Barbara Obermeier - Photoshop Elements 12 For Dummies

Photoshop Elements 12 For Dummies

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Copyright 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

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Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013944336

ISBN 978-1-118-72714-0 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-74239-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-74243-3 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Introduction

W e live in a photo world. And Photoshop Elements has become a tool for both professional and amateur photographers who want to edit, improve, manage, manipulate, and organize photos and other media. Considering the power and impressive features of the program, Elements remains one of the best values for your money among computer software applications.

This book is an effort to provide as much of a comprehensive view of a wildly feature-rich program as we can. Additionally, this book is written for a cross-platform audience. If youre a Macintosh user, youll find all you need to work in Elements 12 for the Mac, including support for placing photos on maps and more consistency with Windows features.

Elements is overflowing with features, and we try to offer you as much as possible within a limited amount of space. We begged for more pages, but alas, our publisher wants to get this book in your hands in full color and with an attractive price tag. Therefore, even though we may skip over a few little things, all you need to know about using Photoshop Elements for designing images for print, sharing, the web, versatile packaging, e-mailing, and more is covered in the pages ahead. If you still crave more, take a look at our Adobe Photoshop Elements 12 All-in-One For Dummies , where you can find more comprehensive coverage of Photoshop Elements 12.

Because Photoshop Elements has something for just about everyone, we know that our audience is large and also that not everyone will use every tool, command, or method we describe. We offer many cross-references throughout in case you want to jump around. You can go to just about any chapter and start reading. If a concept needs more explanation, we point you in the right direction for getting some background.

Conventions Used in This Book

Throughout this book, especially in step lists, we point you to menus for keyboard commands. For accessing a menu command, you may see something like this:

Choose FileGet PhotosFrom Files and Folders.

You click the File menu to open its drop-down menu, click the menu command labeled Get Photos, and then choose the command From Files and Folders from the submenu that appears. Its that simple.

We also refer to context menus, which jump up at your cursor position and shows you a menu of options related to whatever youre doing at the time. These menus look like the ones you select from the top of the Elements workspace. To open a context menu, just right-click the mouse, or Control-click on a Mac if you dont have a two-button mouse.

When we mention that keys need to be pressed on your keyboard, the text looks like this:

Press Alt+Shift+Ctrl+S (Option+Shift++S on the Mac).

In this case, you hold down the Alt key on Windows/the Option key on the Mac, then the Shift key, then the Control key on Windows/the key on the Mac, and then press the S key. Then release all the keys at the same time.

Icons Used in This Book

In the margins throughout this book, you see icons indicating something important.

This icon informs you that this item is a new feature in Photoshop Elements 12.

Pay particular attention when you see the Warning icon. This icon indicates possible side effects or damage to your image that you might encounter when performing certain operations in Elements.

This icon is a heads-up for something you may want to commit to memory. Usually, it tells you about a shortcut for a repetitive task, where remembering a procedure can save you time.