Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 The Task Bar, Photo Bin, & Panel Bin

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

In the past few lessons, we have been taking a very close look at the Editor workspace.0007

We have looked at the Toolbox and all of the individual tools and options--the Options Bin.0011

We have looked at the menu bar and all of the dropdown menus; we've looked at the Options bar with all of the buttons across the top.0017

The remaining two items are the Taskbar across the bottom and the Panel Bin at the right.0024

The Panel Bin is extremely powerful, equally as powerful as, if not more so than, the tools or the menus.0030

All of your work is going to be done with the Toolbox, the various items under dropdown menus, and working in layers--layers just add so much power to the functionality of Photoshop Elements.0038

Just for example, the Title box right here: I can take the logo and just move an individual layer and reassign--let's say I wanted to move it down here, and I wanted to move the title up to the top, and then put this in below it instead, and just redesign the whole thing.0053

I can undo both of those...that is one of the things that you can do with layers.0073

You can turn layers on and off: I have a blank layer at the top, where I'm going to be drawing stuff, and we can always turn it off and turn it on; we can also delete the items off of it--enormous functionality in layers.0079

But, I get ahead of myself--sorry about that.0093

In this lesson, we're going to take a look at the Taskbar, the Photo Bin, and the Panel Bin.0096

That will wrap up everything in the workspace, so we can get on with images.0102

Let's get started with the Taskbar and the Photo Bin at the same time (actually, let me get those squiggles off; they look a little unsightly), and we'll just go ahead and start over.0107

The Taskbar and the Photo Bin: down across the bottom of the workspace, you see a series of buttons; this is called the Taskbar.0120

In earlier versions of Photoshop Elements (this is Elements 10 workspace), there is a Photo Bin; it's called the Project Bin; there is no Taskbar.0129

Now, let's go ahead and go back to the Title, and let's start from the left and work our way across.0141

The Photo Bin: if you click the button, up pops the Photo Bin (it was called the Project Bin in Photoshop Elements 10).0147

You see it right down there; it's open (now, it's called the Photo Bin); and all of your open files are running right here; if there are more open files that are shown than can fit in this line, it will make a second or third row with an adjustment bar on the right.0159

There you have it: you have the option to close it with the downward-facing arrow at the far right of the bin, and you can always open and close simply by hitting the Photo Bin button.0184

You also have a little list menu that has a "Show Grid" check mark; when I uncheck it, you will notice (it's hard to see, maybe, on your screen), between the thumbnails: there are no lines or separations; if you check the Show Grid, you get the little lines that separate them into individuals--I kind of like that option.0197

At the upper left of the Photo Bin, right now, it says "Show Open Files" and the arrow--a dropdown menu--this is very cool.0216

Here are all of your albums in the Organizer: for example, if I want to see my Red Flowers album, there they are, and here is the scrollbar to see all of the images in the Red Flowers album.0225

We'll go back to Open Files, and you can open directly; so it kind of lets you access the most frequently-used photos that you made into albums, that are in Organizer, without even having to leave the Editor--very cool.0239

That takes care of the Photo Bin.0254

The next one would be the Tool Options Bin, and you have seen that one already in conjunction with the Toolbox.0257

You open it and close it, and every time you hit a tool, the options change.0264

In the earlier Photoshop Elements, the options were right here, right above the document workspace and above the Toolbar, and (I have to be honest with you) I'm not really happy with this little button; it looks cool; they consolidated the tools into various categories--that is a nice idea to make it simpler; but, every time I hit a tool, the bin pops open, and I have lost some of my workspace, and I have to close it to get back to the document workspace again.0269

Open, close--and every time I hit a tool, it does the same thing again; it takes a little bit of extra time, and it just basically irritates me; I don't know about you.0300

Anyway--not a big deal, but it's there; you can go to the dropdown menu, and you notice "Autoshow Tool Options" is checked; if I uncheck it, when I go from tool to tool, the Options Bin no longer opens.0310

But now, if I want to change something, I have to manually open it, do the change, and manually close it; I end up doing the same thing, anyway, so you might as well just leave that thing checked and put up with the fact that it's going to pop up and pop down.0331

