Photoshop Elements 12 All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 3: Adding Pizzazz with Styles and Effects

In This Chapter

Working with the Effects panel

Taking photo effects for a spin

Stylizing layers

Tweaking layer styles

After you have all the basic elements lined up in your layered composite image, you may want to give it a little pizzazz. Elements provides a lot of different effects that you can apply to enhance your images. Maybe a headline would pop out a little more if you beveled the edge, or maybe that silhouetted image would take on a little more dimension if you placed a drop shadow behind it. In this chapter, you find out how to do all these things.

Seeing What the Effects Panel Can Do

Elements has organized all its various effects in one neat panel. In the Photo Editor in Expert mode, choose Window⇒Effects, or click the Effects icon in the lower right of the workspace. On the right side of the Elements workspace, you see the Effects panel, shown in Figure 3-1. Buttons for the various categories of effects — Filters, Styles, and Effects — are at the top of the panel. Subcategories (or libraries) of Filters, Styles, and Effects ...