Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 The Menu Bar & Options Bar

Hi, everyone--Michael Brown back with you; welcome back to Educator.com's Adobe Photoshop Elements Beginning and Intermediate course!0000

In the last couple of lessons, we have been doing a tour of the Elements Editor workspace; we're in the Expert mode, with the Toolbar, the document space, menu bar, Options bar, Taskbar, and panels.0008

In the last couple of lessons, we toured the Toolbar and all of the tools, and we dealt with shortcuts--one- and two-key shortcuts--which save a lot of time, and in the last lesson on shortcuts, you saw a physical example of how much time you can save, just in a short time period working on an image, by using shortcuts, versus going back and forth and opening and closing to access your tools.0021

At the beginning, obviously, you're going to be doing a lot of going back and forth, just because you have to familiarize yourself with where things are.0049

But, if you incorporate those shortcuts, as you move forward, you will be amazed at how easy it will be, and how flawless and also time-saving all of that will be.0058

We went over the Toolbox; in this lesson, we're going to deal with the menu bar and all of the dropdown menus that look rather daunting, but basically, they are pretty easy; and I am going to show you the features, in these menus, that you're going to be using--not every feature.0070

The menu bar and the Options bar--not the Tool Options bar, down here, that has the options for the individual tools--but the Options bar that is right above the Toolbox and the document window and below the menu bar, with the five buttons: Open, Quick, Guided, Expert (which we are in), and Create.0086

Let's get started with the menu and just run right down the list.0107

In a Macintosh only, you will see Adobe Photoshop Elements Editor dropdown, and the only two things you're going to deal with here: this is where the Preferences are on a Mac, and this is where you quit Photoshop Elements, but you should be using the two-key shortcut, shown here, Command/Control+Q.0111

The File menu--what do you think it has to do with?--sure, files--the things you do to a full file.0128

You create a new one, you open an existing one, and (this is a cool feature) "Open recently edited file" keeps track of the latest ten files that you have opened that are either open or closed.0136

This is the last ten, and you will notice that we have (let's go to the Photo Bin) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 open, and yet, you see ten listed in the dropdown list; it's kind of cool--it saves you a little time--again, we're talking about time-saving, in that you don't necessarily have to go hunt for a current file that you may have just closed.0152

Below that, you can duplicate an existing file, and then...basically, open and duplicate, closing and saving, and printing--that is what we're dealing with.0177

Close one file; close them all; save the file over itself; save as; and save for Web; we'll go into more detail on these as we go on.0188

Save for Web is a very cool feature; it allows you to reduce a file even more in its size--I mean the resolution size--than you would a traditional jpeg, so that it opens rapidly on the Web, yet still looks good, but can't be copied--a very cool feature.0197

Also, there is your Print, and there is another 2-key shortcut: Command/Control+P; also Command/Control+S for Save; and Command/Control+O for Open.0218

Open, close, save, print: things you do to a file.0229

The Edit menu has to do... (let me load a selection of an actual, physical element--the logo of Educator right here) under the Edit menu, you have Undo and Redo (Command/Control+Z, Command/Control+Y), but they are also right down here in the Taskbar, and you know these shortcuts; you're going to use them, so you really don't need that.0235

Revert: I'll tell you what it is, but I don't really think you need to use it.0257

What it will do is take any file and revert it to the original file that you opened when you opened it; in other words, if you worked on a file for a long period of time, and have done a whole lot of moves on it, but you want to go all the way back to the beginning, just use Edit, Revert.0262

But, there is a better way: under the Window dropdown menu, which is the panels, if we go to the History panel (we'll open it up), notice all the things I've done to this particular file; I can go all the way back--do the same thing and go back to the beginning--by simply clicking on that thumbnail.0278

Then, I can also go back down, and I can click where we are or anywhere in between, but with the Revert, you go to the beginning, or you do the Undo and go to the end.0301

I prefer the History for greater control.0313

All right, back to that Edit menu.0316

Cut, Copy, Paste, Paste into, and Delete: the things you do to objects--either an entire file or a selected object.0319

You can also--we have a selection that is active; you can fill it with a color or a pattern or a texture.0328

You can also stroke it--that is the outline which you see, the little crawling ants--we will deal with that in selections--stroke the outline of the selection with color or a pattern.0336

You can make custom brushes and patterns under the Edit menu, and you can deal with your color settings (which, remember, are either from light and color--either sRGB, which is the smaller color space, or Adobe RGB, the larger color space; for output to printing, you would want to be using the RGB; for working on files only going on monitors, you would work in sRGB).0348

