Need Help Photoshop Elements

[Merlion]

I have been using my camera's software to upload and resize picture images. Recently the camera broke down. The new camera I bought is a different brand. Upon advice, I bought also the Photoshop Elements to do these image operations.

I need help as more than once I have not been successful in doing the most basic tasks of reducing the size of my camera's picture images with this Photoshop Elements.

Let me go through the steps I did. At the Photoshop Organizer window, I select and click the photo image I want to resize.

I next click 'edit' and 'quick fix'. This place my photo image into the Photoshop Editor window.

I next try to click 'Image' and select 'Resize' 'Image Size'. With this I get the "Image Size' dialog box, but this seems to be of no use to me. I cannot change the 'pixel dimensions'. Although I can change the document size, but when I reduce the resolution, the width and height increases automatically.

So instead I look at the top bar of the Photoshop Editor window. I can type in a resolution. So I type in a small resolution of 40 pixels/inch. Here, the width and height do not change automatically.

So I now click 'file' and 'save as', selecting the file I want to save in.

Now I have gone out of the Photoshop into my MS Windows environment. At the 'save as' dialog box, I can select the 'format'. Here I select JPEG. A JPEG dialog box opens where I can change the 'Image Options'. I go for Quality 'low', and move the slider towards small file until Quality 2 appears. At the bottom the size shows 56.6 KB.

As this size looks small enough, I click 'ok' to save.

But, when I open the saved file, it still has a big size of 266 KB.

What has gone wrong?? :( :mad:

[anatomist1]

What has gone wrong is that you bought the cheap, amateur version of the program that costs less than 10% of the real one. When it comes to Photoshop, there is no substitute, period, not even pseudo-Photoshop.

I know the program is expensive, but it is possible to find a student to buy a copy for you with a major educational discount (up to 80% off). Another option is to find someone to give you an older copy that they aren't using. Though their advertising wants you to believe different, little of importance has changed with Photoshop over the last 10 years or so. I was using a 9 year old version (5.5) up until a few months ago, and it worked fine.

[underfoot]

Merlion
Try microsoft powertoys 'image resizer' free download, quick and
painless . then just right click on the image to re-size

[Blake]

Using Photoshop Elements 2.0

Open a photo in Photoshop Elements
File menue Open select photo
Crop the image here so that it is as small as possible.

File menue
Select Save for Web

Under Image Size go to New Size
Take the largest number and reduce it to about 800 pixels
The corresponding width or height will automatically calculate.
Choose APPLY
You will get a smaller photo

Go to the top and pick Settings: Custom
JPEG or GIF Check Optimized
Quality might be maximum or High depending if you want to make the file size even smaller and Choose OK.

The program will ask you what you want to call the picture I usually used the word web in it so that I know that it has been reduced for the web, and where you wan to store it..
It will come as a document without a thumbnail view and it will be small.

Hope this helps
If you have a problem specify what you are doing and where you have the problem.
Blake

[HappySculpting]

Blake's method of reducing image size in Photoshop Elements is the same that I use for Photoshop CS2. The ticket is to go to "Save for Web" and then go from there how Blake describes.

Whenever I have a question about Photoshop I go the the photoshop forum and post. The computer guys (geeks ;-) hee, hee) respond within minutes. They love their photoshop and forum and are very helpful. There might be a separate forum on the Adobe site that is for Photoshop elements.

Here is the forum for Photoshop (for Windows):

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.ee6b366/

~Tamara

[Merlion]

Thanks Blake and Tamara. I think 'save for web' is my downfall. I didn't go for this as I am just saving into my PC's file.

I'll see if this works now. It is a picture of one of my exhibits called 'Genocide', with mirrors at the back. Artistically I want viewers to see the skulls as well as seeing themselves as a part of the artwork.

Edit: Good. Finally it works. :) The picture is quite blur. I'll need to find out why.

[Randa350]

Thanks Blake and Tamara. I think 'save for web' is my downfall. I didn't go for this as I am just saving into my PC's file.

I'll see if this works now. It is a picture of one of my exhibits called 'Genocide', with mirrors at the back. Artistically I want viewers to see the skulls as well as seeing themselves in it.

