- Photo Quick Fix in Quick Mode
- Special Effects in Guided Mode (the Only Time to Use It)
- A Quick Look at Expert Mode (It's Not Just for Experts!)
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Special Effects in Guided Mode (the Only Time to Use It)
When you use Guided mode, it walks you through a bunch of popular editing options, like cropping, enhancing colors, retouching, and sharpening. They’re kind of like built-in tutorials in Elements—they don’t do all of the work for you, they just explain to you what tools you should use and the order in which to use them. However, there are some other options in Guided mode that can be more useful, because they can help you to easily create some special effects. (Note: We look at some other Guided mode special effects in Chapter 9.)
Step One:
Open a photo and click on Guided at the top of the Editor window. The new Guided window in Elements 14 has six tabs at the top where you can choose which effect you want to apply to your photo (like the new Resize option, which resizes your image for web or print, or the new Speed Effect, which adds a motion blur to your image). Click on a tab and it’ll give you a before/after example of each effect. (Again, the options here are basically tutorials with guided walkthroughs. They’re the kinds of things we cover in this book, so if you weren’t reading this book, then that would be a good section to check out. Since you are reading this book, I’d stick with the tutorials you just paid for.)
)
Step Two:
Many of these effects can be done in Expert mode, but you’d have to use a bunch of tools, dialogs, etc. So, if the effect you want is here, it’s not a bad place to get to know. Here, we’ll look at the new Speed Effect in the Fun Edits tab. By the way, the rest of the effects pretty much work exactly the same—remember, this is “Guided” mode, so Elements will walk you through each step. The Speed Effect adds speed or motion to your image, so go ahead and click on Speed Effect.
)
Step Three:
You’ll see the Palette Bin appear on the right side of the window, showing all of the settings you have control over for the effect. The first thing you’ll want to do is click on the Quick Selection Tool, then paint over the area of your image where you want to apply the effect. Here, I’m painting over the rider and the back of the bike. If you paint over areas you don’t want selected, just click on the Subtract button and remove them from your selection.
)
Step Four:
Next, click on the Add Speed Effect button to add the effect. You can increase or decrease the amount of effect applied, by clicking the Increase or Decrease buttons. If your subject is not exactly horizontal or vertical in the image, just click-and-drag the Angle settings to adjust the direction of the effect. Here, it added the effect across our entire subject, but we’ll fix that next.
)
Step Five:
Click on the Add Focus Area button, and then click-and-drag over the areas where you want to remove the effect. Here, I’m removing it from the front of the bike and the front of the rider. If you’d like to refine the effect a bit, just click on the Refine Effect button and use the Add and Subtract buttons to paint more or less of the blur effect from your selected area. You can also adjust the opacity of the effect while you’re painting.
)
Step Six:
When you’re ready, click the Next button at the bottom right. Here, you’ll choose what you want to do next with your image—save it, continue editing it, or share it to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, or SmugMug (if you choose to share it to one of these sites, Elements will ask you for authorization first). So, just click on your choice and you’re done. Here, we’ll choose to continue editing in Expert mode.
)
Step Seven:
When the image opens in Expert mode. take a look in the Layers palette, and you’ll see Elements has added a layer here, along with a layer mask. Since the whole effect is layer based, you can always reduce the opacity of the layer to pull back the overall effect if you find it’s too strong.
)
)