Learning How to Use Photoshop Elements

Adobe Photoshop Elements, the younger sibling of the all-powerful Adobe Photoshop, is usually the first ‘real’ photo editor for many people. Though much simpler than its big brother, all those buttons and options can be quite daunting to the Photoshop rookie. Follow this easy tutorial which introduces you to the basics of this fantastic software. Learn interesting tips on how to use Photoshop Elements that will make editing photos as much fun as shooting them. I'll be using Photoshop Elements 9 for this article, though the concepts explained should hold for almost every version of the software.

As with most software, there are many ways to learn how to use Photoshop Elements.

1. You may start off with online articles and tutorials to get an idea of the basics.
2. You may hover your mouse over various buttons within the program to learn their functions. What's more, clicking the text box that describes the function takes you to the help pages associated with the function.
3. Use the 'Guided Edit' feature, which gives you step-by-step instructions on performing common photo edits.

And before you get your hands dirty with Photoshop Elements, let me give you two invaluable tips:

1. Always work on copies of your original photos. To do this, click 'Save As' and save a copy of your photo. You can now safely make any changes to the photos without fear of losing the original.
2. Make full use of the 'Undo' and 'Redo' options. I feel they are the two best functions in the software!

For exhaustive tutorials on getting specific tasks done using Photoshop Elements, check out the Photoshop Elements Guide.

When you click on the icon to open Photoshop Elements, the splash screen presents you with four options:

1. I'm new to Elements - A tutorial to help you with the most common features of the software.
2. I have an earlier version - A slideshow featuring only the improvements in this version over the previous one.
3. Organize
4. Edit

Organize and Edit are essentially the two broad categories or 'workspaces' into which Elements is divided. You can organize, tag, label, rate and create albums based on various parameters in the Organize workspace whereas touch-ups, improvements and modifications of photos can be made in the Edit workspace.

Please continue on to the next page for more tips on how to use Photoshop Elements.