For Mac users: If you don’t see scroll bars on your Finder windows, open the System Preferences by clicking the System Preferences icon on the Dock or choose System Preferences from the Apple Menu. In General Preferences, click Always in the Show Scroll Bars section.

• Magnification box: See at a glance how much you’ve zoomed in or out.

• Information box: You can choose what information this readout displays by choosing one of the options from the pop-up menu, which we discuss in more detail later in this section.

  When you’re working on an image in Elements, you always want to know the physical image size, the image resolution, and the color mode. (Size is the physical size of the image. Image resolution is the number of pixels in your image. Color mode is a mode such as RGB for red, green and blue, grayscale for black and white, and so on.) Regardless of which menu option you select from the status bar, you can quickly glimpse these essential stats by clicking the Information box (not the right-pointing arrow but the box itself), which displays a pop-up menu like the one shown in Figure 3-4.

• Sizing the Window:

  You can also resize the window by dragging any corner in or out when the image is undocked and not viewed as a tab.

To undock windows, press Ctrl/⌘  +K to open the Photo Editor Preferences. Click General in the Left pane and select the box where you see Allow Floating Documents in Expert Mode. You must be in Expert mode to view documents undocked.

Now that you’re familiar with the overall image window, we want to introduce you to the Information box’s pop-up menu, which enables you to choose what details appear in the Information box. Click the right-pointing arrow to open the menu, shown in Figure 3-5.

Here’s the lowdown on the options you find on the pop-up menu:

• Document Sizes: Shows you the saved file size. For information on file sizes and resolutions, see Chapter 2.
• Document Profile: Shows you the color profile used with the file. Understanding color profiles is important when printing files. Turn to Chapter 15 for more information on using color profiles.
• Document Dimensions: When selected, this option shows you the physical size in your default unit of measure, such as inches.
• Current Selected Layer: When you click a layer in the Layers panel and choose Current Selected Layer, the layer name appears as the readout.
• Scratch Sizes: Displays the amount of memory on your hard drive that’s consumed by all documents open in Elements. For example, 20M/200M indicates that the open documents consume 20 megabytes and that a total of 200 megabytes is available for Elements to edit your images. When you add more content to a file, such as new layers, the first figure grows while the second figure remains static. If you find that Elements runs slowly, check your scratch sizes to see whether the complexity of your file is part of the problem. If so, you might clear some of your history (see Chapter 1) or merge a few layers (see Chapter 9) to free space.

• Efficiency: Indicates how many operations you’re performing in RAM, as opposed to using your scratch disk (space on your hard drive). When the number is 100 percent, you’re working in RAM. When the number drops below 100 percent, you’re using the scratch disk.

  If you continually work below 100 percent, it’s a good indication that you need to buy more RAM to increase your efficiency. If you have multiple applications open, quit all other programs to conserve RAM.

• Timing: Indicates the time it took to complete the last operation.
• Current Tool: Shows the name of the tool selected from the Tools panel.

Why is the information in this pop-up menu important? Suppose you have a great photo you want to add to your Facebook account and you examine the photo to find the physical size of 8 x 10 inches at 300 pixels per inch (ppi). You also find that the saved file size is more than 20MB. At a quick glance, you know you want to resize or crop the photo to perhaps 4 x 6 inches at 72 ppi. (Doing so drops the file size from more than 20MB to around 365K.) Changing the resolution dramatically reduces the file size. We cover file sizes and changing the physical dimensions of your photos in Chapter 2. For now, realize that the pop-up menu shows you information that can be helpful when preparing files for print and display.

Don’t worry about trying to understand all these terms. The important thing to know is that you can visit the pop-up menu and change the items at will during your editing sessions.

Uncovering the contextual menus

Contextual menus are common to many programs, and Photoshop Elements is no exception. They’re those little menus that appear when you right-click, offering commands and tools related to whatever area or tool you right-clicked.

The contextual menus are your solution when you’re in doubt about where to find a command on a menu. You just right-click an item and a pop-up menu opens.

Because contextual menus provide commands related to the tool you’re using or the object or location you’re clicking, the menu commands change according to the tool or feature you’re using and where you click at the moment you open a contextual menu. For example, in Figure 3-6, you can see the contextual menu that appears after we create a selection marquee and right-click that marquee in the image window. Notice that the commands are all related to selections.

Selecting the tools

More often than not, clicking a tool on the Tools panel is your first step in editing operations. (If you’re not familiar with the Tools panel, refer to Figure 3-8.) In panel hierarchy terms, you typically first click a tool on the Tools panel and then use another panel to fine-tune how the tool will work.

