Photoshop® Elements 8 After the Shoot

Chapter 12. Adding Special Effects to Your Photos

Photoshop Elements 8 has a wide variety of tools for adding special effects to your photos, ranging from cool text to highly stylized filters that can be applied to all or only part of an image. Because it's impossible to cover all of the possibilities here, my goal is to introduce the main concepts and open the door to creative exploration. After you finish this chapter, be sure to go back and experiment with some of the tools you learn about. Knowing how to use them will add an extra dimension to your photography, enabling you to take your photos in previously unimagined directions.

Using the Type Tool

One of the most fundamental creative things you can do with a photo is to add type to it using the Type tool. For example, you can add a person's name to a photo or you can label important features about an object or place you've photographed.

The Type tool (T), which is ninth from the top of the single-column Toolbox, has four different Type tool styles stacked together, shown in Figure 12.1.

Figure 12.1. Figure 12.1

The first two tools in the stack enable you to create standard text horizontally or vertically. This text remains editable, enabling you to change its content, size, color, and so on, at a later date.

The next two tools are special type mask tools. You use them to create selections in the shape of type that can be used to cut ...