Hidden Power Actions 3 — instructions?

Byron,

Check out Richard’s website, some of your questions may be answered. Also, on www.retouchpro.com he has a Q & A section on the forums. Or maybe it’s a Q & A on his website…he does frequent Retouch though.

<http://www.hiddenelements.com/tools.html>

Nancy

Byron,

About the Welcome Screen, I drag it as far off to the side of my 15" screen as I can before selecting the tool. I had the same trouble with it obscuring the image when I was using the Channel Mixer. Not sure how to hide the Welcome Screen totally, hopefully someone knows the secret.

Barb

Byron,

I don’t know the secret. I prefer to use Lings Snap actions to access Richard’s tools. They’re all available in the ‘how to menu’. Richard doesn’t endorse this Interface but it will solve the problem you’re referring to.

<http://www.geocities.com/rnlnero/PE2stuff2.html>

Bryon,

Barb is right about moving the welcome screen out of the way before activating the tool. Mark is also right about Ling’s snap actions. Use whichever feels better to you, they’re compatible and you can install both.

The channel mixer is the same as the Photoshop channel mixer and you can google lots of tutorials. One frequent use is controlling the conversion of color images to black and white.

The fade control is intended to act like the photoshop fade control. Fade is a combination of layer blending mode and opacity. Apply a filter to the layer first then activate the fade control. You’ll get the original unfiltered layer with the filtered layer on top. Set the layer blending mode of the top (filtered layer) as desired and adjust the opacity to control how much of the filtered layer shows. Richard discusses this in better detail on the other site mentioned.

Bob

Nancy,

You are correct… on Richard’s website, there is some good information in the "Answers" section.

Thanks!

Byron

Barb,

Glad to know it’s not just me. I had never heard anyone make mention of the behavior, and wasn’t expecting it to act the way it does.

Byron

Mark,

Thank you for the steer to Ling’s interface… I much prefer it to the Welcome screen interface, as I can keep the How-To palette open/docked, as opposed to having to open the Welcome menu (and trying to work past it on the screen) each time I wish to use a tool.

Much appreciated!

Byron

Bob,

Thanks for the nudge to go looking for channel mixer tutorials. I’ve found enough to get me started.

Your explanation of the fade control helps, as well….

Byron

Byron,

I also use Lings interface for Richard’s tools. They are in the Recipes tab in my version 1 so they don’t eat up any screen real estate.

Byron,

Glad you found Lings page useful. You can also access Richard’s extra tools through the recipes without Ling’s interface. I like Ling’s interface because it gives you actions that she has converted as well as access to everything Richard makes available. She has some really neat stuff for Elements action fans and continues to add to the list.

Just to say, there is nothing that other interface does that mine can’t. I think I’ll make the switch for HPA 4 so everything gets installed to the recipes — though it was something I wanted to avoid functionally.

About the tools and instructions…there isn’t a lot of instruction, but there is stuff in the readmedo.rtf. The following is taken directly from that file:

—————————————————–
About the New Tools
—————————————————–

The new tools included with this set include some additional natively functioning Elements features that were not originally included with Hidden Power tools in The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 2. These tools were requested by users (like yourself). I have added these without much additional support beyond the description here. We can discuss them further in the newsletter or in the RetouchPro forum (retouchpro.com) which has been established for Hidden Power tools support. See <http://hiddenelements.com> for more information.

Fade effect will allow Elements users to duplicate the Fade function from Photoshop. This function is applied after a filter to lessen the impact/opacity, apply the effect via a mode or both. It is a little more manual than Photoshop’s tool, but it is also more versatile as you can use it with any filter, effect, change or enhancement.

Shadow Mask Creates a selection of the lightest portions of the image, where the intensity of the selection is in proportion to the darkness of the tone. This is very tricky to do in Elements, but here is simplified to a mouse click. The idea is to mask the shadowed areas from change.

Highlight Mask Creates a selection of the darkest portions of the image, where the intensity of the selection is in proportion to the lightness of the tone. The opposite of a Shadow Mask. This is very tricky to do in Elements, but here is simplified to a mouse click. The idea is to mask the highlight areas from change.

Trim Image This function trims an image based on corner pixels. For example, if there is a white field in the image background, and you want to remove it to make an image smaller, you can use trim image to automatically reduce the image. This comes in handy when attempting to accurately minimize web graphics, such as buttons with drop shadows.

Reveal Image Sometimes when you move layer content (such as with the Move tool), layers retain the information though you can’t see it in the image area. This function reveals the hidden image information that has become displaced by expanding the canvas. Good for when you lose something off the visible image area.

