Mistakes

[April]

Can you guys tell me some of the things it took you forever to learn on your own (related to digital scrapbooking)? Or can you tell me about a mistake you made in photoshop that turned out to be a good thing? I have a little more space in one of my classes next week and may use some of your ideas.

For me... it took me forever to learn layers because I learned on my own. Once I figured it out I couldn't believe how easy and flexible layers were and I fell in love with digital scrapbooking. I have my intro teachers teach layers in 5 minutes where it took me a year (or two...lol) to learn it on my own. I always joke that I'm saving my students a full year when they come to a beginning class but actually it's kind of true. For those of you that can't take a class from me our entire intro class is on the tips page.

Last year I learned (something that I should have known before)that the shift key makes lines straight. I knew you could hold it down for perfect circles and squares but I didn't know it helped make lines straight while using the brush tool. The shift key also drags pictures, papers and embellishments onto another file and puts it in the exact middle. Last month Jessie taught me that pressing the alt key while clicking with the move tool will duplicate that layer. I don't know if that works in Elements but it probably does. You have to click and drag a tiny while pushing the alt key for this to work.

I have tons of happy mistakes too. Actually everytime I make a mistake I almost always learn something new. I seriously love mistakes. I could write about that for a while but this post is turning into a novel.

Anyway... any pointers you want to share with the rest of us?

[StephVetne]

One of the things that I wish I learned earlier was how to use the selection tools efficiently and then use them in tandem with the fill and stroke functions.

[DeborahMomof2]

Oh - trying to figure out brushes. I picked up the Elements manual and quickly realized it was a big table of contents - without the content! That you needed a separate layer for brushes, changing the color of the brush. Oh, and to deselect the "show bounding box" -- that one I would've never figured out on my own.

[April]

Yes! Learning those things helps so much, huh? If there is anyone here that hasn't learned how to use the selection tools or how to create a brush I have tutorials on those. You can read those here...

http://www.digitalscrapbookmemories.com/tips/cuttingImages.asp
http://www.digitalscrapbookmemories.com/tips/customBrushes.asp

Deborah, I agree on the "show bounding box" thing. That makes life so much easier. I like the idea of teaching that too. For anyone here that doesn't know what that means it's an option in the options bar for the move tool. You need to have it checked to transform your pictures to other sizes and other things but sometimes it's nice to have it off when the element is really tiny and hard to pick witht the move tool.

[ErinBoBerin]

that when you press the caps lock key in photoshop it changes the fill cursors (and a bunch of other ones) to an x. For the longest time I just couldn't figure out why it was doing that.

Using masks and adjustment layers (now I can't live without them)

I'm still a little sketchy on channels and curves, but I'm getting better!

[ErinBoBerin]

I can't stand to work with that bounding box option selected. I just press ctrl-t whenever I need to transform things, so it's only there when I need it.

[Kelly]

i honestly think that my biggest "mistake" was using digital Image Suite and not forcing myself to learn Photoshop originally. I'm trying to "make" myself go down that road but it's so hard when I know how to do most things in DIS. But I need the "advanced" parts of PS so now I have to suffer through withdrawal, I guess... : )
-kelly

[alb52]

my on biggest hang up was starting with PSP rather than PSCS .... now PSCS2 has been sitting on my computer for 6months, relatively untouched because i can manage more efficiently in PSP - terrible.

also - layers. it took me a while to really see the advantage to these (when i started, the tuts weren't as great as they are now). some LOs, i end up with 50-100 layers and love it.

always so much more to learn..like what are channels? i have no clue! lol.

[ErinBoBerin]

Channels are really cool from what I can figure out! You can make all sorts of color adjustments with them. For example, I have some old photos which have turned red from not being cared for correctly, and I was able to remove the red really easily. Also, you can adjust the levels on the individual channels like you would using curves too. Another cool thing I've used them for is when adding my handwriting to layouts. I can't write straight to save my life, so I just write on regular lined paper and then hide the blue lines.

There's also something called an alpha channel that you can use to save and modify selections. I always forget to use it though :)

[holly koenigsfeld]

i finally learned that you can make a perfect circle and draw it from the midpoint, out by holding down alt and shift. i knew holding down shift made the circle have equal proportions but i didn't know that alt allowed you to draw from the center.

[digiferfer]

Not to long ago I learned how to apply a diffused glow look to a photo and I just loved how it made some of my photos look and I love using it. I also learned how to extract something from my photo by selecting filter then extract and i then trace an outline to what i want to remove from the photo. If I select smart highlighting it helps get my outline a little more exact as far as what I am highlighting.