Best reference for Photoshop Elements

"World Traveler" wrote in message

I’m new to any sophisticated photo manipulation and the layers process, although I have a long background in serious (but amateur) photography (I still remember Marshall Oils!). I did attend a recent Adobe seminar on Photoshop Elements 3.0 held in Tampa, but since I hadn’t gotten the program yet I’m sure I didn’t get full value from the exposure. I also live in a rural area so I can’t just pop down to a Borders and browse through the offerings.

I’ve just purchased Photoshop Elements 3.0 and a Wacom 6 x 8 tablet, for the specific purpose of taking a scanned-in 60-year-old B&W wedding family picture and "colorizing" it. This is intended as a surprise to an 82-year-old widow who needs something to remind her of happier early days. I expect to have at least two big problems — skin tones (Asian family) and getting the right color in very dark backdrops that are almost pure black in the scanned image.

Two questions:

1. What are your recommendations as the best reference for me to use in learning PSE 3 and completing this project?

2. Are there any discussion groups or on-line sources of information on how to tint a black-and-white photo using Photoshop Elements?
Your ideas, please — Regards —

to colorize a BW photo is a lot easier than Dr Marshall’s and a lot less messy and smelly., no drying time and no protective spray needed over it. (dinosaur times)

keep the original on the bottom layer, make a new layer above, set the brush tool to very low opacity (7-8%) and soft edges then squirt the colors over the areas you want to color. (you can use eraser on the colors to clean it up wihtout damageing the image below) You may want to try different blending modes (PS has this not sure about elements) So instead of normal a setting like Hue, overlay or screen may look better.
Use the palette to get the colors and for Asian skin just make it a bit yellower. I do color by eye although there are some on here who use numbers to choose the colors. or you could open a color photo of some asians to get color samples.

If it’s possible to select the black dark areas. you could make a selection and then use levels or curves to bring out the detail in the black (if there is any) In photoshop you would use the selection to create an adjustment layer and do the leveling or curving on it so it also does not alter the original below>

good luck have fun it’s a nice thing you are doing. The new techniques are not as "hands on" but are quite cool once you get used to them.

The Tampa Bay Computer Society has excellent monthly Photoshop SIG evening meetings and weekend classes on both the main product and Elements. Stan Ashbrook is the primary tutor in this area and does an excellent job. They charge $5 per hour for their formal classes and it is the best buy you will ever have.
www.tampa-bay.org

Dennis

"World Traveler" wrote in message

I’m new to any sophisticated photo manipulation and the layers process, although I have a long background in serious (but amateur) photography (I still remember Marshall Oils!). I did attend a recent Adobe seminar on Photoshop Elements 3.0 held in Tampa, but since I hadn’t gotten the program yet I’m sure I didn’t get full value from the exposure. I also live in a rural area so I can’t just pop down to a Borders and browse through the offerings.

I’ve just purchased Photoshop Elements 3.0 and a Wacom 6 x 8 tablet, for the specific purpose of taking a scanned-in 60-year-old B&W wedding family picture and "colorizing" it. This is intended as a surprise to an 82-year-old widow who needs something to remind her of happier early days. I expect to have at least two big problems — skin tones (Asian family) and getting the right color in very dark backdrops that are almost pure black in the scanned image.

Two questions:

1. What are your recommendations as the best reference for me to use in learning PSE 3 and completing this project?

2. Are there any discussion groups or on-line sources of information on how to tint a black-and-white photo using Photoshop Elements?
Your ideas, please — Regards —

"World Traveler" wrote in message

[snip]

Two questions:

1. What are your recommendations as the best reference for me to use in learning PSE 3 and completing this project?

2. Are there any discussion groups or on-line sources of information on how to tint a black-and-white photo using Photoshop Elements?
Your ideas, please — Regards —

Thanks for the replies and help. I’m starting on the project this week — Regards —