Trying PSE7

I have recently got PSE7 and have been trying to learn how to use it.

[IMG]http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc222/Oggy3323/Enginehouse.jpg[/IMG]

Any thoughts appreciated.

Not a big fan of popping but this works quite well, as an exercise, but why did you not straighten it as well: As an image i think a much tighter crop on the building would look better, but then you would lose the popping effect.

Davex.

not bad but you missed the grass through the door.

Thanks for the comments and welcome to the forum Simon.

Dave - do you mean I should try to get the edges of the coloured area parallel to the edges of the photo?

I quite like it, but it does need straightening. I haven't yet figured out how to do this popping.

Yes, if you overlay a grid in PS you will see the sides of the building are not straight.

Davex.

Here you go Lidy: link

Great. Thank you, Kay! I saved the link straightaway - I love video tutorials. Fortunately those long winter evenings are coming up again and I'll definitely try this on one of them (but more likely long before that). Can't wait to have a go.

You're welcome Lidy; there are lots of very useful videos on that website, could last you all winter!

Thanks for the link Kay. Some good stuff there. I actually did it slightly differently. I used the "magnetic lasso" tool to define the coloured area them took all of the saturation out of the background.

I had a go at straightening up the picture and it now looks like this -

[IMG]http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc222/Oggy3323/Enginehouse3.jpg[/IMG]

Thanks for everyone's help, I am getting some good learning in here.

All version of PSE have dodge and burn, BTW, PSE 8 is out now and you use the straighten tool by by clicking on one end of a horizontal and dragging to the other end

Ahhh, so that's how you missed the grassy bits through the back windows!

You may be interested in this video, which shows you how to make dead accurate selections using the pen tool: link

Gareth: Yes, I have a stack of Digital Photo mags, been buying them since January 2007. The CDs are excellent arent't they? Very easy to follow tutorials, start images so you can try the technique yourself as you watch and pause the video, and free stuff, borders, textures, etc. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to learn more about Photoshop or Elements.

I didn't mention the mag to Lidy as I'd assumed they're not available in The Netherlands, but then you can subscribe by post, so maybe you can have them sent to Europe each month.

Incidently, you can also colour pop by converting to B&W then painting the colour back in using the history brush, but it doesn't give the quick and easy redo of any B&W areas as this (link) method does.

Take three -

[IMG]http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc222/Oggy3323/Enginehouse4.jpg[/IMG]

I have had a go at lightening the shadow on the door and taken the saturation out of the back windows. I am not very happy with the border between the light and shadow on the door and am going to look into dodge and burn when I get a bit more time.

I straightened the picture using image - transform - distort. It has had an interesting effect in that when I look at it, my brain says that I am viewing a basically cuboid object from off centre so it should not be straight and there is something wrong yet I agree it looks better than the first one which is geometrically more accurate.

PSE7 does have the straightening tool that Gartmore describes, but it works by rotating the whole picture so the line you have described is horizontal. It didn't have the desired effect with this picture.

It's looking better.

G

Oh dear, here I go again! link