Edit: Good. Finally it works. :) The picture is a bit blur. I'll need to see why.
Hello. I pulled your picture up in photoshop, and your resolution looks good. The save for web feature has a blur feature in it, that is sometimes set to automatic, so that could be your problem. I couldn't find anyway to fix the blur on this one. Sometimes you can sharpen and create layers and fix a lot of that type stuff, but this image was just too blurred.

[anatomist1]

The 'sharpen' feature doesn't really sharpen a blurry picture. It's just a pixel clumping trick that might fool you into thinking a picture is sharper when viewed at a certain resolution/distance. There is no way to make a blurry picture sharper - if the visual information isn't there, it's not there.

The problem with the posted photo is that it has been shrunk and then re-enlarged. I can see the digital artifacts in it. Unless a higher resolution original has been saved, it is ruined.

[Landseer]

Macs come with "preview" which has some fairly decent functions to edit photos, but I also use GIFconverter a lot which resizes and removes unused colors and makes files smaller for the web.

Almost any image editing software or freeware will edit the SIZE, you don't need $800 photoshop to do THAT!

My Canon scanner also came with PhotoStudio software that has a lot of functions like Photoshop, it will rotate and resize images.

They say images that are scanned etc - digital forms have a little "blur" to them as part of the various processes, I typically set my digi cam to "fine" and 1600 x 1200 size, ISO eqiv of 100 Usually all I need to do is resize to 45 or 50% and save a copy in jpg for the web etc.

I add a very SLIGHT "sharpen" - the least it allows to get rid of that loss in the digital format and file conversion to jpg, but if you use too much it gives the image a grainey look.

[Merlion]

The problem with the posted photo is that it has been shrunk and then re-enlarged.
Thanks. Yes. I think while trying different things I did that. :confused:

[LimeCutter]

If all you really want to do is resize images I can recommend a free tool called irfan view - It's small utility used for viewing photos and has a simple interface for cutting, resizing and many other basic functions you might find useful.


I do a bit of web development and for quick resizing of pictures I find nothing beats it.

here is a link - check it out
http://www.irfanview.com/

Dan

[anatomist1]

I used to use infranview. It's a good program. However, in my view, if all you want to do is resize photos of your own work, you don't really know what you want. I hardly ever see a photo that comes right out of a camera looking presentable, or that cannot be improved significantly. At the very least I adjust levels curves, brightness/contrast, and saturation levels, as well as cropping and often rotating the picture slightly to make sure it is square. This is just for screen presentation. If you want to print, things get even more involved. I guess if all you are going to do yourself are in-process snapshots and so forth, just changing the size might be okay, but if your photo capabilities are that limited you are going to have to get a pro to do all the real pictures for you. That will add up to far more than the retail price of photoshop in a hurry.

[LimeCutter]

I think it entirely depends on what type of photos you are taking. If you never see a good photo directly out of the camera I would ague that you don't really understand how to take a good photo in the first place. I am not saying that I do, however before the advent of digital intervention you had no choice but to take a presentable picture based on an understanding of lighting and composition etc. Perhaps if you are looking for a particular effect it is easier and may only be possible with digital imagery.


It really depends on what you are after.

[Merlion]

I, as well as many of us, started photography using film cameras. I do have the habit of composing the picture to fill the screen correctly before clicking.

Thus in my case, it is mainly to resize the photo image for different purposes. For this forum, unless I put the picture first in the web, the image is limited to 70 K. (Is it KB or KP?)

[anatomist1]

I think it entirely depends on what type of photos you are taking. If you never see a good photo directly out of the camera I would ague that you don't really understand how to take a good photo in the first place. I am not saying that I do, however before the advent of digital intervention you had no choice but to take a presentable picture based on an understanding of lighting and composition etc. Perhaps if you are looking for a particular effect it is easier and may only be possible with digital imagery.


It really depends on what you are after.

In this case, what you are presumably after are images of your work to present to the public. I don't see how anyone could think you'll be better equipped to do that with some toy amateur program than with the professional industry standard.

I started on a completely manual film camera, and I would argue that your argument here shows that you know very little about photography. Photoshop is the equivalent of a darkroom. No matter how well you took a picture on film, it still had to be developed and printed. If you had someone else do it for you, you were only involved in about half of what went into your photos. It may have worked out for you, because the developers always did exactly the same thing and you could count on a certain set of rote development procedures taking place, but you didn't really know what they were doing or what was possible, and as a result you had less control, and more generic pictures.

