Basic Image Editing
(for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements)

These days, digital photographers want to edit their photos to crop, rotate, brighten, and otherwise tweak before printing. Below is a list of some basic tricks to speed up your editing and improve you knowledge of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.

Both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Elements

1) Crop Tool: Crop and Rotate your image at the same time
Cropping allows you to remove unwanted edge areas from your image, thus omitting ugly things in your photo's frame. But did you know that once you have selected the "keeper" part of your image with the Crop tool, you can move your cursor outside this box and rotate the keeper part, too? Just click and drag the cursor once it changes to a curved double-headed arrow, and you'll see your image rotate around the center point. When you're happy with the angle, simply hit Enter to crop and rotate all at once.

2) Brush Tool: Draw straight lines
Hold down the Shift key and click the mouse button once where you want to start the straight line, and once where you want to end it. If you continue to align and click your mouse, more straight lines will be drawn, each time between the last two successive clicks.

3) Selection Tools: Using a brush to select areas of your image
In Photoshop Elements, select the Selection Brush too. In Photoshop, press Q to switch to the Quick Mask Mode, and then double-click the Quick Mask icon in the Tool Box to select the Selected Areas type from the Color Indicates section, and pick the brush tool. Paint over the areas of the image you want to select, and notice that the selected area is covered in a semi-transparent layer of red. Press Q again to switch back to the Standard mode.

4) Selection Tools: Polygonal Lasso tool in combination with the standard Lasso tool to make selections
The Polygonal Lasso tool is great for selection image areas with straight edges, but often only a few sides of your selection have straight edges, so you also need to use the standard Lasso tool for its freeform capabilities. Did you know that you can switch between the two for the same selection? Start by selecting the Polygonal Lasso tool. Use it to select the edge part of your selection. Then hold down the Alt key while you click and drag the Lasso button from the Tool Box to your image. If you want to switch back, simply click to end the freehand selection section.

5) Zoom Tool: Change Image View size quickly
Shortcuts have been provided by Adobe to quickly zoom in and out of your image. I use these myself all the time:
- to zoom in, hold down the Ctrl key while pressing + as many times as you like
- to zoom out, hold down the Ctrl key while pressing - as many times as you like
- to fit the image to screen, hold down the Ctrl key and press the number 0
- to display the image at 100%, double-click the Zoom tool, or hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys while pressing 0

6) Layers Palette: Selecting the Active Layer directly from your image workspace
How many times have you gone to erase part of a layer, only to find out you had the wrong one selected? Rather than trying to figure out which layer you're using, you can hover your mouse cursor over the area you want to edit and right-click to display a pop-up menu of all the layers present at that spot. Select the layer you want to edit from the pop-up list, and you're ready to edit!

7) Layers: Using keyboard shortcuts to move Layers
When using layers to edit images, position within the image stack can make a big difference for a particular layer. Adobe has provided built-in shortcuts that allow you to quick move the layers up and down in the stack.
- to move the active layer up one position in the layer stack, hold down the Ctrl key while pressing the ] key
- to move the active layer down one position, hold down the Ctrl key while pressent the [ key
- to move the active layer to the top of the stack, hold down Ctrl and Shift while pressing the ] key
- to move the active layer to the bottom of the stack, hold down Ctrl and Shift whil pressing the [ key
- to switch active layers, hold down the Alt key instead of the Ctrl key with the key combinations above (e.g. Alt with ] make the layer above the current one active)

8) Levels Tool: configure the Auto setting to work with your printer
Auto Levels is something most people stay away from, preferring instead to manually adjust levels. But most people probably don't know how to configure the Auto Level algorithm to work how you want it to! Once you are familiar with your printer and how much detail it can handle in dark vs light areas of an image, you can configure the Levels tool to Auto Level to your specifications. Here's how:
- Open the Levels tool (Image->Adjustments->Levels... from Photoshop)
- Double-click the Eyedropper tool with the black handle to display the Color Picker window
- Enter the darkest colour into the Color Picker that your printer can print (e.g. 12 | 12 | 12)
- Click ok to exit the Color Picker
- Double-click the Eyedropper tool with the white handle to again display the Color Picker window
- This time, enter the lightest colour that your printer can print (e.g. 245 | 245 | 245)
- Click ok to exit the Color Picker
- Click the Auto button to level your image to the configured specifications

9) Processor or Export Tool: changing properties of multiple files at once
If you've ever tried to resize a lot of images to the same size, you know that it's a repetitive process. But Photoshop and Photoshop Elements can process multiple images at once! If you want to change file type, size, compression, common file name, or location of a set of images, there is a way to select image properties for multiple files. With Photoshop, select File -> Script -> Image Processor, and choose your file type, size, compression, common file name, and location. With Photoshop Elements, first select the images in the Photo Browser, and then select File -> Export -> To Computer, pick your image characteristics, and click Export. It's easy!

Adobe Photoshop Elements Only

1) Assign your image to a different Colour Management Profile without changing a single Pixel
From the Image menu, select Convert Color Profile, and the colour space you want to work in (e.g. AdobeRGB). The built-in algorithm will convert the photo's colour into the new space by default, thus changing its appearance on your monitor, but if you hold down Ctrl while selecting your new profile, the photo will apply the new colour space without applying the conversion algorithm. This technique maintains the underlying colours in the original image. (Identical to Photoshop's Assign Profile command)

2) Export Tool: changing properties of multiple files at once
If you've ever tried to resize a lot of images to the same size, you know that it's a repetitive process. But Photoshop Elements can process multiple images at once! If you want to change file type, size, compression, common file name, or location of a set of images, there is a way to select image properties for multiple files. First select the images in the Photo Browser, and then select File -> Export -> To Computer, pick your image characteristics, and click Export. It's easy!

Adobe Photoshop Only

1) Preferences: Save your history of changes to file
If you want to keep track of the changes you've made to particular file, including sequence of events, then check your General Preferences to make sure you're saving them. From the File menu, select Preferences -> General. In the History section, enable the History Log and choose whether you want the history saved to the metadata tag within the current file, a text file, or both.

2) Processor Tool: changing properties of multiple files at once
If you've ever tried to resize a lot of images to the same size, you know that it's a repetitive process. But Photoshop can process multiple images at once! If you want to change file type, size, compression, common file name, or location of a set of images, there is a way to select image properties for multiple files. Select File -> Script -> Image Processor, and choose your file type, size, compression, common file name, and location.

3) Tool Windows: Hiding and Showing common Tool Windows
Sometimes you need to view your image without the distraction of the Palettes window, or the Title bar, etc. There are some quick shortcuts built-in to Photoshop to allow you to quickly switch:
- to hide or show the Palettes window, hold down Shift and press Tab
- to hide or show the Palettes, Options bar, and Tool Box, simply press Tab
- to hide or show the Window Title bar and document windows, press F (once)
- to hide or show the Window Title bar, document windows, menu bar, and add a Black background to your image, press F twice in rapid succession