CREATE ART AND CARTOONS IN PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS:Contents

Create Art and Cartoons in Photoshop Elements 4

A Step by Step Guide by Chris Madden

EVERYTHING you need to know about drawing,
painting and cartooning in Elements 4.
See the Elements 3 edition.

Complete Contents

PART I The Basics

1 Hardware
The Computer Specifications Needed for Running Elements
The Size and Type of Screen
Graphics Tablets
Scanners
Printers

2 A Step by Step Guide to the Basics of Creating Images
Drawing Your First Line
Open a New Document
An Introduction to the Controls
Choose the Colour to Draw or Paint With
Pick up a Paintbrush
Drawing a Line
Saving Your Work From Oblivion
Closing Files
Creating a Basic Drawing
Creating a Rough Sketch on a New Layer
Trace and Improve
Erasing mistakes
Making a Layer Invisible
Removing a Layer
Altering Images
Moving Parts of an Image
Duplicating Part of an Image
Changing the Size of Objects
Adding Colour
Painting in Colour
Arranging the Colours on Top of Each Other
Applying Colours With Tonal Variations
Changing the Colours in an Image
Selecting Areas Automatically Using the Magic Wand
Sampling Colours using the Eyedropper

Part II The Essentials of Elements and Dealing with Documents

3 Help
Help for Windows and Macs
Tool Tips
The Help Pages
Keyboard shortcuts

4 The Interface
A lightning tour of the interface
The Cursor
The Menu Bar
Keyboard shortcuts
The Toolbox
The Shortcuts Bar
The Options Bar
Palettes
The Palette Bin
The Photo Bin
Changing the Size and Position of Your Image on the Screen
The Zoom tool
Changing the Size of the Image Window, and Moving Images Within it

5 Opening, Saving and Closing
Open a New Document
Saving Your Work
Closing files

6 Sizing
How an Image in Elements is Built Up
Resolution - the Size of Printed Pixels
Setting the Size of Images for Printing
Changing the Size in an Image for Printing
Sizing Images Solely for On-Screen Use
How Screens Work
What size should the image be for on-screen use?
Setting the size of on-screen images
Changing the number of pixels in an image - resampling.
How to Resample
How to Resample for On-screen Images
Resampling for Print
What does the box with Bicubic in it mean?

PART III Working on Images

7 Brushes
The Brush and the Pencil
The Brush
The Pencil
Should you draw with the Pencil or with the Brush?
The Airbrush
An Introduction to the Brush Palette
Opening the Brush Palette
Using Brushes
Changing the Size of Brushes
Choosing the Appearance of the Brush Cursor
Changing How the Brushes Lay Down Colour - The Brush Options
Opacity Control
Altering Brushes and Creating New Ones
How the Brushstrokes are Generated
Customizing Brushes
Using a Graphics Tablet with Brushes
Creating Your Own Image-based Brush Tips
Customizing Your Brushes Sets
Saving New Brushes
Saving An Altered Set of Brushes
Removing Unwanted Brushes From Sets
Putting Two Sets of Brushes onto the Palette
Rearranging the Brushes on the Palette
Using Blend Modes
Erasers
The Eraser
The Background Eraser and the Magic Eraser

8 Working in Black and White
The Definition of Line Art
Creating Very High Definition Pencil Lines
Using The Transform Command on Line Art
Adding Text to Line Art Images
Creating New Tips For the Pencil
Create Brush Tips Specifically to use with the Pencil

9 Layers
Introducing Layers
Introducing the Layers Palette
Best Drawing Practise Concerning the Background Layer
Changing the Size of the Layers Palette
Adding New Layers
Naming (and Renaming) Layers
Using Layers
Selecting Which Layer to Work on
Changing the Order of Layers
Hiding the Image on a Layer
Changing a Layer’s Opacity
Sliding the Contents of Layers Around
Moving Layers Together - Linking
Copying Layers
Merging Layers
Throwing Layers Away
Locking Layers to Protect Their Contents
The Background Layer
Why it’s Best Not to Work on the Background Layer
Turning the Background Layer into an Ordinary Layer
Blend Modes
Changing the Size of the Thumbnails in the Layers Palette