With slides, there wasn't a lot of creative processing license, and the result was that you had to take zillions of pictures that got thrown away, and had to keep re-shooting to get every little detail right. Compared to the control I have now, memories of that are a nightmare.

With digital, I still put about the same work into taking the original picture. I still bracket exposures, etc... Composition, lighting, and so forth has to be just as right as with film - photoshop can't put something there that isn't already there. The only difference is that now I don't spend quite as much time framing up the edges of shot precisely - just back off a little and crop later.

All the other stuff I do in photoshop is image processing for a specific output. Before, this was done in a darkroom and the resulting image was either a print or slide. These days, one might want a web jpeg, digital slide, a print at home... If you take your digital file to a pro shop for printing, the first thing they do is open it in photoshop and start processing it to suit their printer. No image is going to come out suitable for any specific output by magic.

[Landseer]

Ok here's a randomly chosen crop of a quick snap I took a few days ago.
If you have Firefox with tabs, the images can open in several tabs to compare, otherwise new windows works too.
On the web and your monitor you might not see a lot of differences in quality but you can see some, and it will be more obvious when printed, go ahead and print out the first 273K png image after I lightened it up and then print out the 17K jpg and compare them.

This is how the image looked before I did anything to it, it's 364 x 344 (209 kb)

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b375/Randall2/helga2.png

Notice the dark area from dark shade under the trees, dog in bright sun, note that you can't see her eye it's all black. This is a tough photo setting because of the bright sun next to the dark shadow under trees, and a black and white dog. This is probably as tough as it gets for getting a good photo and THIS is where you might want photoshop's wider functions to work on a getting a great print.

However, with a little manipulation in Mac's free preview, I adjusted the gamma to lighten, adjusted the contrast and brightness just a tad, and then a slight "sharpen". I only added a slight bit of sharpening as animal portraits look best slightly "soft" rather than hard sharpness. As a rule a slight sharpening is all I ever add anyway and I'll show WHY in the last image further below.

Note that this increased the file size, you can now see her eye which proves this detail was embedded IN the original digital photo I took.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b375/Randall2/helga.png
354 x 340 (273 kb)

Now I took that manipulated photo and saved it as a compressed jpg file, with about 80% quality, note the image is the same size, but far smaller in file size now;

354 x 340 (67 kb)

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b375/Randall2/helga.jpg

I took the first generation png after I lightened it, and then converted it into jpg but at a much lower quality than the above- about 25% instead of 80% and the file size now drops to around 17k

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b375/Randall2/helga3.jpg

And this one is further reduced to 14k by converting it into jpg at the very lowest quality setting;

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b375/Randall2/helga4.jpg

And lastly, I took the first gen jpg and added the max sharpening to it, you can clearly see what happens, it gives the illusion of sharpness but at a tradeoff with an odd contrasty graineyness to it;

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b375/Randall2/helga5.jpg


Were I to spend more time on it I could reduce the over exposure in the white fur, but my intention is to show how file sizes are affected by formats, that there is some loss of definition in going to compressed jpg, and that even free image software can resize, crop, adjust various levels.

[Landseer]

One more sample, here's the original on flickr (right) which was too contrasty and dark in the shadowed details;

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b375/Randall2/lions1900.jpg


Now lightening up gamma, add a little contrast to compensate, a little sharpness and a touch of sepia to give it a little tone. Now you can see the details that were previously black (left)

[anatomist1]

The dog pictures illustrate another problem with the fantasy idea that one can be such a perfect photographer that further processing isn't necessary: in the real world of taking photos, lighting, subject availability, freedom to move the camera around, etc... are usually limited. You take the best pictures you can, and still may not end up with any that are anywhere near perfectly lit and composed. Often you just have to make do.

As far as it being possible to do processing with free software, instead of photoshop, I'm not familiar with the program used. I just don't understand all the resistance to photoshop. You could probably carve stone with a couple of butter knives and a claw hammer if you really put your mind to it as well, but why not just use quality, professional tools?

