Photoshop and Photoshop Elements Tutorials

Portrait Retouching, Part 2: Photoshop Elements Tutorial

Thumbnail image for Portrait Retouching, Part 2: Photoshop Elements Tutorial June 23, 2011

My Portrait Retouching Workflow tutorial for Photoshop Elements generated lots of good questions.  To answer them, I going to give you some advanced portrait techniques in this tutorial.  Here’s my before and after: Other than my basic workflow steps, this tutorial will show you how to repair blown out pixels, make eyes larger and add [...]

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Create a Watermark: A Photoshop Elements Tutorial

June 22, 2011

Photoshop Elements gives us at least two different ways to create watermarks.  My favorite is to put a logo in a PNG file that you can place anywhere you want on any file at any size and opacity.  The other way is to create a brush – lots of people use this method too. (If [...]

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Photoshop Elements Actions: A Secret Use for Magic Skin

Thumbnail image for Photoshop Elements Actions: A Secret Use for Magic Skin June 10, 2011

MCP’s Magic Skin action for Photoshop Elements is my favorite way to soften and brighten skin in a jif.  But did you know that it can be used to blur backgrounds and even remove noise as well?  That’s right.  It’s not just for skin! Last week I wrote up a tutorial about retouching portraits.  Well, [...]

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Photoshop Elements Tutorial: Montage

Thumbnail image for Photoshop Elements Tutorial: Montage June 9, 2011

Photoshop Elements is made for montages like this: How did I make it?  I took a short cut, by starting with an MCP Print It Board, size 20×20.  But you don’t have to start that way. You can start by finding a background image and sizing it to the aspect ratio that you want.  Then, [...]

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Photoshop Elements Tutorial: Portrait Retouching Workflow

Thumbnail image for Photoshop Elements Tutorial: Portrait Retouching Workflow June 3, 2011

After my MCP Mini Fusion Photoshop Elements tutorial last week, several people asked about softening skin and applying lipstick in Elements.  It didn’t seem right to write a tutorial about those techniques without giving you my entire portrait workflow. These are the basic steps I use on any close up portrait.  Depending on the subject, [...]

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Photoshop Elements Workflow Order

Thumbnail image for Photoshop Elements Workflow Order May 27, 2011

Workflow order in Photoshop Elements causes many people stress.  Too much stress, in my opinion. Last week, I wrote about Lightroom workflow and suggested that the order of your edits isn’t all that important.  Lightroom works differently from Elements, and I wouldn’t go so far as to say that workflow is unimportant in Elements, but [...]

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What Happens If You Break a Fundamental Rule of Photography?

Thumbnail image for What Happens If You Break a Fundamental Rule of Photography? May 24, 2011

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard it, but I still forget sometimes. Before you snap that photo, start from the 4 corners of your frame and look from the outside in.  Make sure you’re not about to snap an image with annoying distractions in the background. Like a remote control. I mean really, [...]

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Free Action for Photoshop Elements: Mini Fusion Tutorial

Thumbnail image for Free Action for Photoshop Elements: Mini Fusion Tutorial May 20, 2011

Mini Fusion, MCP’s latest free action for Photoshop Elements, has gotten so many raves that it’s worthy of a tutorial showing just what this freebie is capable of.  Actions, as we all know, sometimes make a huge and instant impact on a photo, and other times they need tweaking.  The beauty of Mini Fusion is [...]

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Workflow Order – Don’t Sweat It!

May 18, 2011

Workflow order is the topic that I get asked about most often in my classes, whether it’s the Lightroom or the Elements class.  People worry that there is one and only one order that post processing work should be done in, and that not knowing this order is going to ruin their photos. Put your [...]

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Texture Recipes and How to Remove Texture Selectively

Thumbnail image for Texture Recipes and How to Remove Texture Selectively April 21, 2011

Textures, I thought,  might add a lot to this image.  Now, don’t get me wrong – I absolutely love it as it is.  But  something about it made me want to “art it up” a bit.  It was a special night with good friends and the memory deserved a little extra processing. So I played [...]

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Photoshop Elements Tutorial: Problem Photos? Open JPEGs in ACR

Thumbnail image for Photoshop Elements Tutorial: Problem Photos? Open JPEGs in ACR April 5, 2011

Photoshop Elements has an underutilized feature for folks who haven’t converted to shooting in Raw yet.  If you shoot in JPEG, you might think that you have to miss out on the easy exposure and white balance adjustments that Adobe Camera Raw provides. But that’s not true!  You can open any JPEG in Raw and [...]

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A Vintage Look in Photoshop Elements

March 29, 2011

Photoshop Elements made short work of getting the vintage look I wanted from this photo. One of our models brought a 1940s or 1950s outfit that worked perfectly in the old farmhouse we were shooting in this past weekend.  This photo takes me back to pre-air conditioning days and I wanted the processing to carry [...]

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Elements Classes – Now Registering (& Coupon Codes)

Thumbnail image for Elements Classes – Now Registering (& Coupon Codes) March 18, 2011

Is April the time for you to master Photoshop Elements?  If so, it’s time to register for the classes that will make that happen. The March session were quite fun!  We had great photos to edit, and lots of “aha” moments all around. Here is the April schedule: Read the detailed class descriptions here. Use [...]

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Photoshop Elements Tutorial: Flatten vs. Merge vs. Stamp Visible

Thumbnail image for Photoshop Elements Tutorial: Flatten vs. Merge vs. Stamp Visible March 17, 2011

Wait a minute. I thought the beauty of Photoshop Elements is that you can save all your layers in a PSD file, and then go back and edit them at any point in the future.  Why would I ever want to flatten those layers? I’m going to take you through my workflow on this image [...]

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