10 Selections
What is a Selection?
Cancelling a Selection
Selecting the Whole Area of Your Canvas at Once
The Different Selection Tools - an Overview
The Most Versatile Selection Tool - the Lasso
Modifying the Shape of a Selection
Modifying the Shape of a Selection
Extending a selection
Subtracting from a selection
Selecting overlapping sections of selection areas
Other modifications to the selection outline
The Anti-aliased Option
The Feather Option
Selecting using Straight Lines - The Polygonal Lasso
Making the Lasso Stick to an Object as you Select it - The Magnetic Lasso
Making Rectangular Selections (and Circular and Elliptical Ones Too)
The Rectangular Marquee Tool, or Rectangular Selection Tool
The Elliptical Selection Tool or Elliptical Marquee Tool
Wave the Magic Wand to select an Object in an Instant
Selecting all the Areas That are the Same Colour, all at Once
Selecting areas using colours on other layers
Selecting Transparent Colours
Paint a Selection Area with the Selection Brush
Modifying Your Selection Using the Select Menu
Selecting the Opposite of What’s Already Selected - the Inverse Command
Modify
Reselect
Save Selection
Feather
Grow
Similar

11 Cut, Paste, Copy, Move
Cutting Areas From Your Image to Discard Them
Cutting From One Layer and Pasting onto a New One: the Easy Method
Creating Two or More Versions of One Object - Copying
Copying onto New Layers
Copying Part of an Image into a Different Image
The Separate Copy, Cut and Paste Commands
The Copy and Cut Commands
Pasting Objects Into an Image
The Clipboard: Where a Cut or Copied Object is Held
Copying Everything in a Selection Area, Even From Different Layers
Moving Objects
Moving Selections Across an Image
Factors to take into account when using the Auto Select Layer option
Moving Artwork on the Background Layer
Don’t Use Select>All to Move a Layer’s Contents

12 Adding Colour
Setting an Image so that it will Accept Colour
Colour and Printing
Foreground and Background Colours
How to Choose Colours
The Swatches Palette
How the Swatches are Laid Out.
Opening Different Sets of Colour in the Swatches Palette
Make Your Own Personalized Sets of Colours in a Swatches Palette
Sampling Colours With the Eyedropper
The Color Picker
Different Ways of Choosing From the Color Picker
Applying Colours
Automatically Filling Areas With Flat Colour
Pouring Colour onto well defined areas of your image - The Paint Bucket
How to Add a Fill Based on Artwork on Other Layers.
Flooding out of bounds - Mind the Gap
Avoiding Fringes Along Fill Edges
Other Paint Bucket Options
Retaining the transparency of colours when filling with a new colour
The Gradient Fill

13 Altering Colour
The Two Routes to Altering Colours
Adjusting Colours Without Affecting the Original Artwork - Adjustment Layers
Creating and Using an Adjustment Layer
Limiting the Effect of an Adjustment Layer to One Layer
Altering which parts of the layer are affected by the Adjustments Layer
Changing the Colours in an Image - the Hue/Saturation Command
Limiting the range of colours affected by the Hue/Saturation Command
Colouring the Grays in Black and White Artwork - Colorize.
Replacing Colours using the Replace Color Command
Changing the Tones in an Image
Brightness/Contrast
Levels
Using Levels to clean up dull scans of line drawings
Variations
Altering Small Areas using the Edit Tools
The Clone Stamp Tool
The Healing Brush
The Healing Brush
Lightening and Darkening Colours
The Dodge, Burn and Sponge Tools
The Smudge Tool
The Sharpen and Blur Tools