Photoshop may be expensive in theory, but in reality, almost no one pays retail. There was even an Onion article about it at one point with a headline "Man actually pays for Photoshop" or somesuch. I bought version 5.5 almost ten years ago through a student and paid about $100 for it. I got 7.0 for free from a friend a few years later, and I recently bought Adobe Creative Suite, which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, and GoLive (an excellent website development program) through a friend's education discount for $200 (supposed retail: $1200). Ask around and you'll probably find someone who has an older version to give away. Most everyone I know runs some sort of bootleg or hand-me-down. The old versions are just about as good as the new ones, and still light years ahead of any cheap or free substitutes.

[Landseer]

Exactly, and that's why I chose that one, HIGH contrast, opposite colors etc. I don't think it's really possible to SHOOT a perfect photo like that, they would all require SOME fixing either in the darkroom or in software.


As far as it being possible to do processing with free software, instead of photoshop, I'm not familiar with the program used. I just don't understand all the resistance to photoshop.
Most people, like Merlion- only NEED a few basic functions- to crop, resize, maybe adjust a little of the colors and light/dark, that's all, they don't need the 9,157 tools, masks, layers, filters, special effects, titles, text, overlays, watermarks, embossing, blur, stitching, borders, gradients, color graphs and all the rest to put a few pics on the web or share with family.
For them, free software is all they really need, for what Merlion is doing that's probably all he really needs.

Even $200 is a lot for someone whose only plans are to put up a personal web site and share non-revenue generating photos, $1200 is insanity.

The old versions are just about as good as the new ones, and still light years ahead of any cheap or free substitutes.Matter of fact I HAVE photoshop on my other machine that runs mac 9.2 and I rarely ever use it because Photoshop was updated to run on OSX after that and the version that runs on 9.2 will not run on OSX, they further now have the software locked up much tighter than before in that your registration code will only run on a SPECIFIC machine now, IOW you can't just give a buddy a copy any more of the new versions of Photoshop because it now has "anti theft" devices in it that allow it to only run on a specific hard drive- I tried it with a copy and the registration code didn't work

The older version I simply copied and it runs fine, but having to fire up a secondary computer with older OS on it just to run that one software is a pain in the ass and that's the problem, you keep older software around and the OS leaves it behind eventually and the authors stop writing updates and security or bug fixes for the older stuff, it's planned that way to suck people into replacing expensive software all the time.

The newer version of Photoshop allows for correcting and adjusting parallax and stitching, my version does not.

[anatomist1]

...Even $200 is a lot for someone whose only plans are to put up a personal web site and share non-revenue generating photos...

Really? I thought we were talking about artists representing their own work, here. Two hundred dollars may be a lot if it's just Aunt Merna wanting to put pictures of her grandkids up, or make a Ladies' Auxiliary Website, but for an artist who is looking to represent themselves, that seems like chickenfeed. This amounts to less than the materials costs of many a single sculpture. I can't even estimate how many times that I have in my sculpting in terms of tools, materials, and time, etc... and my chosen medium is relatively cheap. Unless you are a homeless guy whose art is spray-painting dumpsters, unwillingness to spend a mere $200 to make a major stride towards professionally representing yourself and your art shows that you have no imagination and no commitment.

10 year-old photoshop still works fine on Windows XP... yet another advantage to keeping it cheap and simple with an old windows machine and not leaping onto every OS and computer trend that comes along.

[Landseer]

Really? I thought we were talking about artists representing their own work, here. Two hundred dollars may be a lot if it's just Aunt Merna wanting to put pictures of her grandkids up, or make a Ladies' Auxiliary Website, If you go to the photoshop site photoshop is $1200, maybe you have loads of friends willing to dump their old disks on ya for free or cheap, but that's not exactly a reliable source for most people to obtain software WHEN they need it and the version they need as well as OS they have. I gather Merlion needs something NOW not 6 months from now hoping a friend has some older version he can get.


but for an artist who is looking to represent themselves, that seems like chickenfeed. This amounts to less than the materials costs of many a single sculpture True, Merlion, do you have a spare $1200 to spend on software about now, or know any buddies willing to donate their formerly $1200 software on you for free or cheap because they upgraded recently?


unwillingness to spend a mere $200 to make a major stride towards professionally representing yourself and your art shows that you have no imagination and no commitment.
I have plenty of both, I just don't need Photoshops "1,923" tools, layers, masks, filters, blur, blends, emboss, title, overlays, watermarks and all that, it appears Merlion doesn't either- he just needs to resize his images and maybe adjust and tweek some real basic light/contrast settings, he can do that real easy and effectively with free software.

