Layers: How to lable them; Layer Opacity; Undo History Palette; Shadows using "Brute Force"; Linking, Hiding, and Grouping Layers; Tools & Options; Keyboard Shortcuts; Menu items; Saving a file for print

In the first part of the lesson we did some layer playing using painted dots. We practiced using the Eraser and the Lasso tools to eliminate some of the dots. To take us back to where all the dots were before we erased them, we used the Undo History Palette. Next,we added some texture to the dots on a second layer. To "clean" them up we made a selection, then the inverse of the selection and hit Delete.

Once we had our dots restored we linked the dot and smudge layers, and learned how to hide a layer in the process. Then the fun part - making shadows using "Brute Force" where we made a new layer, dragged it below the dots layer, selected the dots, then flood filled the dots on the layer beneath the dots layer. To see the "Shadows" we used the Move tool to reposition the layer and then lowered the opacity after adding some Gaussian blur. That was a lot of explanation for this image:

In the next part of the lesson we covered Image Resolution and the importanct of using a higher resolution on images that are to be printed. This discussion also covered file types, in this case, PSD, TIFF, JPG and GIF. To demonstrate the effect of a higher resoution on an image we used our "youcandothis" image from week 1 and increased the resolution from 72ppi to 300ppi, shown below:

For the final part of the lesson we were to create a photo collage using our own or family photos to commemorate an individual or a family. I chose to use my own photos commemorating the start of a new family - of ducks. My offices are located in a complex with a duck pond. I'm fortunate in that one of my offices overlooks the pond. Each spring one of the ducks makes her nest just under my bathroom window, within the protection of a wooden fence. The morning after Mother's Day the eggs began to hatch. I jumped in my car to come home and get my camera. It's only a short distance, 1/2 mile, but up a rather steep hill. When I got back the first one had hatched and was napping. It then woke up and waited for the others to break through.

In all, five of the six eggs hatched, though the mama waited most of the day for the sixth one to hatch. Around 4:30PM she tapped that remaining egg, got back on the nest for a bit, and then by 5:30PM she had relocated her brood of five ducklings to a new location closer to the pond. They do this so they can get them in the water and keep pushing their necks downward to teach them how to eat that wonderful stuff that lurks there. Of course they also eventually learn that the management feeds them daily as do many of the people who work there, as well as visitors to the complex.

OK, enough of the duck lesson and on with how I created the collage. I used the Lasso tool with a feather of 5 as I drew around each of the images in the three photos I used. Then I inverted the selection and hit delete. With the selection still active, I used the bounding box to resize the image and then copied it and pasted it to a new layer in the collage. I adjusted the size by again using the bounding box. Each of the duck photos is on a separate layer. Since I'd re-sized each of the photos I also applied an unsharp mask to each. The text is all on separate layers. The only text not done in Elements is the one containing the copyright symbol as I could not get that to work! Then again, I see that working with text is on the lesson for next week. So, I did that part, as well as the border in PSP 9. For the background I flood filled with a pale color taken from the ducklings. Then I added some Noise, and then a Filter - though I can't remember which one - and then I added some Texturizer.

Good lesson, Janee! I'm looking forward to next week and learning more about working with text in Elements.