Chapter 12: Free Form Photo Collages

Overview

Photoshop Elements 5.0 heralded a major change in the way that photographers created free form layouts and multi-page books. Version 6 continues the revolution with the refining of both these features, now called Photo Book and Photo Collage, and a complete revamp of the Photo Bin, now called the Project Bin, so that rather than just being a place to view open images it becomes a multi-purpose go to area for your project actions. I believe that these features provide photographers with new and powerful ways to use their images to generate create projects in ways that even Photoshop users can only dream of. So to get started let s look at some of the technology that underpins this new way of working.

Adobe has created a new layer type, Frame layers, a new file format, the Photo Project or PSE format, a new design system that uses special matched frames and backgrounds sets called Themes, created an updated version of the Photo Bin, called the Project Bin, a set of Photo Projects that makes use of all this new technology and, finally, a new Task Mode based layout workflow.

Sound confusing, well some of the features are new and some are continuations of technology from version 5.0, but once you begin to play with Photo Collages, the process seems so logical and familiar that it isn t long before you will start to feel at home with the new workflow. So to get you...