Tuesday's Template #9

Click on the template for a free download link

Sample Layout:

ingredients used on this layout:

Digital Stickers: Red Eye Frogs, Assemble Your Own: Frames - Bamboo, Hula Sue Collection Biggie, Mischief Maker Collection, 1 Scrap Girls Eternal Love Collection Mini and Brush Set, Space Kids Collection Mini, Batik Paper Biggie, Brush Set: Paint Stroke, AMC_Happy Font

Tuesday's Template: #8

Click on the template for a free download link.

Sample Layout:

ingredients used on this layout:
Back Porch Collection Biggie, Kingdom Collection Biggie, Noteworthy Embellishment Biggie,
Shabby Fabulous Collection Biggie, Yesteryear Collection Biggie

Template #7

Click on the template for a free download link.

Sample Layout:

ingredients for sample layout are linked as follows:

Artisan Blue Collection

Adjusting Photo Colors and Lighting

I have learned a few tips and tricks here and there from various sources on how to adjust photos using Photoshop Element. I thought I'd share them with you. These are real basic steps, but hopefully they will help someone.

What I tend to use most of the time is my Create Adjustment Layer tool. It is the black and white circle icon on the layers platte. I like to have my adjustments on their own layer so I can easily turn them on and off if I don’t like what I see. Where as if I do things to the actually picture itself, I may have a lot of undoing to do if I find I am not happy with the adjusting. Does that make sense?

I’ll take you step by step what I did to one of my photos.

So, I clicked on the Create Adjustment Layer icon and from the drop down menu I usually choose the Levels option. I then play with both sliders to get just the right lighting. Sometimes this is all I need to do.

However, I might need to go a step further. This photo has too much yellow in it so to remove it I will choose Hue/Saturation from the pervious drop down menu.

I then slide the Saturation slider a little to the left and the Lightness slider a little to the right.

And finally, I might make further adjustments with the Brightness/Contrast options from the Create Adjustment Layer as well.

Here is the before and after. It isn’t perfect, but it is better.

Other tips:

In some pictures where the lighting is good but I want more vibrant colors, I will usually use the Hue/Saturation layer and move the Saturation to the right until I get my desired effect. And if I want more muted tones, I move the same slider to the left.

I also use Actions I have bought from Scrap Girls and The Coffee Shop Blog has some great FREE actions and editing tips.

I hope this helps a little. Good luck and Happy Editing!