In this Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 class, you'll learn the secrets to successfully editing photos and bringing out the best in your images! An award-winning package designed for photo enthusiasts, Adobe's Photoshop Elements 7 provides the tools for making both quick fixes and detailed improvements. Perfect for those with no image-editing experience, this course will take you from novice to accomplished user. Upgrade students are welcome as well!

You'll experience editing images on your computer, correcting flaws, enhancing the final product, creating simple art projects, preparing images for e-mail and the Web, and more. You'll achieve high-quality results with your images without having to learn complex professional techniques. And you'll see how Photoshop Elements 7 gives you room to grow while making it easy to achieve amazing results even in the early stages of your learning.

So get ready to unlock the mysteries of Photoshop Elements 7. The hands-on, easy-to-follow exercises in this course will leave you with a great feeling of accomplishment!

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Syllabus:

All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when the lesson is released, but you must complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

A new section of each course starts on the second or third Wednesday of each month. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

Week One

Wednesday - Lesson 01

Photoshop Elements is an excellent package for photographers to enhance and edit digital images. In our first lesson, we'll discuss online training, go over how to download the images you'll use in this course, and start with the very basics of Photoshop Elements. We'll take things one step at a time so that even if you're a new user, you'll have no trouble getting comfortable editing and enhancing your digital photos. We'll also talk about what's new in Elements 7.

Friday - Lesson 02

Today we'll discuss the many file formats digital images can take and how you can use them to your best advantage with Photoshop. You'll learn how to save updated originals and copies of your images, and how to use Quick Edit to produce fast results. You'll see how to crop and rotate images to get just the look you're after, and you'll practice using the Straighten tool for one-step corrections.

Week Two

Wednesday - Lesson 03

Digital images come in all sizes! In this lesson, we'll discuss image resolution, pixels, and recommendations for resizing pictures with excellent results. Whether you want to create flawless prints or send your photos quickly by e-mail, you'll learn how to optimize your images for the best results. You'll see how the Crop tool, Options bars, and a 3:2 ratio can change the look of your pictures.

Friday - Lesson 04

Photoshop Elements gives you lots of options for printing your documents, and you'll learn about all of them in this lesson. You'll find out how to add temporary colorful borders and how to print images to just the size you want. You'll also practice saving photos for use on the Web using Photoshop Elements' Save for Web feature, and you'll have a chance to try out the new Photoshop.com Web site for Adobe users. In addition, we'll look at the Organizer and see how to print multiple photos on a page.

Week Three

Wednesday - Lesson 05

Most of the time, photographers have plenty of images to work with, but in some instances you'll want to create a new file as a foundation for your images. You'll learn how to do that in this lesson. From there, you'll add color and then move a photo onto your background. You'll discover how to use the Layers feature in the process.

Friday - Lesson 06

Have you ever wondered how professional photographers can make the colors in some images look out of this world? Today you'll find out how they do it! You'll work with color adjustments in your images, including hue and saturation. You'll also create black-and-white images from color images using Elements' Black and White Conversion feature, and you'll pick individual colors to replace with others. Color Variations is a wonderful visual tool included in Photoshop Elements. You'll learn how to make quick changes with it!

Week Four

Wednesday - Lesson 07

Light is the essence of photography, but it's not always cooperative. In this lesson, we'll discuss ways to enhance and even create better lighting after you've taken an image. You'll see how to use Brightness and Contrast to improve your images, and we'll cover techniques for lightening shadows. You'll also have a chance to work with the histogram, Levels, and Color Curves—all excellent tools for correcting lighting and color tones. Through all this, you'll see how Elements keeps track of your changes and lets you go back through them if you want to undo something.

Friday - Lesson 08

Adobe includes Organizer, a powerful organization package, with its industry-standard editor, Photoshop Elements. Today we'll take a look at how Organizer works to keep track of your images. We'll also cover strategies for using both folders and Organizer, as well as connecting with Photoshop.com online. You'll see how to sort your pictures, add tags, and collect them for use in projects like scrapbook pages and greeting cards.

Week Five

Wednesday - Lesson 09

Creative projects often pair photos with text. Photoshop Elements gives you plenty of text tools, and in this lesson, you'll explore those and add text to your images. You'll see how Photoshop Elements uses layers with text, and you'll get tips on how to master the Layers palette. You'll also begin your study of the powerful selection tools, including the color-based Magic Wand tool and the flexible Lasso tool. With these, you'll discover the power of Feathering selections and copying selections within an image.

Friday - Lesson 10

As you continue your study of selection tools today, you'll learn how to create a silhouette image using the Quick Selection tool. You'll also practice using any of the selection tools in a reverse mode for tricky selections. We'll see how the Marquee tools let you select perfect squares and circles for use in framing and highlighting your images. You'll also work more with Feathering and see the difference it makes, especially when you want to create a soft, blended background in your image. Finally, we'll go over how to add colors with the Gradient tool.

Week Six

Wednesday - Lesson 11

In this final lesson on the selection tools, you'll work with the Selection Brush tool, discovering how you can do detailed and exacting work. You'll also learn some advanced techniques for using the selection tools together. We'll work extensively with the Add to selection option, and we'll preview our work with Mask Mode. You'll have a chance to experiment with some of Photoshop Elements' filters and color options, as well as the settings in the Magnetic Lasso tool. As a final addition to your knowledge in this area, you'll have a chance to explore and work with each item on the Select menu.

Friday - Lesson 12

We'll finish the course today by discussing the Retouching and Correcting tools, and you'll perfect your skills with the Red Eye tool, the Clone Stamp tool, and both the powerful Healing Brushes. You'll learn when to use each tool for the best results. The power of Photoshop Elements will come to life as you use these tools in your final assignments.

This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Beverly Schulz.

Beverly Schulz is a freelance photographer and a graduate of the New York Institute of Photography's Professional Photographer's program. She teaches a number of classes in digital photography and has more than 25 years of classroom instruction experience. Her writing and photography have been published in a number of magazines. She has traveled extensively and participated in onsite photography workshops as well as independent photo quests. In addition to teaching and photographic work, she provides consulting services for digital photographers and clients.

Requirements:

Photoshop Elements 7.0 for Windows (please be sure to install this software on your computer before the course begins); Microsoft Windows Vista or XP; Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader).

Note:Adobe does not currently offer a Mac version of PSE 7.0—this class is designed for Windows users.

Student Reviews:

Reviews coming soon! Please check back next month.