Sometimes when you select a tool in the Tools panel, you find additional tools in the Tool Options area. For example, you may click the Marquee Rectangle tool in order to access the Elliptical Marquee tool in the Tool Options, directly below the image window. The Quick Selection tool, the Selection Brush tool, the Refine Selection tool, and the Magic Wand tool, all shown in Figure 3-7, are all in the Tool Options. See the following section for more about the Tool Options area.

Keep in mind that if you don’t find a tool in the Tools panel, look in the Tool Options for additional tools within a tool group.

You can easily access tools in Elements by pressing shortcut keys on your keyboard. For a quick glance at the key that selects each tool in the Tools panel, look over Figure 3-8.

The following tips can help you find your way around the Tools panel with keyboard shortcuts:

• To select tools within a tool group by using keystrokes, press the respective key to access the tool. For example, press the L key to select the next tool — the Magnetic Lasso tool. Press L again and repeatedly press the shortcut key to step through all tools in a given group.

  

• Whether you have to press the Shift key to select tools is controlled by a preference setting. To change the default setting so that you don’t have to press Shift, choose Edit ⇒ Preferences ⇒ General or press Ctrl+K. (Choose Adobe Photoshop Elements Editor ⇒ Preferences ⇒ General or press ⌘  +K on the Mac.) Then, in General Preferences, deselect the Use Shift Key for Tool Switch check box.
• The shortcuts work for you at all times, except when you’re typing text with the cursor active inside a text block. Be certain to click the Tools panel to select a tool when you finish editing text or select the Commit green check mark to end using the Text tool.

The tools are varied, and you may find that you don’t use all the tools in the Tools panel in your workflow. Rather than describe the tool functions here, we address the tools in the rest of this book as they pertain to the respective Elements tasks.

Selecting from the Tool Options

When you click a tool on the Tools panel, the Tool Options box appears at the bottom of the workspace and offers you choices specific to the selected tool. (Refer to Figure 3-7, which shows the Quick Selection tool options.) In addition to providing you with choices for selecting tools within a tool group, you can adjust settings for a selected tool.

In Figure 3-7, you see choices for adjusting the Quick Selection tool, varying the size of the tooltip, and refining the selection.

You can find many of these fine-tuning adjustments in the Tool Options for most of the tools you select in the Tools panel.

Playing with panels

The panels are where you control features such as layers, effects, and more. In the Photo Editor, you open these panels in the Panel Bin:

• Layers: The Layers panel displays all the layers you’ve added to a photo. We talk much more about layers in Chapter 9. For now, look at how the different panels are designed. In the Layers panel, you find various tools at the top-left corner and an icon with horizontal lines in the top-right corner (as shown in Figure 3-9).

  You can select multiple layers and click the folder icon at the top of the Layers panel to create a new layer group. All the grouped layers are nested in a folder.

  When you click the icon at the top right, a pop-up menu appears (see Figure 3-10), which shows menu items supporting the tasks you perform in the Layers panel.

• Effects: At the bottom of the Panel Bin, click the fx button to open the Effects panel. The Effects panel contains menus and tabs for applying a number of different effects to your pictures. You simply double-click the effect you want when you edit the photo. We cover applying effects in Chapter 12.
• Filters: Click Filters to open the panel where you can apply a number of different filter effects to the open image.
• Styles: Click Styles, and you find a drop-down menu listing numerous styles. Open a category and click a style to apply to an image. In some respects, this panel behaves similarly to Filters.
• Graphics: The Graphics panel contains several menus where you can choose among a huge assortment of graphic illustrations that can also be applied to your photos. For more information on using the Graphics panel, see Chapter 17.

• More: Click the down-pointing arrow at the bottom of the Panel Bin to the right of the More button, and a pop-up menu opens, allowing you to choose additional panels. The Layers, Effects, Filters, Styles, Graphics, and Favorites panels are docked in the Panel Bin and can’t be removed.

  

  

  The panels you open from the pop-up menu shown in Figure 3-11 open as floating panels. These are your options:

  • Actions: Actions enable you to automate a series of edits to your pictures. In Figure 3-11, you can see the Actions that are supported when you open the Text Effects presets. As with other panels, a pop-up menu is supported, and it offers Load, Replace, Reset, and Clear options so you can modify Actions.

    Elements still doesn’t support recording your own series of editing steps and capturing the steps as an Action. However, most of the Actions that are created in Adobe Photoshop can be loaded in Elements.

    You can find a number of free downloadable Actions on the Internet. Just search for Photoshop Actions and explore the many downloads available to you.

