How time flies when you're...well busy!

Since my last post we have moved, and my husband has come home.  Life has been crazy!  With my scraproom still in boxes I haven't done much crafting.  I have however, taken quite a few pics of my boys enjoying our new house.  So I decided to post a Photoshop Elements Tutorial on my new favorite editing trick!

Have you ever had a photo that you wanted to use for a layout, but couldn't get it to crop right because the elements you wanted were too far apart in the photo?  That is how I felt about this picture.  I loved my son in this pic and you really need to see the remote control car for context.  But I hated all the space in the middle.

Enter the recompose tool in Photoshop Elements!  By using a few easy steps you can shrink your photo to the size you want without distorting your favorite parts.

Open your picture in the full edit screen.  I would make any color adjustments to the photo at this point in the process.

Click on the recompose tool in your toolbar on the left hand side of the screen.  It looks like a gear with a yellow box around it.

At the top click on the green brush with a lock on it.  When you use this brush you can protect the parts of your photo that you don't want distorted.

I marked my son and his car with the green brush.  I want those two components of the photo to stay the same.

Then choose the red eraser at the top for any items that you want removed during the recomposition process.  It is hard to tell in this screen shot but I want the fire hydrant removed so I marked it red.  Be sure to cover the whole thing so that no pieces of it are left behind in the final photo.

Then click on an edge and begin to drag your photo to the desired dimensions.  I wanted this to be a 4x6 photo so I took it down to 6 inches in width.  Notice that in the middle of the photo the grass and driveway have shrunk.

When you click the checkmark to verify the photo is how you want it Photoshop will begin to recompose the photo.

I then cropped the photo down to the 4x6 size that I wanted.

And the end result is a much more visually pleasing photo.  And much easier to scrap!  :)





Here are a few of my other favorite shots from that day of play.

To find out more about how to brighten blue skies and greenery check out how to use the Smart Brush Tool.

Here's to hoping that this tutorial will help you swing for the fences on your next editing attempt!