8 Photoshop Elements Chips for Quick Photo Editing | Articles | Photo, video, optics

Pho­to­shop Ele­ments is a sim­pli­fied ver­sion of the clas­sic Adobe Pho­to­shop. It allows you to quick­ly edit pho­tos, apply effects and make col­or cor­rec­tion. This pro­gram lacks some tools, and the inter­face is visu­al­ly much sim­pler and min­i­mal­is­tic. Pho­to­shop Ele­ments is unlike­ly to be able to do com­plex pro­cess­ing, but is great for reporters, ama­teurs, begin­ners and those pho­tog­ra­phers who rely on nat­u­ral­ness, refus­ing to deep retouch.

We talk about inter­est­ing chips and fea­tures of Adobe Pho­to­shop Ele­ments that may inter­est you and encour­age you to “feel” the edi­tor with your own hands.

A min­i­mal­is­tic inter­face, easy work with tools and intu­itive com­mand man­age­ment will allow even a begin­ner to process a pho­to in a cou­ple of clicks / Illus­tra­tion and pho­to: Eliza­ve­ta Chechevit­sa, Fotosklad.Expert

Two editing panels: for beginners and for pros

When you open a pho­to in Pho­to­shop Ele­ments, you can select two modes: Quick / Quick and Expert / Expert. To do this, just click on the but­tons with the cor­re­spond­ing names at the top of the screen.

You can switch between modes at any time / Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Lentchevicha, Fotosklad.Expert

In Quick mode, in a cou­ple of clicks, you can adjust the bright­ness, apply sharp­ness and effects. Of the hand tools, there are only 8 types suit­able for basic cor­rec­tion. For exam­ple, if you need to crop the pic­ture, remove a cou­ple of pim­ples, and even out the hori­zon.

Quick mode is suit­able for:

- begin­ners who are just mas­ter­ing graph­ic edi­tors, who are fright­ened by the abun­dance of but­tons and a cum­ber­some inter­face;

- pho­tos where deep retouch­ing is not need­ed. For exam­ple, just make the pic­ture a lit­tle dark­er or lighter, adjust the col­or sat­u­ra­tion;

- pro­cess­ing of reportage images;

— pro­cess­ing of land­scape, archi­tec­tur­al pho­tos, pic­tures from trav­els.

At any stage of pro­cess­ing, you can click the Expert but­ton and switch to the pro­fes­sion­al mode. It is much clos­er in func­tion­al­i­ty to Pho­to­shop: lay­ers, brush­es, a stamp famil­iar to retouch­ing and a restor­ing brush appear there. The num­ber of man­u­al edit­ing tools is also expand­ing: 21 ver­sus 8 in Quick mode.

Presets for basic commands

On the menu Quick / Quick on the left are the six main auto­mat­ic tools for work­ing with pho­tog­ra­phy:

one. Smart Fix / Smart Fix. Auto­mat­i­cal­ly adjusts all of the fol­low­ing para­me­ters.

2. Expo­sure / Expo­sure. Sim­ply put, it makes the pho­to lighter or dark­er.

3. Light­ing / Light­ing. Light­ens or dark­ens pre­dom­i­nant­ly dark parts of a pho­to.

four. Col­or Allows you to make col­ors more sat­u­rat­ed or dull, change their tone.

5. Bal­ance /Balance. It would be more cor­rect to call White Bal­ance. Cor­rects the col­ors in the pho­to, if it was orig­i­nal­ly yel­low, blue, green.

6. Sharp­ness / Sharp­en. Sharp­ens and, in some sit­u­a­tions, also adds grain to a pho­to to cre­ate a film-like effect.

To change any of the para­me­ters, click on the cor­re­spond­ing name and move the slid­er. It would seem that it is eas­i­er? But the devel­op­ers have man­aged to make work­ing with the tools even eas­i­er — by open­ing any menu, you will see a list of 9 ready-made pre­sets. And so for each set­ting!

