- Getting started
- Editing photos in the Organizer
- Recognizing what your photo needs
- Making easy color and lighting adjustments
- Correcting photos in Quick Edit mode
- Working with Auto Smart Tone
- Adjusting images in Guided Edit mode
- Selective editing with the Smart Brush
- Working with camera raw images
- Review questions
- Review answers
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Making easy color and lighting adjustments
In this section, we’ll begin our exploration of the Editor, taking a closer look at the tools and techniques that will enable you to get the best from your photos. Now that you’ve soaked up a little theory, you’ll find it easier to understand the processes, whether you’re using one-click fixes, or making detailed selective edits.
Whether the problem is inadequate exposure, a lack of contrast, or an unsightly color cast, you can make fast fixes using the simple controls in Quick Edit mode, let the Guided Edit mode step you through a wide range of editing tasks, make detailed adjustments in Full Edit mode—or even arrange for Photoshop Elements to batch-process your photos, applying your choice of automatic corrections.
Fixing photos automatically in batches
In this exercise, you’ll batch process all of the image files used in this lesson, saving the auto-adjusted photos as copies so that you can compare the results of the automatic processing to the edits you make using other techniques.
If the Editor is not still in Expert mode, click Expert in the mode picker. Choose File > Process Multiple Files. In the Quick Fix options, at the upper right of the Process Multiple Files dialog box, click the check boxes to activate all four auto-fix options: Auto Levels, Auto Contrast, Auto Color, and Sharpen.
- At the upper left of the dialog box, choose Folder from the Process Files From menu. Under Source, click the Browse button. Locate and select the Lesson 4 folder as the source folder for the images to be processed. Click OK / Choose. Under Destination, click Browse to set the My CIB Work folder as the destination for the processed copies.
Under File Naming, activate the Rename Files option. Choose Document Name from the menu on the left, and then type _AutoFix in the second field. This will add the appendix “_AutoFix” to the existing document names as the processed copies are saved.
- Review the settings in the dialog box. Make sure that the resizing and file conversion options under Image Size and File Type are disabled, and then click OK.
Photoshop Elements opens, processes, and closes the images. The newly created copies are automatically tagged with the same keywords as the source files.
Adding the auto-corrected files to your catalog
When you modify an image in the Editor, the Include In Organizer option in the Save and Save As dialog boxes is activated by default. However, when you batch-edit files with the Process Multiple Files command, this option isn’t part of the process—you must add the automatically edited copies to the Organizer manually.
- Switch to the Organizer by clicking the Organizer button (
) in the Task bar; then, click the Import button at the upper left of the Organizer workspace and choose From Files And Folders from the drop-down menu. - In the Get Photos And Videos From Files And Folders dialog box, locate and open your My CIB Work folder. Ctrl-click / Command-click or marquee-select all the files with the suffix “_AutoFix.” Disable any automatic processing option that is currently active; then, click Get Media.
- In the Import Attached Keyword Tags dialog box, click Select All; then, click OK. The files are imported to your CIB Catalog and displayed in the Media Browser. Click the Back button (
) to display all the images in your catalog.