You can do thousands of interesting things with Elements that are beyond the scope of this book. The Elements Inspiration Browser and Help menu give you access to dozens of interesting tutorials right from within Elements. Also, bookstores have loads of titles on Elements and Photoshop, and a lot of tasks are the same in both programs. And you can find all kinds of specialized books on everything from color management to making selections to scrapbooking.
In addition, you’ll find hundreds of tutorial sites on the Web. Besides those mentioned earlier in this chapter, other popular sites include:
Adobe (www.adobe.com). You’ll find plenty of free online training for Elements here, and you can get to a lot of it from the Help menus in the program itself.
Photoshop Roadmap (www.photoshoproadmap.com). This site has tutorials and plug-ins for Photoshop, but there’s a big section of Elements tutorials, too.
Photoshop Support (www.photoshopsupport.com/elements/tutorials.html). Despite the name, this site isn’t run by Adobe. It has a whole section of Elements tutorials.
YouTube (www.youtube.com). Yep, that’s right: You can find videos about almost anything on YouTube, including lots of Elements tutorials.
Photoshop Elements User (www.photoshopelementsuser.com). This is the website for a subscriber-only print newsletter, but it includes some free video tutorials, a forum, and a good collection of links. This is the only publication specifically for Elements. Their forums, the most active ones out there for questions about creative projects in Elements, are hosted at www.elementsvillage.com.
Graphic Reporter (http://graphicreporter.com). The website of Photoshop maven Lesa Snider includes many well-written Elements tutorials.
LVS Online (www.lvsonline.com). This site offers popular, inexpensive online courses in Elements (the same ones that used to be hosted at www.eclecticacademy.com).
If you search around online, you’re sure to find a tutorial for any project you have in mind. Although many of them are written for Photoshop, in most cases, you can adapt them for Elements. If you get stuck or need help with any other aspect of Elements, there’s an active online community that will have an answer for you. Besides the sites already mentioned, try:
Adobe Support forum (http://forums.adobe.com/community/photoshop_elements). This is the official Adobe Photoshop Elements User-to-User forum. It’s your best bet for getting answers without calling Adobe support.
Digital Photography Review (www.dpreview.com). This site has a bunch of camera-specific forums. You can also get a lot of Elements answers in the Digital Darkroom forum if you specify in your question that you’ve got Elements rather than Photoshop.
RetouchPRO (www.retouchpro.com). The forums here cover all kinds of retouching and artistic uses of Elements and Photoshop. They also host frequent webcasts about digital imaging.
Photoshop Creative Elements (www.photoshopcreative.net). Another forum for Elements enthusiasts.
Many sites are devoted to scrapbooking using Elements. A good place to start is Scrapper’s Guide (www.scrappersguide.com), a commercial site run by Linda Sattgast.
No matter what you’re looking for—add-ons, tutorials, communities—try a Google search, and you’ll no doubt find a site that has what you want.
There’s no question about it: Once you get familiar with Elements, it’s addictive. Lots of other folks have found out how much fun this program is, so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding the answer to any question you have.
The only limit to what you can do with Elements is your imagination. Enjoy!
If you’d like to learn how to add Layer styles, shapes, and actions to Elements, head to this book’s Missing CD page at www.missingmanuals.com/cds for the lowdown.