  • Adjustments: The Adjustments panel works only when you have an Adjustment layer. For details about using the Adjustments panel and Adjustment layers, see Chapter 9.
  • Color Swatches: This panel displays color swatches you might use for coloring and painting that we cover in Chapter 13.
  • Favorites: Opens the Favorites panel where you find a list of items you designated as a favorite edit.
  • Histogram: Open this panel to display a histogram of the photo in the foreground. We talk more about histograms in Chapter 11.
  • History: Choose this item to display the History panel. For more on using the History panel, see the section about retracing your steps in Chapter 1.
  • Info: The Info panel provides readouts for different color values and physical dimensions of your photos.
  • Navigator: The Navigator panel helps you zoom in and move around on a photo in the image window.
  • Custom Workspace: When you choose Custom Workspace, you can dock and undock panels. This option enables you to configure a custom workspace to your liking.
• Create/Share panel: These panels also exist in the Organizer. Click Create at the top right of the Panel Bin to open the Create panel in the Photo Editor. In both the Photo Editor and the Organizer, the Create panel is used for making a number of creations such as calendars, photo books, greeting cards, photo collages, and more. The Share panel contains many options for sharing your photos. We talk more about making creations in Chapter 17, and we cover using the Share panel in Chapter 16.

When you open the additional panels as floating windows, the panels are docked in a common floating window. You can drag a panel out of the docked position and view it as a separate panel or move it to the docked panels.

When you open a panel in either the Organizer or the Photo Editor, you find other options available from tools, drop-down lists, and a menu you open by clicking the icon with horizontal lines in the top-right corner of the panel.

Creating different views of an image

What? Different views of the same picture, you say? Yes, indeed. You might create a new view when you want to zoom in on an area for some precise editing and then want to switch back to a wider view. Here’s how you do it:

1. Click a thumbnail image in the Photo Bin.

   You must have a photo open in the Photo Editor. The photo you double-click in the Photo Bin appears in the image window as the active document.

2. Choose View ⇒ New Window for <filename>.

   Note that <filename> is the name of the file in the image window.

3. Zoom to the new view.

   A new view appears for the active document, and you see another thumbnail image added to the Photo Bin.

   To zoom quickly, click the Zoom tool in the Tools panel and then click a few times on the picture in the image window to zoom in to the photo.

Viewing filenames

By default, photos open and are displayed in the Photo Bin without the associated filenames. However, if you mouse over a photo in the Photo Bin, a tooltip opens that displays the name of the file. If you want the name of each file shown in the Photo Bin without having to mouse over the files, open a contextual menu on a photo in the Photo Bin and choose Show Filenames.

Using Photo Bin Actions

On the Photo Bin Actions menu, you find handy tasks that you can perform on photos open in the Photo Editor. Click the Photo Bin Options menu to display the menu commands, as shown in Figure 3-12.

Here’s what each Photo Bin Action does:

• Print Bin Files: Select the files in the Photo Bin that you want to print and then choose Print Bin Files. The selected files open in the Print dialog box, where you can make photo prints of the selected images.
• Save Bin as an Album: You can add photos to an existing album, or you can create a new album. You can do many wonderful things with Photo Albums.
• Show Grid: By default, no divider lines appear between photos in the Photo Bin. When you choose Show Grid, divider lines appear between the photos.

Launching and navigating Preferences

The Photo Editor’s Preferences dialog box organizes all the options into several panes. By default, when you open the Preferences dialog box, you see the General pane.

To open the Preferences dialog box, choose Edit ⇒ Preferences ⇒ General (or Photoshop Elements Editor ⇒ Preferences ⇒ General on the Mac). Alternatively, press Ctrl+K (⌘  +K on the Mac). Using either method opens the Preferences dialog box to the General pane, as shown in Figure 3-15.

In Figure 3-15, you see items on both the left and right sides of the dialog box that are common to all preferences panes. Here’s a quick introduction to what these items are and how they work:

• Panes list: Elements lists all the different panes along the left side of the Preferences dialog box. Click an item in the list to make the respective pane open on the right side of the dialog box.
• OK: Click OK to accept any changes made in any pane and dismiss the Preferences dialog box.
• Cancel: Click Cancel to return to the same settings as when you opened a pane and to dismiss the dialog box.
• Reset Preferences on Next Launch: Clicking the Restore Default Settings button returns the dialog box to the same settings as when you opened the dialog box. The dialog box stays open for you to set new settings.

Of particular importance in the General tab are the items you see for Allow Floating Documents in Expert Mode and Enable Floating Document Window Docking. As we discuss earlier in this chapter (see “Examining the image window”), select these check boxes if you want to undock the document windows from the tabs.

