Photoshop Elements

One of the most exciting projects you can tackle in image editing software that supports layering—Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Pixelmator, etc.—is to combine images in interesting ways. Whether you’re crafting a surreal piece of art or swapping heads, the process is similar in each program. In this column, you’ll learn how to use Photoshop Elements to combine a photo of an Italian villa and a glass of red wine to create a version of Italy you can drink. Read my Creaticity story at Macworld here.

This past fall Adobe released a new version of their consumer-level photo organizing and editing application, Photoshop Elements 14. A mature and uniquely user-friendly application, the latest version has a host of welcome improvements for beginners and advanced users alike. For example, the Organizer has better facial recognition and it’s easy to find images that you haven’t yet organized with tags and events.

Unless you’re fortunate enough to live near a Trader Joe’s, affordable greeting cards are hard to come by. If you no longer enjoy paying $6 or more for a greeting card, you can use your Mac to create a unique and personalized card that your loved ones will cherish. In this column, you’ll learn to create a simple yet classy Valentine cards using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements (nearly any version of these apps will work). To keep it budget-friendly, we’ll use standard size paper and then fold it.

My book The Skinny on Holiday Photo Gifts is now available on Apple's iBooks Store, as well as in PDF and EPUB format! Click here for sample pages, a detailed description, or to buy the book.

’Tis the season to print your photography, whether it’s a picture you’ll frame, a greeting card, or a calendar, book or other photo-related project you’ll order online. Since it’s challenging (if not impossible) to print some of this stuff at home, it’s best to leave the printing to pros such as Apple (using iPhoto or the Photos app), services such as mpix.com, your local camera store, or even Costco.

Make memorable and personalized gifts using your own photos! This step-by-step $5.99 book helps you create myriad gifts such as Pillows, Tote bags, Purses, Magnets & stickers, Canvas prints, Skins for laptops and portable devices, Postage stamps, Mugs, Keychains, Playing cards, Tree ornaments, Dry-erase calendars, Notepads, and Wine and beer bottle labels. You’ll also learn how to create spectacular cards and personalized calendars in Apple’s Photos for Mac and iPhoto. Then, you’ll learn step-by-step instructions for creating unique, do-it-yourself projects such as photo napkin rings, photo gift tags and wooden photo cubes. Along the way, you’ll also learn many valuable tips for improving the overall look of your projects, including: adjusting the color of your photos so they harmonize together, how to save your files for successful printing, the best ways to add text to photos, how to remove color from parts of your photo, and unusually impressive card designs.

Sitting quietly in the Tools panel of the popular image editors Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Pixelmator, is the Gradient tool, a wonderfully useful painting tool that lets you create a soft, gradual transition from one color to another (or several). But besides using the tool to add color to your designs, you can use it inside a layer mask (referred to as a gradient mask). By setting the two colors of the gradient to black and white—to conceal and reveal, respectively—the tool lets you fade layer content in interesting ways.

A fun effect referred to as the “twirl” has taken many Photoshop-based Facebook groups by storm. You can use it to quickly convert an ordinary image into a spectacular series of colorful swirls and twirls—and feed your creative soul. Happily, the technique works in nearly any version of Photoshop or Photoshop Elements...click here to read the full story on Macworld.com

One of the most rewarding projects you can tackle in layer-based apps such as Photoshop and Photoshop Elements is combining images. In this column, you’ll learn how to employ blend modes to turn an ordinary portrait-style snapshot into a a special textured collage...click here to read the full tutorial on Macworld.com

When it comes to retouching portraits, whitening teeth is one of the most common edits you’ll ever make. In this column you’ll learn how to whiten teeth without messing up your original image and without having to make a single selection. As a bonus, this technique works in nearly any version of Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.