Under the pre­sets, the Auto / Auto but­ton, by click­ing which you will offer the pro­gram to adjust the pho­to itself to your taste / Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chechevit­sa, Fotosklad.Expert

Processing for paintings and styles of famous artists

In Pho­to­shop Ele­ments, any pho­to can be styl­ized as a paint­ing in one click. To do this, go to the tab Effects / Effects and click on any pic­ture. The pro­gram will adjust the col­ors and even try to repeat the strokes and style of the select­ed can­vas.

In one click, the pho­to changes beyond recog­ni­tion / Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Lentchevicha, Photosklad.Expert

The edi­tor offers 28 paint­ings by famous artists to choose from. For exam­ple, Van Gogh or Munch. If you click the check­box Keep orig­i­nal pho­to col­orsthe pro­gram will try to repeat only the style and strokes, but will leave the orig­i­nal col­ors of the image.

This can be an inter­est­ing gift if you, for exam­ple, want to print a styl­ized por­trait on can­vas. You can also indulge and get sur­re­al land­scapes, objects, archi­tec­tur­al shots, or try to go into abstrac­tion and get art where pho­tog­ra­phy and draw­ing inter­sect.

Classic presets in one click

If in the tab effects select sec­tion Clas­sic / Clas­sic, the graph­ics edi­tor will offer 11 basic pre­sets. For exam­ple, it will allow you to con­vert a pho­to to black and white or offer pro­cess­ing for vin­tage.

Instant Teeth Whitening Tool

Dreamed of whiten­ing a mod­el’s teeth, but did not know how and where to do it in bulky Pho­to­shop? Pho­to­shop Ele­ments has a sep­a­rate tool for this, and the pro­ce­dure takes only a cou­ple of min­utes.

The Teeth Whiten­ing tool can be found on the left or accessed with the hotkey F

With the tool select­ed, use the brush to out­line the teeth. The pro­gram itself auto­mat­i­cal­ly bright­ens them. To make the cor­rec­tion more pre­cise, adjust the brush size using the sin­gle slid­er at the bot­tom.

Automatically colorize a black and white photo

If you need to restore an old pho­to and bring back its col­or, use the Pho­to­shop Ele­ments tool, which will col­orize the pho­to itself. To do this, in the pan­el at the top, find the but­ton Enhance / Enhance — Col­orize pho­to / Col­orize pho­to or press the hotkeys Ctrl + Alt + R.

Pho­tos before (right) and after (left) auto­mat­ic col­or addi­tion / Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chechevit­sa, Fotosklad.Expert

A win­dow will open in front of you where you can choose one of four pre­set options — two warmer and two in cold­er col­ors, with blue and green. After that, click Ok and the cor­rec­tion will be applied.

The pro­gram does not work per­fect­ly and is not always accu­rate, but it is a great quick option for an ama­teur. For guar­an­teed high-qual­i­ty restora­tion of col­or in the pic­ture, it is bet­ter to work man­u­al­ly or con­tact a pro­fes­sion­al.

Open closed eyes in a photograph

Pho­to­shop Ele­ments allows you to “open” the mod­el’s eyes in a cou­ple of clicks if she acci­den­tal­ly closed them in the pho­to. The pro­gram offers four options for the eyes to choose from, but it will turn out much bet­ter if you go the sec­ond way — choose a pho­to from the same series with the same mod­el, but where her eyes are open. Yes, you may have to go through a few shots to find the best angle, but oth­er­wise the graph­ic edi­tor will do every­thing for you.

The replace­ment took a cou­ple of min­utes — I had to go through 3–4 pic­tures to find “donor” eyes / Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Lentchevicha, Fotosklad.Expert

How to open eyes on a pho­to in Pho­to­shop Ele­ments:

1. On the pan­el on the left, take the tool Eyes. Y hotkey.

2. Find the but­ton below Open closed eyes / Open Closed Eyes.

When you open the pic­ture, the pro­gram will auto­mat­i­cal­ly detect the face — it will cir­cle it with a blue cir­cle / Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Lentchevicha, Photostore.Expert

3. In the win­dow that opens, click Com­put­er / Com­put­er and select a pic­ture with “donor” eyes. They will load and appear on the right. Select the desired image. Pho­to­shop Ele­ments will auto­mat­i­cal­ly replace the eyes in the pic­ture. After that click Ok.