Checking out all the Preferences panes

The settings in the Preferences dialog box are organized into different panes that reflect key categories of preferences. The following list briefly describes the types of settings you can adjust in each preferences pane:

• General preferences, as the name implies, apply to general settings you adjust for your editing environment.
• Saving Files preferences relate to options available for saving files. You can change the case of existing filenames; save a file with layers or flatten layers (as we explain in Chapter 9); save files with image previews that appear when you’re viewing files as icons on your desktop (Windows); and save with some compatibility options. On the Mac, the Finder generates thumbnails automatically, so you don’t need to specify thumbnails in a Save dialog box.
• Performance preferences: The pane where you find history states (explained in Chapter 1) and memory settings, such as allocating memory to Elements.
• Scratch Disks preferences: Below Performance, you find scratch disk options. (See the nearby sidebar “What’s a scratch disk?” for more on scratch disks.) You can monitor how your scratch preferences are working in the image window. See the earlier section, “Examining the image window,” for details.
• Display & Cursors preferences: Offer options for how certain tool cursors are displayed and how you view the Crop tool when you’re cropping images. Chapter 10 explains how cropping works.
• Transparency preferences: Require an understanding of how Elements represents transparency. Imagine painting a portrait on a piece of clear acetate. The area you paint is opaque, and the area surrounding the portrait is transparent. To display transparency in Elements, you need some method to represent transparent areas. (Chapter 8 has more details.) Open the Transparency preferences and make choices for how transparency appears in Elements.
• Units & Rulers preferences: Let you specify settings for ruler units, column guides, and document preset resolutions.
• Guides & Grid preferences: Offer options for gridline color, divisions, and subdivisions. A grid shows you nonprinting horizontal and vertical lines. You use a grid to align objects, type, and other elements. You can snap items to the gridlines to make aligning objects much easier. You can drag guides (sometimes called guidelines) from the ruler and position them between gridlines.
• Plug-Ins preferences: Include options for selecting an additional Plug-Ins folder. Plug-ins are third-party utilities that work with Elements. For example, you can find plug-ins that offer editing features not found in Elements, many different adjustments for brightness/contrast and color correction, and some nifty special effects. You can find many free plug-ins on the Internet by searching for Photoshop Elements Plug-Ins.
• Adobe Partner Services: Enable you to control whether Elements automatically checks for new services, clears the online stored data, and resets your account information for all services.
• Application Updates: Allow you to choose to automatically update Elements or receive a notification that an update is available.
• Type preferences: Provide options for setting text attributes. You have options for using different quotation marks, showing Asian characters, showing font names in English, and previewing font sizes.
• Country/Region Selection: Select your country or region from the drop-down menu.

Part of the fun of image editing is choosing brush tips, swatch colors, gradient colors, and patterns to create the look you want. To get you started, Elements provides you with a number of preset libraries that you can load and use when you want. For example, you can load a Brushes library to acquire different brush tips that you can use with the Brush tool and the Eraser tool. But you’re likely to want to customize the preset libraries at least a little bit, too.

You can change libraries individually in respective panels where the items are used. For example, you can change color swatch libraries on the Color Swatches panel or choose brush-tip libraries in the Tool Options. Another way you can change libraries is to use the Preset Manager dialog box, as shown in Figure 3-16.

We cover using the presets in Chapter 13, which is where you can find out how to use the many presets that Elements provides. The important thing to note here is that you can change the presets according to your editing needs.

To open the Preset Manager dialog box, choose Edit ⇒ Preset Manager. The available options in the dialog box are

• Learn More About: The Preset Manager: Click the blue Preset Manager hyperlinked text to open the Help document and find out more about managing presets.
• Done: Any changes you make in the Preset Manager are recorded and saved when you click Done.
• Preset Type: Open the drop-down list to choose from Brushes, Swatches, Gradients, Styles, Patterns, and Effects.
• Append: Click the Append button to append a library to the existing library open in the Preset Manager.
• Add: Click this button to open another library. Elements allows you to choose from several libraries for each preset type. When you choose Add, the open library closes as a new library opens. If you added a new item, such as a brush, it’s lost when you click Add unless you saved the new brush. For more on brushes, see Chapter 8.
• Save Set: You can save any changes you make in the Preset Manager as a new library. If you make a change, use this option so that you don’t disturb the original presets.
• Rename: Each item in a library has a unique name. If you want to rename an item, click the thumbnail in the Preview pane, click Rename, and then type a new name in the dialog box that appears.
• Delete: Click an item in the Preview window and click Delete to remove the item from the library.