I think they could have done better--they should have left them across the top, as far as I'm concerned; no big deal.0345

The Undo and Redo buttons are over here, as well, but I have already taught you your shortcuts; they're Command/Control+Z to undo, and Command/Control (I hear you!)+Y to redo--absolutely; they are under the Edit menu, in case you forget.0351

They are also here, if you want to use them manually.0368

Then comes another little one that I scratch my head--"Why did Adobe do this?"--we have a Rotate button to the left; that is kind of cool.0372

But, it would be nice to have a Rotate button to the right...well, it's here, but you have to go find it under this little Arrow menu, and go back to the right, and then, if you click again, it goes away.0381

With all of this extra space sitting right here--you put an Undo and a Redo--why didn't you put a Rotate Left and a Rotate Right instead of having to play this little game here and go chase it--not very intelligent.0392

Then, there is a Layout button that gives you all of these options for viewing all of the items that you have here in different situations; here is your Float All in Windows; but it doesn't have them; we go back to the default, and it puts them back into the tabs.0405

That is kind of cool, because I do use Float All in Windows and go back and forth between these two; let's say I wanted to take a layer and move it to another file, or see two other files, and then I wanted to go back; it's just as easy to go back to the default this way; that works.0422

And then, we have your Organizer button.0444

So, it's pretty cool; they could have done better with the Tool Options and the Rotate button, but you're going to use some of these, anyway.0446

OK, that takes care of the Taskbar and the Photo Bin; all of these buttons on the right are in the Taskbar, but they are under my titling of panels--they all have to do with the Panels Bin.0452

In the workspace for Elements 10 and earlier, these are all of your panels; all of your panels, by the way, are always accessible under the Window menu; there they are--all of them; any highlighted and visible panel (such as, you see, "Layers" here) is check marked; if I want to see my History panel, I just go ahead, and there it pops up from the More button, where there are more panels.0468

Let's start at the left: the layers are open; you can actually close them, if you want; I don't suggest that, because I use them all of the time.0493

I'm in and out and working in the Toolbox and the panels, right and left, all the time, and I use the shortcuts for pretty much everything that is up here.0504

Sometimes, I have to go up there; but I want the panels right where I can see them.0515

All right: the next one is the Effects panel, and I'm going to pop open this image, right here, and we're going to hit the Effects panel.0519

Under the Effects panel, there is a great deal of filters--not every filter that you have; you have more filters under the Filter menu itself--but these are frequently-used ones that you use a lot, and they are really easy to use.0529

It's just a one-button click to apply it.0545

Let's go find...I don't know what this is; it's a custom filter, whatever it is; we'll hit it; it didn't do much--and undo it; let's try this one; oh, I see why it's not doing it to the image; we're on a different layer!--we're on the background layer.0547

Over to the Effects; now we can hit it!--and you notice that it changed it.0563

So, you have all of these filters that you can apply, just simply by clicking, and you can apply them more each time (wow, that's kind of cool!) you click it.0568

They are there, under the filters, and there is a whole host of them right here.0578

Styles, underneath the Effects--these are your commonly-used styles: for example, the Layers menu--you see the image of the car is floating above the background; I could put a drop shadow on it by just clicking on Drop Shadow.0584

There it is; but that is not all.0602

If you go to the right, you see the gear; I click the gear, and I can adjust the lighting direction; I can adjust the size; I can make all sorts of adjustments to the effect that I just put in.0604

Notice, I have increased the size and dimension of the drop shadow; so that is what that is for.0619

Under the Filter menu, by the way, they are also still there; let's just play with that bas relief again, and click that, and it's back to the same one.0628

OK, it's only giving you the same one for the styles; I didn't realize that one myself.0637

Styles is the gear; filters--even though the gear is still there, it will be just adding a style to that.0643

Then you have the Effects menu, which are one-button for all sorts of stuff--we have faded photos, frames, monotones, colors, old photo, vintage photo...0650

Let's try Vintage Photo; that has to be somewhere, and you also can just hover over.0661

Here is an old photo; let's double-click; and that came up kind of cool, didn't it?--that's really nice!--wow, look at that--I like it!0668

And we'll just undo (Command/Control+Z); so you have all of these effects, styles, and filters, along with the gears that will give you the style settings.0676

