In The Garden

When I got together with my friend Michelle this past Saturday to go on a photoshoot, she dropped off a book and some magazines for me to look through to help with Photoshop Elements.  She had version 6, so these reading materials deal with that.  I have version 7, but she said there isn't much difference between the two so I should be able to use them.

I finally got around to going through the book a little bit today.  Since I've been trying my hand at black & white conversion, I checked out the section on that.  Boy, was I doing it "wrong".  All I had been doing was clicking on the "convert to black and white" option (at the top of the screen under enhance) and then playing around with sliders for adjusting colour, contrast, brightness, etc.

I am much happier with the technique I tried today - and I learned something new as well (the technique).  I follwed the step-by-step instructions and came up with the photo you see in this post.  It's probably not the best shot, or b&w converstion, but I like it.

The book I was following is called the photoshop elements 6 book for digital photographers (no capitals used in the title) by Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski.  It seems like a great book, and Michelle said it is an excellent tool to learn PSE.  She said it was expensive, but well worth having.  The magazines, which I haven't had a chance to look through much yet, are called Adobe Photoshop Elements Techniques.  I hope to get around to reading through those very soon.

Do you use Photoshop Elements (any version)?  If so, what's your favourite technique to use?