The Hidden Power™ of Photoshop® Elements 3

Introduction
I’d been a photography-book editor, digital retoucher, and Photoshop author for 10 years, using Photoshop as my primary image-editing tool, when someone asked me to look at Photoshop Elements for the first time. I was a little reluctant, having heard it was nothing but a dumbed-down version of Photoshop. I expected that I wouldn’t find it very interesting and I’d just be wasting my time. From what I understood, the tools I used all the time were missing, including channels, Curves, masking, CMYK tools, and Blend If. I was pretty sure I’d never be able to take the program seriously.

It just goes to show: Never judge a book by how someone else describes the cover.

Instead of being bored with the simplicity of Photoshop Elements, I became fascinated by the possibilities. After toying with Elements for only a few minutes, the program and the possibilities piqued my interest—it seemed there was more to Elements than I’d heard, and it seemed like a pretty powerful program. I continued to explore the program, and within a few days I had discovered ways to either use or imitate every feature I’d heard was missing.

Elements could do a lot more than most people thought, and more than even the manufacturer let on. It got to the point where I began wondering what Photoshop Elements couldn’t do, rather than worrying about what the differences were between this program and Photoshop.

I looked around to see if there were other sources that said the same thing, and I couldn’t find any. It was then that I realized that I should write a book to tell about what I’d learned and show what Elements could really do.

Since I started working with Elements, one idea became clear to me: fancy tools can actually stand in the way of learning. You don’t learn much by pressing a button—no matter how sophisticated the button is. Some tools in image editing programs help you forget about fundamentals entirely, and can isolate you from the process. You end up pressing buttons and not really understanding what is going on. For example, ask almost anyone (who hasn’t read this book) to make an RGB separation without using channels.

This is something that anyone serious about image editing should understand conceptually and be able to do, because it is fundamental to working with and displaying the image. Yet many of the most experienced digital professionals wouldn’t be able to do it.

Knowing how components separate offers a whole different historical and scientific basis for evaluating, altering, and correcting digital images and color. And understanding how to separate components provides a solid foundation for understanding the way images are created and stored—on film and digitally. That is why this book not only gives you tools that simplify complicated processes, but it explains exactly how each works, stepby-step. I have found that understanding the process is a better, more fundamental, way to look at and understand images from the ground up.

I learned a lot in the process of discovering Elements, and as a result I’ve gone back to the fundamentals of working with images. I wrote The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 2 to capture that discovery in hopes of helping other users understand the power of the program and what they can do with digital images. Now, in The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 3 the goal is to clarify and expand on that first attempt based on the feedback I received, as well as create a toolset compatible with the changes in the Elements program and interface. Both books free up powerful image properties and provide tools for users that help make Elements a serious professional image-editing tool.

As a 12+ year veteran of digital image editing, I use Elements every day for even the most challenging image-editing projects. With the addition of 16-bit support and the ability to import RAW files, there is really almost nothing that Elements can’t do. This book shows you how.