Action speed controller will allow the user to control playback speed in actions. This allows you to slow actions down so you can learn what is going on behind the scenes, and gather new techniques and understanding of how images are altered and effects created. The speeds are fast, step-by-step, step and pause and step and long pause. Once the speed is set it remains in that mode till changed. Fast moves through actions at maximum speed, not waiting for redraw. Step-by-step waits for each step to redraw. Step and pause waits for the redraw to complete and pauses an additional second. Step and long pause waits for redraw to complete and waits 2 seconds.

Quick Mask mode will allow you to switch to a red overlay mode (rubylith) to adjust masks and selections based on tone. Some people prefer this for working with masking and selection, and it is more like manual darkroom methods.

Layer Mask insert will add a layer mask to the currently active layer. This is an alternative to clipping layers as described in The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 2. This method may be more convenient for following some step-by-steps in Photoshop books. Only layers can be masked – backgrounds must be converted to layers first.

Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer adds an option for mixing channels using the native Adobe interface. It is an alternative to methods described in The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 2 for mixing channels. The layer, once created, cannot be edited.

Selective Color Adjustment Layer allows you to adjust color based on a preset color range selected from a drop menu. It may be considered an alternative to Hue/Saturation or Color Balance as described in The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 2. The layer, once created, cannot be edited.
———————–

Please discuss the tools on the forum at retouchpro.com: < http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&for umid=142>

Richard,

Many thanks for all of your help!!

Byron

though it was something I wanted to avoid functionally.

Just curious, Richard. What are the disadvantages?

Well, bad implementation of other recipes that install the same way will lead to one bumping the other off…and in best, non-competetive situations, need of maintenance of a single linking file by a larger group of people who create and use enhancements. Invariably, things will get left off the linking list, bumped, failed to update, etc. As I had already done what I didn’t want to to install my tools for the book–it was that or leave them out–encouraging other people to re-write the recipes index file was just bad programming. As I work for a software company, and to some measure customer service (not Adobe, and having nothing to do with images), I tend to be very aware of potential clashes. All this to say:

If you have the tools from my book
If you have Lings
and if ONE other person implements the same thing…

….you have a mess. All the packages will essentially be competing for the same link. Install one, you lose the other. Add more people doing the same thing, the problem multiplies. It doesn’t matter if Ling keeps up her file and I keep up mine…there begin to become too many variables. That’s why I don’t ‘endorse’ Ling’s stuff. In other words, it is possible to make it work, but unlikely that it would remain that way in the long run.

There are a slew of other problems that are less likely to appear, but might potentially, such as language version install problems (German file structure for the program is different than English, etc.). There were a lot more considerations to make, and I can’t work with someone who ignores problems–especially those that i know can be worked around.

The Welcome menu allowed me to install something unique, so there were no potential problems. All I wanted was to keep people from having trouble. Though I thought I was working closely with her, Ling ignored me, and dumped her stuff into the recipes without first finding a better solution. I had hopes of working with her to do more stuff, but I couldn’t see divulging a lot more information, considering the circumstance. I can’t tell you how many emails I get now having to fix what is broken when the two packages are installed–and how much time that takes away from supporting new additions. It is easy for someone who knows how to manage web page files, but not everyone has this type of experience. I can’t tell you as well how many enhancements I have not had time to put together–I’ve been wanting to get out HPA4 for a while and a healing tool, but just haven’t had time (lots of deadlines).

What I really wanted to do (for the tools in the book) was install so that the recipes showed up in the drop list. That would have solved all the potential clashes, and made everything available through recipes — no matter how many vendors/action authors were using the solution. Adobe never released the SDK for Elements 2…I suspect that was because they were looking for a more elegant means of working the whole recipes thing, which I had hints of but apparently they were unable to finish. Adobe had the good sense NOT to release something which wasn’t what they wanted. I was hoping to figure out how to handle using the drop list, and finally have. Had Ling waited a few more weeks before suddenly releasing her package (to my surprise), I would have been able to tell her about it.

The Welcome menu has some positive features, and some drawbacks, but the biggest positive was that it wouldn’t cause conflict. The next biggest was the set layout –and that is also the biggest drawback. It is a big screen allowing for a lot of buttons and tabs…it is also a big screen obscuring the background. I work on two monitors, so it was pretty easy for me to ignore the problem of the palette size for the free tools. I’ve been using two monitors for quite a while…so I guess i just ignored it.

So, I have always thought the recipes menu was better, but sloppy implementation was worse. Finding a better solution sometimes takes some effort. The first is not always the best.

Richard

Richard, thanks for the explanation. We sometimes tend to forget how much effort went into making these extra tools available to us. Your solution is well thought out and elegant, just like your book.

Chuck

<

I second that Chuck …. Richard’s book is brilliant, I wouldn’t know what to do without it. Most other books I have used for while and then discarded but not that one …. the tools are great too!

Wendy

Thanks so much, Richard, for such a detailed explanation. Very clear.