Photoshop Elements 8 for the Digital Photographer II

A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when lessons are released. You will have access to all lessons until the course ends. However, the interactive discussion area that accompanies each lesson will automatically close two weeks after the lesson is released. As such, we strongly recommend that you complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

The final exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the final exam has been released, you will have two weeks to complete all of your course work, including the final exam.

Lesson 1
Photoshop Elements 8 is Adobe's newest release of their popular photo-editing software. It's an excellent package for enhancing and editing digital images, and in this course, we'll explore its advanced features. In this first lesson, we'll discuss an effective workflow for digital editing. Photographers often wonder where to start when working with an image, and you'll get a good idea of the options available and the best sequence to follow.

Lesson 2
Today we'll look at tools to use for perfecting portraits. Although you can use these tools to fine-tune any type of image, you'll find them especially helpful with the detail work associated with portraiture. You'll see how to smooth away wrinkles with the new Surface Blur filter, remove red eye, and even turn gray hair brown! If only it were so easy in real life . . .

Lesson 3
Distortion. It's not a word you often think of as desirable in photography, but with the options in Elements, you'll discover how distortion can work wonders! Today you'll see how to slim a waistline, trim loose edges, and accentuate the positive with distortion tools. You'll also find out how to correct an image by combining parts of two different photos, and you'll have a chance to get creative with the many brushes available in Elements.

Lesson 4
By this point, you'll be familiar with lots of the options Photoshop Elements gives us for editing images. In this lesson, we'll turn to the task of restoring old and damaged photographs. You'll see how to turn back the effects of time as well as how to add hints of color to black-and-white images.

Lesson 5
Many computer programs allow you to include clip art in your documents. But did you know that with Photoshop Elements, you can make your own? Today you'll see how to extract small portions of a photograph without any surrounding border and how to use it in other images and documents. You'll also find some great ways to merge text and imagery to create outstanding photographic impressions.

Lesson 6
Editing your images isn't all about painstaking details and procedures. It can be a lot of fun, too! Photoshop Elements offers countless special effects, filters, and styles that you can use to show off your images. Elements' Content and Favorites palettes let you organize your options as you add frames, backgrounds, clip art and shapes to expand your creativity. In this lesson, you'll find out how to sharpen and blur photos as well as how to salvage an image with these miraculous fixes!

Lesson 7
Working with layers is one of the most powerful parts of Photoshop Elements. In this lesson and the next, you'll see how layers work from beginning to end. You'll build a quickly modifiable business card and a collage as you learn how to use Adjustment and Fill layers to your advantage. You'll also put the new Smart Brush tools to work with quick edits that leave you with stunning images.

Lesson 8
As we continue our discussion of layers today, you'll discover how to add patterns, blend layers with colors and effects, and group them for great framing options using Elements 8 new tabbed windowing feature. Photoshop Elements with layers is like supercharging a race car ?and you'll be in the driver's seat! You'll also explore Adobe's Mapping option to track your images geographically.

Lesson 9
So far, we've done a lot with still photos, but in this lesson, we'll look at moving pictures. You'll see how to create an animated presentation from a sequence of images, and you'll have a chance to try out Photoshop Elements Flipbooks. And if that isn't enough, you'll also see how to create dazzling slide shows with special effects, text, and music to showcase your images.

Lesson 10
Having looked at how to create moving pictures, today you'll find out how to capture a frame from a video or movie clip. We'll also discuss how to enlarge any image, correct vignettes, and create colored borders of many sizes and shapes around your work. Your friends and family will be impressed by the professional-looking enlargements you create!

Lesson 11
Panoramics are a beautiful way to show off wide scenic shots. But did you know that you don't need a special camera or lens to get these shots? Today you'll see how the Photomerge feature in Elements helps you blend several photos to provide seamless panoramic imagery. We'll also look at some quick options for resizing and watermarking groups of photos all at once, including Elements 8 new Recompose tool?an exciting new feature with fast and easy results.

Lesson 12
In this, our last lesson, we'll go over a few remaining tools like the Cookie Cutter tool and the Shape tools, and you'll see how to use both to create more variations of clip art. You'll also work with a raw file and discover the benefits of working with these large, uncompressed images. Last, but not least, you'll learn strategies for achieving perfect exposure in a finished print. You'll find yourself with lots of knowledge and hours of practice under your belt as you finish up this course.