14 Transforming
How Transforming Works
How to Accept or Cancel a Transformation
Free Transform
The Individual Transform Commands
Scale
Rotate
Distort
Skew
Perspective
A Few More Points About Transforming
Transforming by Numbers
Flip Horizontal and Flip Vertical

15 Drawing Aids
Tracing Over Images
Drawing Straight Lines
Creating Horizontal or Vertical Lines
Creating Straight Lines at Angles
Creating Straight Lines With the Line Tool
Keeping Lines Horizontal or Vertical by Using The Grid
Creating Perspective Guidelines
Perspective Guidelines Using the Brush or Pencil
Perspective Guidelines using the Line Tool
Creating Perspective using Free Transform
Adjusting Foreshortening in Perspective
Creating Frames for Images and Cartoon Strips
Flipping Images
Flipping images to judge their composition and to find errors
Flipping images to create Symmetrical Objects

16 Text
Keying in Your Text With the Type Tool
Getting Your Words onto the Screen
Committing (Saving) or Rejecting Your Text
Choosing or Altering the Properties of Your Text
Selecting Text for Editing
Choosing Type Size
Lining up Your Text
Changing Typefaces
Moving Text Round the Image
Coloured Type
Changing the Space Between the Lines of Text (Leading)
Creating Black Type for Line Art
Rotating and Skewing Your Words
Warp Your Words With The Warp Text Command
Distorting Text Using Filters
Creating Three Dimensional Effects With Layer Styles
Turning Text into Pixel Artwork
Making Selections That Are Shaped Like Letters
Lettering by Hand
Tracing over Typed Text
Creating Guidelines for Hand Lettering
Pulling Your Text into Shape. ??CHANGE THIS TITLE??
Calligraphy Pens
Type Your Hand Drawn Letters Using the Keyboard
Speech Balloons

17 Special Effects
Applying Paint-like Effects and Other Distortions using Filters
The Effects of a Few Filters
Artistic Filters
Brush Strokes
Pixelate
Sketch
Texture
How to Apply and Adjust Filters
Applying Filters to Selected Parts of Images
Using Filters in the Filter Gallery
Apply multiple filters using the Filter Gallery
Distort Images Using the Liquify Filter
Filters for Blurring and Sharpening Images
The Blur Filters
The Gaussian Blur Filter
The Smart Blur Filter
The Sharpen Filters
The Unsharp Mask Filter
Converting Photographs to Line Drawings
The Impressionist Brush
Layer Styles
How to Apply and Modify Layer Styles
Shapes
How to use Shapes
Lines
Rectangles
Rectangles with Rounded Corners
Ellipses
Polygons and Stars
Polygons and Stars
Blend Modes
Dissolve
Multiply
Screen
Overlay
Soft Light and Hard Light
Color Dodge and Color Burn
Darken and Lighten
Hue, Saturation, Color and Luminosity
Difference and Exclusion
The Effects Palette
Patterns

PART IV Input and Output

18 Input
Scanning
How to scan
Scanning Black and White Line Art and Pencil Drawings
Removing Speckles From Line Art
Turning Line Art into a Layer
Rotating scans and straightening badly aligned ones
Digital cameras
Reference Images From the Web
Clip Art

19 Output
Printing
Desktop Printing
Page Setup and Print Preview
Printing on your desktop printer
Professional Printing
How a Printer Prints an Image
Sending Images in E-mails and adding them to Web Pages
Adding Images to E-mails
The Attach to E-mail Command
Other Methods of Adding Images to Emails
Preparing an Image for Emailing
File Formats for Email and the Web
How To Save Files as GIFs or JPEGs
The Save For Web (and Email) Command
Saving JPEGs (or JPGs)
Saving GIFs
Converting Black and White Line Art into GIFs for the Web
Creating JPEGs and GIFs Without using the Save for Web Command
Sending Elements Images to people who don’t have Elements or Photoshop
Putting Images onto Web Pages
What size should images be for web pages?
How do you resize an image for the web?
Web Photo Gallery
Creating Simple Animations