A person doesn't need "Better Homes and Gardens" cover photo quality images on their web site to look professional, it is the accompanying text and layout that goes a long way there. The best photos accompanied by a crappy web design are ruined. A less than perfect image on a great layout is far better.

A crappy, poorly done, amateurish web site with hopping frog images, loud midi file that can't be shut OFF, and sparkling mouse cursers will go the furthest way towards making people want to CLOSE their browser and move on.


10 year-old photoshop still works fine on Windows XP... yet another advantage to keeping it cheap and simple with an old windows machine and not leaping onto every OS and computer trend that comes along. Great that antiquated (by computer standards) 10 year old software works for you- probably that's barely newer than windows 3.1- win 95, but see, if you want to use other software on the same computer you use every day, say for your email, web browsing, FTP, CAD, virus protection, firewall, games, real player, AIM, YIM, iTunes, quicktime player, DVD software etc etc- these individual software companies want you to buy upgrades on all their products, so they stop fixing problems with older versions, stop adding newer features, stop supporting the newer OS's on those versions, stop adding security updates and come out with a revamped version that leaves the old stuff in the dust in every way.

Software written for windows 3.1 and earlier probably won't work well on the NEW computers and OS if at all, it's too old. I have a buddy who had some kind of windows accounting software he liked for his 3.1 but it would crash frequently, they stopped updating it and when he bought windows 95 it wouldn't run that software anymore- the drivers or whatever were outdated and there were no new ones for it, so that is not a PC v/s MAC problem it's an industry issue- they want to make money, the only way they can effectively is suckering everyone into yearly if not more frequent "updates" patches and upgrades.

Here's a lady who said this tonight backing that up;

Some private schools REQUIRE their students to have laptops. (my cousins had to even buy NEW laptops because certain
school software didn't work on their old laptops.
I can't think of any software I ever bought for my Macs, I was able to get copies of full featured ad free Eudora, Microsoft office X- complete install, Vectorworks CAD with the complete suite, Photoshop, Fetch (FTP) Audio Hijack Pro, Adobe PDF, BBEdit, Audion, and many others. Some can be unlocked with a search in Google for the unlocking keys.

So your option is keeping the old software on an old secondary machine, or updating to newer stuff, I just don't happen to like having to fire up a secondary machine with older OS just to edit 2 photos in photoshop when I frequently take and edit photos almost every day.

For the web 72 dpi is about all you are going to get out of a browser, putting a 2500 dpi tif on the web is going to be HUGE file, slows down browsers and doesn't look any better. Unless you plan to archive or print out images with a photo quality printer, 2500 dpi image files would be a waste of time and disk space.

Here's another couple of shots from a couple or three months ago right out of the camera, I don't remember having to do anything to it other than resize a copy of the 300k originals for the web and reduce the dpi on both, maybe adjust lightness on the second, both were cropped in the copies.

The software I have could crop right down to the very edges of the sculpture just like photoshop can, and using the smudge and blending tools it can also soften that sharp resulting edge, but I don't happen to like "floating" objects in space caused by cropping out everything around the object.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b375/Randall2/helga-4-28-07.jpg


http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b375/Randall2/649panel-RTC-sm.jpg

[Landseer]

Screen cap of Canon's photostudio that came with my scanner, it has a lot of functions and features, including layers, text overlays and many elements of photoshop, but I mainly use the preview software that comes with the MAC os.


http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b375/Randall2/photostudio.jpg

[Merlion]

I notice my name was mentioned.

Currently my immediate usage is just to resize images, and sometimes to crop it. Photoshop Elements can do much more than this. This make it not so user friendly for beginners like me finding my own way to try out simple operations. This made me felt so stupid.

Of course I intend to gradually extend my usage to the other features in this software in connection with my work as a sculptor.

Photoshop Elements is the consumer version of Photoshop, and cost less. I think it is 1/4 of the price.

I didn't buy Photoshop as I know that I would not need the full facilities available there for professional graphic artists/designers.