Some Quirks of Photoshop Elements And How To Conquer Them

You know how it is. You’re working in Photoshop Elements (PSE), and suddenly things just aren’t working the way you were taught. That’s probably because PSE can be quirky, and if it would just be upfront and tell us everything we need to know about it, er, the Pixeladies would be out of a job! So here are a few things that drive me batty. (Yes, this is Kris writing. Deb is just way too good at PSE to take notice of these things!)

The TAB Key

Yes, I’m talking about that Tab key, the one on your keyboard. In PSE, it’s a toggle between your workspace with panels open and panels closed. Huh? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally hit that Tab key (without realizing it, of course), and suddenly seeing an empty workspace with NO panels, NO toolbars, nothing.

 

 

This can be so disconcerting. I don’t want to admit a) how many times I’ve done this (you’d think it’d be hard to hit that Tab key) or b) how many times it took for me not to break out into a sweat before realizing what I had done. All you have to do is tap the Tab key again, and all your panels will appear like magic. Now why don’t they tell you that on Day 1? (Well, we do!)

 

 

All Filters are not in the Filter Gallery

This PSE quirk just kills me. PSE has this amazing filter gallery, and it’s so much fun to play with the filters. I do that a lot when I’m supposed to be doing something else. Here’s an example of me playing with filters on a photo of a rose:

 

 

Below is a screen shot of the Filter Gallery opened with the Charcoal Filter selected. You can see other available filters in the middle column like Graphic Pen and Torn Edges as well as categories like Distort and Texture. If you look at my original rose collage again, you’ll notice the original and three versions using three different filters: Stamp, Cutout, and Pointillize. Wait, what? If you are thinking right about now that you’ve seen the Stamp and Cutout filters in the Filter Gallery but not Pointillize, it’s because it’s not there! One would think that all the filters are in the Filter Gallery, but that would just be too logical!

 

 

When you click on Filter from the Menu bar, you can click on Filter Gallery (red arrow) to open up the Filter Gallery OR you can just look down and see a list of filter categories (fuchsia box)!! And then if you click further on any of  the those choices, you will get more filters! See where I found Pointitllize (orange arrow)? There’s a world of filters in PSE. You just have to remember where to look!

 

 

New Layer with White Background

Okay, maybe this one’s on me, but it goes to show you how easy it is to get trapped in PSE language.One day I was minding my own business, starting to create a new layer (’cause you always want to put new stuff on a new layer). And, what? The new layer is white? It’s supposed to be transparent! I have been making new layers since I don’t know when, and this had never happened before. I was dumbstruck at seeing a white layer when I should have seen the gray/white checkerboard (transparent) layer. Heck, I didn’t even know you could change the way the new layer looks! How’s that for gobsmacked?!?

Well, I didn’t remember changing anything (and to this day I can’t recreate this issue with shortcuts), so I went to my preferences to change how the new layer looked. I wasn’t sure where to look, but since I knew I wanted to have a transparent layer, I went to Edit > Preferences > Transparency (Mac = Adobe Photoshop Elements Editor > Preferences > Transparency). When I first read “Grid Size” and saw “None” (orange arrow), I didn’t equate that with a transparency. I could see that my transparency setting was on “white” (red arrow).

 

 

This is where I remembered one of my first lessons from Deb: if you see an arrow, any kind of arrow (like the one next to the orange arrow below), just click on it to either open a drop-down menu or to get further information:

 

 

Yes, this was another slap-my-forehead moment. So this is where I could make my layer transparent with three different grid sizes. Seriously, it had never dawned on me that the gray/white checkerboard is really a grid. We never call it that . . . ever! It’s a checkerboard. And now that I’ve picked “Medium” (orange arrow below), I can finally see the gray/white checkerboard (red arrow) in my transparency settings.

 

 

Learn More

Yes, I explain these things so you don’t have to learn them the hard way. By the way, we are getting ready to teach PSE Essentials 2, which will teach you all the basic tools you need to get creative using Photoshop Elements. And I promise you’ll learn to conquer more PSE idiosyncrasies. Click here for more information and to register for our online class. The PSE 2 classroom opens July 1, and the class starts July 8. Hope to “see” you in class!