Does Anyone Use Photoshop Elements 10…..Need Help Please

[Brandy]

I have Photoshop Elements 10 and have tried everything to figure out how to take a picture, then edit the background color. I have used the help function and tried to follow the instructions but it is not working. The whole image stays locked and I cannot separate the “layers”. I am very unfamiliar with photoshop and am a novice at best. Can anyone give me some advice.

Trying to put a black background to enhance main body image. I want the visual appeal similar to some of the PYO pictures I have seen.

Thanks in advance for any potential help!!

[Purplecat]

ah, I dont have 10, I think mine is an older version….but I just use the paintbrush feature and meticulously ‘paint’ the background out.

I zoom in really close for some of the edging. It takes a bit of time, but it works.

[Adaneth]

I only have Photoshop Elements 8, but I believe there is no way to ‘split’ a camera image into multiple layers.

What I would do is create a new blank layer, duplicate the layer that contains the photo image, put the blank layer underneath that. Make it black with the ‘bucket’ tool.

If the background of the photo is a near solid color or something pretty featureless, you can use the ‘magic wand tool’ to try to select it, then erase the selection. Of course, that tool requires some fiddling with ‘tolerance’ to be of much use.

Or…poking around in the ‘Image’ menu shows me a ‘Magic Extractor’ tool that might be worth a try.

Or just do the slow and sure way like Purplecat said, and ‘paint’ out the background with the brush tool. Save a good copy first, of course, in case you mess up!

[Brandy]

I tried the Magic Extractor tool and that worked not to bad for me but it sometimes leaves part of your image out. I will try the meticulous paintbrushing too. I will keep fiddling with it till I figure it out!! I thought that this was supposed to be a relatively user friendly program but I am finding it confusing. Unless you have a previous understanding of the terms then you are left feeling out in left field.

[WolfenMachine]

Another thing you can do is put a new layer, set it to mulitply, use a brush with a hardness setting at “0” and paint out the background. If the background is already black, you just want it darker, you can mess with the curves. Curves are basically adjusting the brightness and contrast, but its a more accurate way of doing it.

I have Photoshop CS5-I know it is slightly different, but I think the main functions are the same. If you email the photo to me, I can edit it for you. I don’t know *EVERYTHING* about photoshop, but I like to think I know a lot

[KaytanaPhoenix]

I don’t know anything about your version of Photoshop, but I have a tablet that makes this kind of work way easier if you want to send anything to me to blackout a background it wouldn’t take me too long.. I dunno if Wolfen has a tab to do it w? I don’t mind saving people a lil bit of work 🙂
Pm me for my email if you want 🙂

[Jennifer]

There is no magic, easy way to do this. I have Elements 6, but it’s basically the same.

The first thing you should do is make it easy on yourself and photograph your PYO against a SOLID background that is a different color from any of the main parts of your PYO. The background can bounce light onto your PYO so if you are using a colored background beware that it can influence how your PYO looks! I prefer to use white, myself.

Bring your photo into photoshop, and use the “magic wand” tool. You can set how sensitive it is. The sensitivity is a simple number called “TOLERANCE” and should be near the top of your menu. The lower the number, the less area it will select. What it’s doing is ‘looking’ at the color of the pixel you click, and selecting all pixels touching that one that are the same or very similarly colored. If you set the tolerance to “1” it will only select EXACTLY that color– probably only one pixel. If you set it at 50, it will select all pixels exactly that color– and all pixels within 50 steps of that color (so, quite a bit more). You can use the eraser tool to erase these unwanted areas, or press the delete key to remove them. If you want to get fancy, you can soften your selection, or slightly edit it using the selection brush.

This gives you an idea of the basic concept:
http://activerain.com/blogsview/269995/photoshop-elements-fast-and-easy-blue-skies

Another: http://activerain.com/blogsview/288096/photoshop-elements-selection-tools-the-magic-wand
Of course instead of clouds, you’d want to use black.

Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.com

[Brandy]

Thank you Wolfen and Kaytana for your offer to fix the photos for me. I greatly appreciate it and will keep the offer in mind for sure if I still totally suck at acomplishing this in time. I am gonna keep trying to figure it out and I will check out those instructions and for the links Jennifer.

Thank you all for your help. It really is “Helping” me a lot. I am getting it sorted out and this advice from you all is what is getting me there!!!

Mucho Appreciated!!

[Brandy]

Thank you to each and everyone of you for taking the time to give advice to me!

Greatly appreciated from you all!!

[KaytanaPhoenix]

Wish I could do more to help! Last elements I had my hands on was one of the first (I don’t even remember which version) I do everything in CS… so I’m outdated as far as photoshops go XD but it does what I need it to do, so I’m not complaining 🙂

[Blight]

It sounds like the layer is locked. Is there a picture of a padlock on the layer?

If so, down on the bottom bar of the Layers palette is a row of several tiny icons. One should be a padlock. Click it. Alternatively, double-click the layer itself and it should unlock.

[Brandy]

It sounds like the layer is locked. Is there a picture of a padlock on the layer?

If so, down on the bottom bar of the Layers palette is a row of several tiny icons. One should be a padlock. Click it. Alternatively, double-click the layer itself and it should unlock.

Thank You Wolfrott, such a simple thing and yet I couldn’t figure it out.LOL

Know how to then take the unlocked layer and divide it into the elemental layers. IE: Dragon on white background…..want it to show the layers as Dragon image 1 layer, background white as separate layer so that I can play around with the background color and still keep the dragon to lay on top of the background, any advice on this possibility or do I just need to use the magic extractor and do it that way?

[KaytanaPhoenix]

How I do it with Photoshop CS (The same theory should work here)

I find a lot of people use the magic extractor, but I found that a pain… I always duplicate the layer and hide one (The hide button should be the eye on that layer in the layers box) I always duplicate fairly often in case I mess up I have a recent layer to default back to, and delete irrelevant layers as I go.. and then on the layer that *is* visible, I start using the eraser tool on it, I’ll use a hard edged brush at a larger size to get the bulk of the background, and then use a smaller soft edged brush to remove up close to the subject, when I’m working close to the subject I zoom in for control, and zoom out and take a peak every now and then to make sure it’s looking ok… I usually have a colored layer under the layer I’m erasing from, in a color that shows what I haven’t erased yet

and just in case you’re not sure how to make it all work, think of layers as a Transparency sheet, the ones on the top will cover the ones under it (So the layers box works the same, you would want your dragon on the top layer, layers can be dragged-and-dropped in the order you want in the layers box) – To create a new layer, there should be a button at the bottom of the layers box, hover over the buttons and they’ll tell you what they do. To duplicate a layer, just drag-and-drop the layer from the layers box you want duplicated onto that button. to delete a layer dragon-and-drop from the layers box the layer you want deleted to the trash can icon at the bottom of the layers box

Now I just hope the Elements 10 layers box isn’t different or something from my CS, lol.. if what I said above confuses you I’ll screen cap mine and show you what I meant 🙂

[Brandy]

So glad that all of you are so helpful. You all rock thats all I gotta say. I totally understand what your saying Kaytana. Thanks for the info! Sweet!

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