Photoshop® Elements 8 All-in-One For Dummies®

Chapter 1. Specifying Resolution and Changing Image Sizing

In This Chapter

• Understanding image attributes

• Sizing images

• Scaling images

• Setting print and screen resolutions

• Changing the canvas

When you open a picture in Photoshop Elements, you're looking at a huge mass of pixels. These pixels are tiny, colored squares, and the number of pixels in a picture determines the picture's resolution. This relationship between pixels and resolution — important to understand in all your Elements work — relates to creating selections (as we explain in Book IV, Chapters 1 and 2), printing files (Book IX, Chapter 2), and sharing files.

This chapter explains some essential points about resolution and image sizes, especially in terms of how these aspects affect how you end up modifying your images.

Examining Images Closely

Files you open in Elements are composed of millions of tiny, square pixels. Each pixel has one, and only one, color value. The arrangement of the pixels of different shades and colors creates an illusion for your eyes when you're viewing an image onscreen. For example, you may have black and white pixels arranged in an order that creates the impression that you're looking at something gray — not at all those tiny black and white squares.

Just about everything you do in Elements has to do with changing pixels. You surround them with selection tools to select what appear to be objects in your ...