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Photoshop
Elements
by
Gordon Beddis
Reproduced
from in focus 72 (October
2001)
I
am glad to be back writing for the BSoUP Newsletter after
a short lay off, no I haven't been ill again, yes I have been
diving, but the plain truth is that teaching PhotoShop at
my local College has taken off in a 'Big Way'. Introduction
Courses ore full within a day, as the advert goes in the news
paper, I suppose I should have seen it coming. The next step
was running and preparing the more advanced courses which
is really time consuming, but very rewarding. So that is the
end of the advert, now let me get on to the purpose of this
article.
The
main reason why people have avoided using Adobe's PhotoShop
in the past has been the cost. Although it is without doubt
the best photo-editing program, it is also the most expensive.
So People, who had an interest or just wanted to get their
feet wet in the Digital-imaging World, just didn't bother,
or used a pirate copy, Tut Tutl
Adobe
has released a program called PhotoShop Elernents and as the
name implies it uses the main elements of PhotoShop as its
base. On initial use its looks like the real thing, but if
you are a PhotoShop user, you will soon spot the omissions.
I feel they have left a lot of the original PhotoShop tools
and pull down menu's to make it a great program in its own
right.
A
Nice Touch is the use of Wizards to help and guide you through
the more tricky parts. There is a good Help facility, tutorials
and on line tutorials from: adobe.com
Layers
are included which was always absent or very reduced functionality
in the previous LE versions of PhotoShop.
Levels
are also here to adjust contrast and lightness professionally.
Replace
colour is a surprising find, which is a tool for replacing
user-selected colours, (as they say today 'Well good').
There
are enough Filters to keep anyone happy, but if not, the program
accepts third party plug in filters if you desire.
The
tool bar has a brilliant Crop tool, Magnetic Lasso for precise
cut outs, three types of Eraser and every body's favourite
the Clone stamp. There are many more, of course, in the program
that you will find excellent.
So
what's the catch? Well as far as I can tell there isn't one:
the program is expertly produced, you get a full manual with
it, all presented in a nice box. Oh and the price? Well! Retail
at £79, but I bought mine on QVC the shopping channel
for around £47 plus pandp (correct at time of going
to press).
There
are now no excuses for not using Digital Imaging. All you
need now is to dust off that computer you bought the other
Christmas and give it a try?
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