So, the Edit menu gives you cuts, copies, pastes, deletes, fills, strokes, new brushes, and color settings--things that you would do to your file.0377

The Image menu is--in my four categories that you saw in the last lesson (where we talked about shortcuts, selections, corrections, retouch, and manipulation), the manipulation tools are under the Image menu.0388

You're going to rotate an image; you're going to crop an image; you're going to transform an image.0406

By the way, Command/Control+T will transform this layer, right here, of the logo; you grab and distort; you can, with a Control, or right-click on a PC, go askew, which means we can slide it like this, or we can go outside and rotate the image.0411

Let's go back and change and do another one for Free Rotate; and you can rotate; there are all sorts of things that you can do, physically transforming an image.0436

The manipulation tools: Image, Rotate, Transform, Crop, Recompose (allows you to squish an image in a funny, cool way--that's all I'm going to say about it--it's really cool--I'll talk to you), Resizing your image, Image Size and Canvas Size, right here, and changing your color modes from RGB to grayscale to bitmap, 8 bits per channel--there you are.0445

...and, Convert to the other profiles; right now, we're in RGB; I could convert back to sRGB.0470

Basically, they're manipulation tools under the Image menu.0476

Enhance menu: this is where exposure, color, and sharpening are--all of the things that you're going to work on in an image that are not physical pixel manipulations--just the color casts and all that...0481

Enhance Auto; Exposure, Color, and Sharpening are here, as well as your lighting controls; remember, there is Command/Control+L for levels; the most popular one--Color, Hue, and Saturation-- is Command/Control U.0494

Color Casts, Replace Color...all of the things with color...Black and White and Sharpening, as well as creating panoramas, are under here as well, and a couple of other ones that we will talk about.0507

Enhancement to your image is under the Enhance menu.0520

Everything to do with layers, which is what we will deal with in the panels (notice, these are all layers--it's a very, very important feature in Photoshop Elements, in the Expert Mode)--everything to do with layers is under the Layer menu.0524

Selections, which we were talking about (that is what the crawling ants are, and it's the most important technique in Photoshop Elements)--there is everything with selections, right under there.0536

Filters--your filter gallery, and all of the things you can do with filtration, are right here in the gallery--all of the filters.0548

The View menu gives you your shortcuts for the Zoom tool, which we already know; they call it Command=; I call it Command+; it's the same key, + and =; Command-, Command0 (or actual pixels is Command1, but I just use these three).0556

Selection: active or not, showing or not showing the outside line of the selection...the most important thing this is good for, under the View menu (because you're not going to use these; you already know the shortcuts) is rulers, grid, and guides.0574

The hiding selection is useful, but we will talk about that in selections.0591

Rulers, grids, and guides have to do with graphics.0596

Here is a type layer: we're going to show the rulers.0599

First of all, there are your rulers; they show the dimensions of your image, and if you move the cursor, you will notice, right above my cursor point, up there in the 0 to 1, you see a little slider moving?--it's showing you exactly what it is; if you had the info panel open, you could see exactly what number it is.0605

You can also pull guides from here.0626

If you go up into the rulers (it changes to an arrow), and click and drag (and you see the click and drag thing), you can position a guide.0629

We have one too many guides right there, so I'm going to take one of them and get rid of it (all you do is pull it away).0637

Guides allow you to align layers and type in a document.0644

To make them view and go away--notice they're checked right now; they're gone; they come back; they're gone.0649

Rulers, as well--we'll just make the rulers go away.0659

The grid is that red grid that we set up in the preferences, and there you see it--again, this is for graphics; very simple.0661

The Window menu contains all of the panels that are over here, either in the moor or the Layers, Effects, Graphics, and Favorites; all of them are also listed under here.0670

If you wanted History, you can get it this way.0681

If you wanted to get the Info panel, like we were just talking about, there is the Info; let's go back, for fun, into the rulers, and now, as I move laterally across (horizontally), look right here in the inches dimensions.0684

Notice, it is showing me the exact spot that I am at--x and y coordinates.0701

We can get rid of the rulers, and we can also get rid of the info; it's checked; and we got rid of it.0707

That is what that is.0714

The Help menu allows you to access Photoshop Help; if you have questions that you can't answer at a much later time, after you have left Educator--or that I can't answer for you--you can go to the Help menu and try to find it there.0716

A quick recap: File is everything you do with a file, basically--opening, closing, saving, and printing.0730

Edit has Cut, Copy, Paste, Fill, and the color settings.0736

The Image menu has your manipulation tools: Rotate, Transform, Crop, Recompose, and Resize.0742

