I have always wanted to learn how to use photo-editing software given that my picture-taking skills could use some help. Plus, I have some vintage photos of various loved relatives and it would mean a lot to me to clean them up and make copies for my kids and my brothers and sister. Well, one of the best things about working at C&T is the variety of artistic techniques in our books that I get to be involved with daily. Lucky for me, I had the chance to work on a book that uses Photoshop Elements software. The timing was perfect.

A  basic newbie guide to the software is provided in Lynn Koolish’s DVD: Lynn Koolish Teaches You Printing on Fabric. (We also have a freebie pdf that you can download here.) In addition to the wonderful directions to print on fabric, there is an attached PDF that helped me to make sense of the opening window of Photoshop Elements. It showed me how to open files and perform basic operations and there was an easy before and after comparison so I could see exactly how my computer modified the images. It helped me create some order out of what seemed to be chaos. After that, I was ready to tackle the manuscript.

Wait until you see this upcoming book by Charlotte Ziebarth, Artistic Photo Quilts. She is a quilt artist who takes her original photos and manipulates them with the easy changes to color and sizing, etc. She then shows you many ways to use the embedded filters and methods to combine photos to create magnificent images. Her products are usually printed on fabric and combined to make beautiful, artistic quilts. The photography in the book is wonderful and inspirational. She has convinced me to carry a camera with me at all times so I don’t miss special scenes, as well as the run-of-the-mill ones.

Playing around with Photoshop Elements

The “Layers” feature of this software program is SO powerful and, with a little help from Charlotte, easy to use. I was able, in a trial run, to take a photo of the hills of Tennessee plus downsize and capture a picture of my daughter in her prom dress, and then add her to the hills background, plus add my soccer son’s picture, plus rotate and add a shot of my dog and then combine these all into 1 image. I added in her boyfriend, too. Then I heightened the color by adding a translucent blue layer on top, I sharpened the images and I added a slight textured pattern over the whole thing for fun. Yes, it was unusual, and I see not particularly artistic or good looking, but I did it because I could. The power of Layers is addicting. I then used a sketch filter to get a whole different look…you get the picture. Total enjoyment.

Whether you print the images on fabric or on paper for your photo albums, the book will be a huge help. Just jump in and go for it.