For the drop shadows: glows, bevels, strokes, and drop shadows and lighting angle...0689

All right, that takes care of the Effects panel.0694

The Graphics panel has a gazillion (I'm going to show--I think they are all there; Show All Graphics) things that you can apply graphically; there are actually more than that--oh, OK--I want to Show All--and there is everything!0698

These are--when you are making graphic designs or scrapbooking, there are textures and backgrounds and colors and patterns and items--little embellishments that you can add to your things.0718

There are also type embellishments; there are frameworks...all sorts of stuff; photo corners; basically, this is kind of for scrapbooking kind of stuff.0733

When we get down here, these are also embellishments that you use in standard graphic design, as well, but most of it is for the kind of scrapbooking and cool stuff--a lot of cool stuff in there, though!0742

That is your Graphics panel.0754

The Favorites panel: if you have favorites that you use a lot--filters, in other words--you can drag them off into this panel, and it will add it as a favorite.0756

Let's try one; I'm going to go ahead and take the (let's see...style...effect...where was the old one?) and drag it down and see if I can do this--drop it on the Favorites--no, it's not going to do it.0764

There is another way to do that; I'll talk about that when we get to this panel in detail.0782

OK, so you have your Layers panel, Effects panel, Graphics, and Favorites; and by the way, if you click them a second time, they will always close.0786

All right, that takes care of the four basic ones; under the More button, we have more panels: Info, Navigation, History, Color Swatches, Histogram, and Actions.0795

To make any of these panels (you can move them around wherever you want) longer, pull; shorter--it will go all the way up to where the list is.0807

All right, to make them close, either hit the X or simply hit the More button again; and again, all of the panels are under here.0818

Now, I'm going to show you the last thing here--how to customize and arrange the panels the way you would like them for your work.0827

Me--I love the Layers panel; I use that all the time; but under the More, if you look at the little dropdown arrow to the right, here are the panels that are in the More button.0836

When we click it up, there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; and we'll close it, and they're also right there; Custom Workspace will take all of the buttons except the More button and put them in a tab line across the top (just like in Photoshop Elements 10).0849

I use layers; I use effects; I don't use the graphics very often, so I'm just going to close it up by pulling it out and grabbing the tab; I'll close it up with the X, and that takes care of that.0865

The Favorites--I don't use that very often, either--I can also close it by going to the Window menu and hitting it.0878

Now that is closed; I have Layers and Effects together; I'm going to open up the More.0884

I use the Info panel; I'm going to grab it by its tab and drag it out; I also use the History panel, and I don't use the rest of them, so I will take the History panel (first, I'm going to close these by--oops, I didn't want it to go there--stop; close it; close up the rest of them), and I have the History and Info.0890

Now, I could put them in a group with the Layers and Effects by simply grabbing it by its title bar, above the very top bar, and dragging it into the window until you see--if I go and put, until I see a line to the left; see the blue line on the left?--it will put it to the left.0911

That really doesn't work, so we'll take it away.0930

I want to put it in line with the others: I move inside, move up, and you see a blue bounding box all the way around the Panel Bin (anyway, there it is; I hope you can see it); I let go, and now it's tabbed up with the other panels--Layers, History, and Effects are together.0933

But, I can do something else here: I can take my Info panel, and I can pull it down to the very bottom until I see a line down there.0951

You see the blue line?--I release, and now it's below the other ones.0960

I think I'll take the Effects and move that down with the Info; there is the bounding box for the second part, and now I have a different setup.0964

There they are, all ready to go.0976

I can also hit the More, and the rest of them come out; this custom workspace will stay until I decide to take it away by going back to the basic workspace.0980

It won't go back and (let me see if Command+Z would put it back--it won't--it only works on the image)--I would have to re-create that.0992

But, that is how you arrange it for a custom workspace.0998

So, we have taken a look at the Taskbar, at the Photo Bin, at the Panels Bin, basic and custom workspaces, and arranging and sizing panels.1003

That takes care of all of the items inside the Editor workspace.1014

Starting with the next lesson, we're going to get down to working on images in Photoshop Elements Editor.1019

I will see you back in the next lesson!1025