Enhance has Exposure, Color, and Sharpening.0748

Everything with layers is under the Layers.0751

Selections have everything there under Select.0753

Filters are here; Graphics, View, Guides, Rulers, and Grids, and your panels--everything is in the menu bar.0756

Let's take a quick look, now, at the Options bar--not the Tool Options, but the bar that runs above the Toolbox and document window, and below the menu bar.0765

The Open dropdown (which I don't really find highly useful) shows you all of the open files that you have at the moment, plus any that you have opened and closed (only up to one or two extras) since it has been opened.0777

You can get more of them from Open, Recently Edited; you can get ten here; you only get the open ones, plus one or two, here.0794

Besides, if you want an open file, there it is--"I want this picture" or "I want this..." (you know exactly what it is); that is a lot easier; I'm not sure what the good value of that is.0802

In the center: Quick, Guided, and Expert; let's take a quick look at PSE10; over here, you see Edit, Create, and Share--and, under the Edit tab, Full, Quick, and Guided.0814

Full is the Expert mode; there are the Quick and Guided, under the Edit tab; they have moved those to the center.0829

The Create button has been moved up to the right corner, and the Share button is now in the Organizer.0836

Let's take a really quick look at the Quick Edit.0844

Let's open up an image right here...let's get this one...lots of layers and stuff.0849

Quick Edit...actually, let me open up a different one: let's do the flower, because I don't want to deal with a whole bunch of layers in there.0855

You have view modes; notice, it opened up in Before or After; the default is After only, or Before, or vertical--if you have a vertical image or a horizontal.0865

In this case, we're just going to do side-by-side.0875

You have a limited number of tools; this is one minor selection tool, a type tool, a retouch tool, a cropping tool, your Zoom tool, and a Hand tool--the basic tools that you would use.0879

This one, here, is whitening teeth, and this one here is redeye--simple stuff; and here you have exposure levels (these are your exposure controls), color controls, and Sharpening--the basics, very basics.0892

If you wanted to take an image and do a really quick job to it, we can do Smart Fix, and just automatically...let's see...it's kind of intuitive; I'm just going from panel to panel to see what I like.0907

Or, I can just do the slider and have it do the whole thing, and I do Auto, or that way, and it says, "This is better than that," and it actually looks a little snappier--so you are done; you have completely fixed it, automatically.0921

I'll do Command+Z and get out of there.0937

Or, you can do it on a manual basis--with the sliders or intuitive roll-over-it-and-find-one-that-looks-good-to-you--it might be better than the one you had.0941

You also have more auto controls; we'll go over this in a little more detail, but it gives you the idea.0952

This is literally what it says: it's quick edit.0958

The Guided Edit is even more cool, as far as I'm concerned.0963

You have an image, and what you have here is the ability to do all of these things--exposure, cropping, color, levels, the exposure here, recompose, color casts, straighten, rotate--everything--a wider variety than the Quick.0968

But, there are walk-you-through instructions.0987

For example, if you wanted to remove a color cast, it tells you what to do and gives you the tools to do it.0990

Let's pick another one...Enhance Colors; click the Auto; it tells you what to do, very simply.1001

For all of these options, I find it even better than the Quick Edit, because you still have the control, but what is really nice about Guided Edit is that it has these photo effects--a whole bunch of them.1010

Let's say that you wanted to do something that's very much in vogue today--the lomo camera effect.1021

Let's go to lomo; click the button, and it converts it; click a button again, and you apply a vignette, and you have done it!1027

It's just that quick.1036

Also, we can do high key; once again, we'll do color, and--oh!--that was...this is a high key photo, unquestionably!--wrong photo to use for it.1038

But, it gives you the idea.1053

Line drawing; we'll pencil sketch and cook for a minute, and there is a penciling; adjust the opacity by continuing to click it, and do a levels adjustment on it, and you have kind of a pencil sketch.1054

All these things you can do; plus, a picture stack, pop art, and reflection--fun playthings; so, this is kind of a fun one to play with, and it tells you what to do as you go along.1071

Then, of course, the Expert mode, which is what we have been dealing with, and the Create button to create photo books, greeting cards, calendars, collages, CD jackets...all of these have templates that allow you to bring in images and create text, and create and print out final, cool products.1082

That sums up, pretty much, the Options bar.1101

There is a quick tour of all of the dropdown menus that you are going to be using extensively, as well as the Options bar, and primarily here, we're going to be working with Quick, Guided, or Expert, and most of our instruction will be dealing with Expert, which gives you more precision control that either of the other two.1106

But, for quick fixes or fun edits, Quick and Guided work really well.1124

In the next lesson, we're going to be dealing more with this workspace and the panels, and I will see you back in the next lesson!1129