Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 Part A

I am doing a software tutorial with Virtual Training Company on Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 and am doing a series of software tutorial blog posts on what I learn from it. I have quite an old computer which won't run any of the more recent versions of Elements. One of the big new features in Elements 9 is the layers mask where you can protect part of the picture from an effect you are applying to a picture. Many of the features in Elements 9 only work with 8 bit pictures which is fine if you work with JPEG's but might limit you with other work. JPEG's are ideal with internet use. TIF's are ideal for printing. RAW files have to be converted for Elements using Adobe Raw Converter which is a free program. Note every model of camera has a unique type of RAW file although they do store all the information about a photo although they aren't an unprocessed format despite the name. Some people confuse dpi with ppi the former being dots and the latter being pixels. There can be upto 16 dots to one pixel and dots refers to a printer and pixels refers to a camera. If you have a poor printer you will have poor prints regardless what camera you use. There is a company at http://datacolor.com that do a spyder range of color calibration software including ones for home cinemas and they do basic models for around $99. When you consider how much high end home cinemas and computer monitors are they are a good investment and it's nice to know the color you see on the screen is the color that will be printed out on your printer. If you are considering buying a digital camera consider visiting http://dpreview.com where they have a database of just about every model and give you unbiased information in detail. In Elements 9 an interesting feature is photomerge which can do either a style merge where it takes the style from one picture and applies it to another photo. There is also panorama where several photos of different but consecutive images of a place can be merged. It generally works best with photos without too much detail or contrast and only works in 8 bit mode. Photoshop has a much more powerful panorama generator. Generally it is best with both both these versions not to let the computer fill in the blank space left by the merge and instead crop it otherwise it might look unreal. I will be trying to do this series daily.