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Learn How to Use Photoshop Elements

Lesson 35 of 58

Add Layer Style to Image

 

Learn How to Use Photoshop Elements

Lesson 35 of 58

Add Layer Style to Image

 

Lesson Info

Add Layer Style to Image

And if we wanna get fancy, we can add a drop shadow to this because obviously we want to go for realism here. The drop shadows as we saw yesterday are found under the Styles panel. So I'll click the Styles and from the Styles panel we have sub-collections, so all the different styles are grouped. So what we're looking for if I wanted to add a drop shadow, it would be this one right here - drop shadows - and these are the different presets. Remember we can edit these so I'm just gonna, I usually just reach for this guy down here; this is the soft edge drop shadow. So I'll just double-click that to apply it and you can barely tell that it's been added down there. If I wanna change it, I can click the little gear icon right here, and maybe I wanna increase the distance a smidge, and increase the size to soften that shadow, and maybe reduce the opacity; that's ridiculous. Okay (chuckles), we'll click okay. But the ridiculousness doesn't end there. We can also add all kinds of things. If I ...

can get my mouse to come back - whoop - there is a whole collection of dress-up shapes, there we go, dress-up shapes in here, oh wait, the Crop tool, there we are. So I mean you can see how like we can put glasses on the cat and actually I should show you one more thing that is handy. Let's go back to this blizzard image and I'm gonna undo what we have here right now by pressing Command or Control + Z to undo that, and I'm gonna click this button that's labeled graphics, and this is great because like right now I was thinking oh, we should put glasses on the cat, but I don't have a file handy that would make a good pattern for the glasses. But Elements has this Graphics tab and there's all kinds of graphics in here including... You can sort them by types so here we're looking at backgrounds, but there's frames, there's graphics, there's more shapes, there's text. I'm actually just gonna look at backgrounds right now and so I'm gonna look through and think, what would make a good texture for if I wanted to add glasses to this cat - oo I like this. So I'm gonna double-click this and it just downloads that graphic and fills my whole paper with it. So now I can repeat the process that we did with the tie with the glasses. So let's do cat glasses I guess right? Get it? So we'll put cat glasses, I'm gonna drag these out something about like this. When I let go, they are cropped, we'll go ahead and commit that, and again with the Move tool, I'm gonna click and drag, and drop that onto the cat. And of course we need to resize it and we need to adjust the angle a little bit, so I'll press Command or Control + T again to bring up the Transform box, and then I'll drag in and hover over here, and we can, oh yeah, wow, I'm pretty, I'm pretty excited about that. We can apply that. Now if we wanna copy and paste the layer style that we added over here too, that drop shadow, we can click back over to the Layers panel for a minute, and we see that because we added that drop shadow to this tie layer - layer one is the tie, layer two is the glasses - if I want to copy this layer style, there's two ways to do it. I can right-click on the bar over here of the layer, and I can choose Copy Layer Style, then I would right-click on this layer and then choose Paste, and that would work. Or if I undo that another option is to hold down the Alt or Option key and just drag the little effects icon, and drop it in place up there.

Class Description

We all have hundreds of images on our smartphones and cameras that we never do anything with. Adobe Photoshop Elements is the perfect tool for beginners to use for organizing and editing those images. Khara Plicanic will show you the practical ways to use this software by using step-by-step projects you can follow along with at home. You’ll get hands-on practice at making selections and working with layers, doing simple retouching, and adding text to your images.


You’ll also learn: 

• Basic adjustments to color and adding contrast to photos 
• Understanding resolution and image resizing and how to use the crop tool 
• Simple retouching and image compositing

No Photoshop Elements class would be complete without shedding light on file saving and organizing your images for a complete workflow! By the time you’re finished with this class, you’ll be creating beautiful images to share with your family and friends.


Software Used: Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5.1

Lessons

  1. Class Introduction
  2. Understand How Elements Works
  3. Importing Images
  4. Workspace Basics: Organizer
  5. Workspace Basics: Editor
  6. Tonal Adjustments in Quick Fix
  7. Color Adjustments in Quick Fix
  8. Apply Black & White Filters
  9. Sharpen an Image
  10. Fix Red Eye & Pet Eye
  11. Straighten an Image in Quick Fix
  12. Explanation of Photoshop Elements
  13. Basic Cropping in Quick Fix
  14. Guided Edit Overview
  15. Guided Edit: Tilt Shift
  16. Ways to Save Files
  17. Layers & Simple Selections
  18. Combine Images with Layers
  19. How to Use Layer Styles
  20. Make Selections with Layers
  21. Make Selection with Lasso
  22. Compositing with Multiple Images
  23. Refine Edge Selection on Image
  24. Use Refine Edge on Images
  25. Create Gradient in Image
  26. Gradient Map Differences
  27. Options for Saving
  28. Brushes Overview
  29. Creatively Use Brushes
  30. How to Change Brush Settings
  31. Use Shape Tool with Brushes
  32. Work with Multiple Shape Layers
  33. Finish Image with Custom Shape Tool
  34. How to Load Brushes into Elements
  35. Add Layer Style to Image
  36. Clip Image to Shape & Use as Template
  37. Retouching Overview
  38. How to Use Content-Aware Fill
  39. How to Use Content-Aware Move Tool
  40. Spot Healing Brush on Blemishes
  41. Remove Frown Lines with Retouching
  42. How to Remove Tattoos
  43. Remove a Gap in Teeth
  44. How to Whiten Teeth
  45. Adjust Facial Features
  46. Working with Type Overview
  47. Match Type for Image
  48. How to Manipulate Type Layers
  49. Create Postcard with Type
  50. Add Type on a Path
  51. Organizing Images in Elements
  52. Add Keywords to Images
  53. Smart Tags Overview
  54. Using Albums in Elements
  55. Places Workspace Overview
  56. Use Event Tags on Images
  57. Timeline for Image Organization
  58. Recommended Workflow

Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Just watching this class live. It's my first class with Khara; she is a wonderful teacher, moving at a steady speed but always being careful to let us know what she's doing in the moment. I would classify myself as intermediate in terms of PSE but I've learned lots of little things that will make further use even easier and more fun. I really appreciated her descriptions of the difference between PS and PSE and her encouragement in using Photoshop Elements and all that it can do.

Lilygram
 

I have only been able to watch portions of this class but every single part that I have watched has been technically clear and inspiring to me. Based on this experience and the thorough, 58 item list of lessons, I will surely be buying this class soon! Thank you Khara and Creativelive for making a class on this topic and making it be super!!

Ven S
 

Great course. You can tell she knows the programme inside out.