Are you looking for a challenge to kick start your creativity? Up for some fun (and maybe a laugh or two)? Well, if you’re game for trip to the lighter side of photography and post-production, you may find the following links right up your alley. From interesting poses to great post-processing, the following web links are devoted to the inner-kid-with-a-camera (and computer) in all of us. And, who knows? This journey might lead to some seriously inspired ideas to fuel your own efforts.

Oh, who am I kidding? It’s all about having fun.

• Tiny Street Art Project (create your own story)
• Kevin Kubota’s Laying Down Game (pose your friends)
• Dreams of Flying by Jan Von Hollenben (fun poses for kids)
• Rollercoaster Chess (how do they do this? I always close my eyes!)
• Flickr Group: Tell a Story in Five Frames (some really cool stories, here)
• Gizmodo’s 30 Impossible Scenes (lots of work, but fun results)

Masks are one of my favorite Photoshop Elements tools because they make it easy to control and correct adjustments. Long after you’ve saved a psd file, you can go back adjust a mask and make changes. This is because the original image data isn’t compromised with a mask. But to be honest, I’m a little lazy. I don’t like it when a masks requires too much work to create. I’d rather do anything else than create an intricate masking edge with tiny trees and other details.

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If you live in New York and are planning on attending PhotoPlus Expo this week, stop by to say hi to the gang from Photoshop Elements Techniques. We’ll be taking up a small corner of the onOne Software booth (#847), and would love to meet with any and all subscribers or fans of the magazine and the Web site.

The show runs from Thursday through Saturday, Oct. 28-30; it’s always a fun time.

This week, we’ve got two new videos from our good friend Dave Cross. The first one is a very neat technique for grunging up your portraits with Camera Raw. It won’t work with everything, but it’s yet another instance of how experimentation can be a great source of creativity and ideas. (It also reminded me a bit of Matt’s “Pseudo” HDR article from a couple of years ago in the magazine.)
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Spooky photographs of friends and family are a great way to decorate your haunt for the holiday. Plus, it’s another perfect excuse to play in Photoshop Elements (always a treat)! If anyone asks what you’re up to you can reply, “We need to decorate for Halloween.” After all, it’s not your fault that it just happens to be a lot of fun.

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If you’re like me, part of the fun of photography is in sharing the results. There’s something about showing someone else my images that makes them and my experiences more real. I guess that’s why I’m drawn to tips and tools on the subject.

From Mike Rodriguez’s demonstration of Photoshop Elements’ built-in features in Sharing Your Images with Others, to the various tools that make sharing possible, I’m a fan!

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Happy Friday, friends!

I hope you’re all having a nice October. It’s been lovely here in Portland: the skies are blue, the air is crisp, and the rain has only been at night.

I wanted to let you know that I’ve added a number of calendar templates to the site for our “Quick and Easy Calendars from Templates” article. You can download the files from that page, or you can find them on the 2011 calendar templates downloads page.

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Two of the site’s most popular articles last year were for calendar projects: Wendy Williams’ “Making a Single-Page Calendar,” and my “Quick and Easy Calendars from Templates.” I’ve been working on the new templates for my article, and should have some available online later this week, but I wanted to let you know that Wendy has posted here 2011 single-page template over on her blog.

Wendy’s calendar tutorial here is free for everyone to view and save, so enjoy!

Wendy has long been one of the most prolific — and favorite — authors on the site: you can find all of her articles on the site, via this link: www.photoshopelementsuser.com/tag/wendy-williams/

The most common questions (complaints, really) that we hear from new Photoshop Elements users is, “Why isn’t there a manual? And, why isn’t it in the box?”

We’re not Adobe, so we can’t answer the why, but we do tell people that Adobe does provide a solid help system for Elements. Plus, if you want something a bit more traditional, you can download a PDF of the full manual online. With the release of Elements 9, I thought it would be a good time to post the locations of the online help areas–which include links for downloading the PDFs for the most recent versions.
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I know it’s Sunday, but we’ve been busting our humps on a bunch of things related to the launch of Photoshop Elements 9, and I wanted to add a couple more videos to this week’s mix.
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Hi everyone. I want to let you know that Adobe has announced a new version of Elements. Photoshop Elements 9, which is available for Mac and Windows users, includes several interesting new features–as well as one very significant change for Mac users.

On the editing side of things, you’ll find that the Spot Healing Brush now offers a Content Aware option that attempts to erase unwanted objects by analyzing the surrounding image—whether it’s a rocky landscape or grove of trees—and guessing at what the missing background should look like. It’s a great timesaver for tasks like fixing torn photos or removing strangers. You’ll also find–finally!–true layer masks, which let you selectively hide or reveal part of any layer. That’s right, no more playing with workarounds like empty adjustment layers, which will make a lot of us very happy.

