Most people think of Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to just do minor edits for pictures. So what do you use Photoshop or Photoshop Elements for?
Myself I first do adjustments to pictures, the color correction, setting the black and white points.
I than use a filter to dust the picture. I have been scanning old pictures that are now fading and show a lot of dust.
The filter usually cleans a lot, but next to fix flaws and the larger areas that the filter did not take care of.
After this I may apply styles, crop, extract from the picture using a layer mask, or apply different filters depending upon the picture and how I want to use the picture.
I also use Photoshop to create pages and apply pictures.
So what do you do?
Great question! I use it for everything - photo editing the pictures I shoot, to create art out of my photos, to create textures, to create graphic art for small business clients, to scrapbook, to create scrapbook doodads for others, to restore our family's old photos. I love Photoshop, it's such a powerful program - fun to play with and it would take forever to learn everything it can do.
I think the real question is what can't you do with Photoshop? I've been trying to learn Illustrator and I'm struggling because I keep giving up and doing things in Photoshop!
@Marisa - that's interesting input because I've been wondering if I should get Illustrator and what I would be able to do (that I want to do) that I can't do in PS.
Illustrator is a vector drawing program. If you are a student Adobe has a special for CS6 and the cloud. It is offering all of the CS6 suite for 19.99 a month for a year with all updates and space on the cloud.
Me too! I've had inkscape for years and only used it with my cutter. I just couldn't get around to learning how to use it (or Illustrator) properly just because Photoshop and PSP are so much easier (PSP even more so for me). I've been really trying to learn how to use it lately though since I want to be able to draw my own swirls and stuff for brushes as well as my digi stamps I've drawn. So much to learn with only a few hours in the day to get it all done. Plus my old brain doesn't retain info the way it used to...
@Tina: Basically what I've found so far with Illustrator is that if you want to draw something, you want Illustrator. I would occasionally try and doodle something in Photoshop and it always look terrible. But Illustrator will smooth everything out and makes it look like I know what I'm doing. I've only got my toe in the shallow end, but I foresee that in the future I may switch to making all my patterns in Illustrator.
I have seen Photoshop and Illustrator used hand in hand. There are a lot of great tutorials out there for Illustrator, as well as books.
@Marisa - do you use a tablet for drawing in Photoshop? I have a Waucom Intuos and I've played with it, and enjoy playing with it, but haven't found that it has made my work any better really.
Yes, we have a tablet, although I don't like using it. I've just been using my mouse, although I think I'm going to start forcing myself to using the tablet, as it's a better skill in the long run....
I keep telling myself I am going to spend more time learning to use my tablet, but there is so much more to learn or projects to do. I do agree I should take some time to use it and get used to using the pen.
I use Photoshop for correcting photos and adding effects. I also bring all my vector art work that I create in Illustrator and add effects to it or color, etc. When I am putting all of my pages together, I actually bring a;ll of my components into In Design. Overall Photoshop is a great tool, I will admit that going from PS to Illustrator is quite the challenge.
Exactly my situation too. I originally purchased Inkscape to use with my WishBlade die cutter... It is such a frustrating program. Seems like the simplest of things are a chore in it.
I only use it now if I am trying to create a file for my die-cutter.
Cat: Have you found anything that works easier with your cutter. This is why I never upgraded my old Cricut, cause it is so much easier to use SCAL and get what I want.
We have a Wacom tablet and the hubby absolutely loves it. Me, not so much. He says it's easy to use. I say it's easy for him because he's an artist. He draws, paints, etc. and I think it just comes easier to him as a lefty. He has that part of the brain in overdrive that thinks creatively all the time. I am so the opposite. LoL
@ Shawna I love the wacom tablet! I used to have one a few years ago. My favorite feature was that you could actually lock the tablet to your screen so the top left of the tablet was the top left of the screen. Well that and I could take the tablet face off and insert a picture behind the top for easier tracing/transfer to the computer.
I've been using Elements for years. I really need to update mine to full Photoshop, especially since I'm still running ver. 2.0
.
I guess I'll do that whenever I get around to rebuilding my computer.
I use PSE for almost everything with my Wacom tablet. I also downloaded Inkscape and I really don't like it - it is difficult to learn.
I use photoshop Elements for absolutely everything- anything to do with photograph manipulation, extractions, digital art, I scan in my drawings and create digital stamps. All my scrapbooking, card making etc!
I use Photoshop for mostly everything in digital scrapbooking. Designing and layout work. I have also played with illustrator, using vectors mainly to take them into Photoshop to pretty them up. I am not in love with Illustrator as to my experience it is very flat and sterile with what I produce. (Maybe its just me )I love photoshop because it gives me more creatively speaking, more texture, more shape and detail. Don't get me wrong Illst, is great for easy shape making and duplicating and 'smooth brushwork' but Photoshop does it for me as an artist.
Artrage is a good playing program, much improved of late. You can experience the smoothing effect with the art pens, textures with the painterly brushes, layers, copying pasting etc and some cool effects like glitter, fur and others. Fun to use, but as always I export to Photoshop to finish off.
Just about everything that concerns digital scrapbooking and photo editing. I realy like what Photoshop works and edits images.
I use PSE to do everything! Edit pictures, work on scrapbooking stuff, making things for my blog and friends' blogs, making all kinds of cards to print and whatnot, the list is never ending! I'm looking forward to moving back to New Hampshire at the end of the month so I can steal my parents photo albums to do some uploading and fixing of old pictures!
can u easily design scrapbook kits using pse? or it is better using PS. i try to use PSE *since PS is really large and im afraid my computer will run slowly* to learn making my own kit, but i dont know how to apply some PS tuts on PSE. is there any tutorial out there about making kits with PSE?
Since there are so many parts to making kits I don't think there are any tutorials that cover it all. But if you focus on one aspect, like making a repeating pattern, or changing the color of an element, I think you'll be able to find whatever you need for PSE. Lots of the tutorials on this site can be modified slightly if you're familiar with PSE and you can always google for specifics for PSE.
bimbi, the issues with PSE, as far as I know, are:
-the blending options are restrict, so you need to have actions for things photoshop users can do "by hand" and you can´t customize the actions;
-You don´t have a way to check for gamut.
But I know designers that do kits for sale that use only PSE and have others help to overcome this problems.
At digital scrapbook discussion forum, I started a topic for the first colab. on the third post of this topic there are links about quality check. Although they don´t really teach you to do kits, they have info you should probably be aware - I wish I knew about that before starting, my first kit was a disaster!
I use photoshop for everything. It is the only program that I have, though I will be upgrading to the creative cloud real soon, so I can learn some of the other products they have to offer.
@marisa : i think i should get to know more about PSE, since i just know ps from highschool. but, i might get back to ps and try to optimized my computer memory to avoid the problem
@lorien: im still in the introduction of designing kit,so what's gamut lorien?is it like QC for the kit color?
I do everything in either PSE (now v.13) or Corel Paintshop Pro. The features I make most use of in PSE are the Cookie Cutter and the Background Eraser. And I use an old version (PSE8) sometimes to open EPS vector files - which the newer versions won't. But I have to admit I do most of my layering work in PSP - simply because that is the software I have always used. I am quite a novice with PSE.