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Adobe Photoshop Elements Tutorials – How To Hand Tint A Digital Photo

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There are a variety of tutorials for Adobe Photoshop Elements, from beginners to advanced with both text and video tutorials that will help any Adobe Photoshop Elements user learn the workings of this complex photo editing software. This blog releases weekly Adobe Photoshop Elements Tutorials that will help you get started with learning this creative software.

If you want to make your photos fabulous all you need to do is add a bit of hand tinting and you can turn something ordinary into something extraordinary. Whether you want to add a bit of color to a black and white photo, alter colors in your existing colored photo, or even put some black and white into your colored photos you can create masterpieces worthy of an art gallery.

Before you begin working on your photo I recommend you create a copy of it first so your first step is to open the photo in your software program then choose file and save as to give it a new name. Also, to save time, I recommend you save your work to your desktop so you can easily find it when you are finished working on it.

Open up the layers palette and drag the photo background layer to the copy icon, forming a new copy of your photo on a different layer and then hit "Target" select this new layer and press SHIFT+CTRL+U to remove the color from the digital photo. Finally hit CTRL+L to bring up the "Levels" dialog.

Something to remember is to hit "Auto" to see what your image looks like and then play with it from there. To darken shadows use the Black slider more to the right; to brighten the highlights you can move the White slider to the left; when this is finished you can click OK.

Now select the eraser tool, using a soft round brush set at round 5-10% opacity and about 30 pixels breadth. While bearing in mind that you are trying for a soft, transparent look you can begin to erase the areas on your photograph where you would like to see a bit more color. If you make a mistake, or erase too much, remember that you can use the Undo, or Ctrl+Z button at anytime to get back what you accidentally erased.

Now increase your brush size to enhance the areas where you would like more color and finally you can either merge all of the layers or simply flatten and then save your beautifully hand-tinted digital photo.

Adobe Photoshop Elements Tutorials - Tools And Upgrades In Adobe Elements 7