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I’m getting back in the swing of things after my trip to Eastern Oregon and Idaho. I had a blast, except for that one bad day of cold, torrential rain (thank heaven for heated grips and good rain gear). I got a couple of pix I’m happy with, like the one on the left (click here to see it a bit bigger), but so much of the beautiful scenery was only imprinted upon my brain, not my Compact Flash cards. Sometimes, that’s just the way it works. (If you’re interested, you can see a couple of my other images from the trip on my photo blog, 135f2.com.)

Now it’s back to work. Yesterday I uploaded a bunch of stuff related to the September/October issue, and just a little bit ago, I posted Corey’s latest video, a very cool technique on building a wall of words and clipping it into a photo. It’s a nice way to learn about clipping groups, and it can be a fun effect as the base of something else.
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The September/October issue of Photoshop Elements Techniques has started mailing to subscribers, and most readers in the U.S. should receive it in the next five or six days.

If you can’t wait, or like to keep your collection updated, you can download the issue as a PDF right now via the September/October magazine page. In addition, the sample files for Liz Ness’s “All Sewn Up” and Diana Day’s “Personalize Vintage Clip Art” are also available for download, and we’ve posted Diana’s two Web extra articles — Vintage Clip Art Resources and Additional Face-Swap Examples — for your reading pleasure.

Remember that we don’t control the Post Office, and that it can take up to four weeks to get your issue in the U.S. and Canada, and a little bit more time overseas. If you’re having problems with your subscription, we’re happy to help: just use our Contact Us page to drop us a note. We do our best to respond to questions within a day or two.

While Rick speeds his way across Idaho and Montana, I thought I’d share a great little tutorial I recently found: How to Photograph Silhouettes in 8 easy Steps.

I personally have lots of silhouettes in my photo library—sadly, most of them are the unintentional result of incorrect metering or forgetting to turn on my flash when the subject was backlit. But when done with a little forethought, silhouetted shots can make a strong statement. The trick is learning how to outthink your camera’s natural imperative to properly expose the subject. In this eight-step tutorial, Darren Rowse goes over the basics of setting up the shot and getting the right camera settings. I hope you find it inspiring!

Kelly

I’m packing for a week-long motorcycle ride into the wilds of Idaho, Montana and Eastern Oregon with my good buddy Ben, but, before I took off, I wanted to get Matt’s latest video up on to the site.

Getting a Bronzed Skin Effect shows you some different methods for adding that special toned look to your portraits, and it’s another great tutorial to help you get comfortable with layers. Even if you don’t like the look, you’ll want to watch, just to see Matt’s awesome tip for adjusting the opacity of a layer mask — it’s near the end of the video, and it’s pretty cool! (There’s also a cheatsheet for the video, check the “Related Links” section of the page.)

While you’re on the site, don’t forget to check out Matt’s previous video, Using Lens Flare as an Artistic Effect. Lens flare is one of those things we’ve been conditioned to think of as a ‘mistake,’ but there are definite times when it works. I know I try to get it in some of my shots, but Matt’s tutorial is yet another great technique for the digital darkroom.

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Our latest DVD, “The Best of Photoshop Elements Techniques, Vol. 4,” is now available, and we’ve put it on sale for $39.95 –$20 off its regular price — through Sept. 3.

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This week’s video — Adding Whimsical Scribbles to a Photo — is a fun one, and ripe for all sorts of experimentation. It’s also nice because it doesn’t take a lot of time to achieve a great effect. (There’s also a ‘cheat sheet’ with the video, listed in the download section of the page.)

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The dog days of summer are definitely upon us here in the Pacific Northwest and I’m about done with them; currently, it’s in the high 90s for the third time this summer. I know that’s standard-issue weather for a lot of you in the South and the Midwest, but one of the reasons I moved to Oregon was to escape the sticky weather of my youth.

Despite the weather, it’s been a nice month, with lots of company. My brother and his son came to visit for a week, and we had a lovely time taking him around the state (here’s a pic of them at Multnomah Falls, one of our must-see destinations in the Columbia Gorge; this week, a dear friend of my wife’s–from their high school and college days–has been visiting. They’ve also been doing lots of fun stuff.
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I just uploaded Matt’s latest video, Create a Reusable Photo Frame, which is a nice quick tutorial that will exercise your layer and Magic Extractor chops. There’s also a cheat sheet available in the Related Links section. Read more »

Here in Oregon, the summer finally kicked into gear over the past couple of weeks, although I’ve been so busy that I really haven’t had much chance to get out and shoot. I’m getting ready to take a few days to head out to the coast–my brother and his son are coming for a visit from Florida–but I wanted to get one last blog post out before I left town. Read more »