Wandering Around The Family Tree

 Most genealogists I know have a collection of highlighters in various colors that we use on paper documents. And for those of us who use highlighters, going digital with our documents can be a problem.  Do we print and highlight? Do we print/highlight/scan to keep things digital? Or we can create the look of a highlighter (in any color we want) in Photoshop Elements.  To create a highlighter Open your document   Convert to RGB Colorspace If you are working with a black and white image, especially one downloaded from Ancestry or FamilySearch, you may need to convert your image to RGB to get colors to appear. Look at the tab with your file name in the upper left corner of the workspace. If it says Gray/8, your image is a grayscale image, and you need to convert it. From the Image menu > Mode > RGB Color Your image will convert to an RGB image. You can check by looking at the tab with file name and it should say RBG/8 instead of Gray/8. Make a new blank...

 Two of the most powerful tools in Photoshop Elements are the layers and masks. They allow you to make non-destructive edits to your image (in other words, you can try out changes without affecting your original image!). I was concerned if I just started having you use layers and masks it would be confusing. So, I decided to do a post explaining the basics of layers and masks. This may not make much sense as you read it, but I’m hoping it will make following directions in future posts easier. Layers One way to think about layers is imagine your original image (background layer) is a piece of paper at the bottom of a pile of papers. Each additional layer is another piece of paper that has instructions on how you want your final image to look. You can change the information on a layer at any time, you can delete a layer, you can rearrange the layers – all without changing your original image. When you have things the way you want them, just flatten the layers into the background ...

This is the first is an occasional series of blog posts on using Photoshop Elements 2023 for genealogists. Many of my genealogist friends know I'm also a photographer, so have asked me how I do some things with genealogy-related images. The problem is - I use Photoshop and Lightroom - which are probably overkill for most genealogists, and are a subscription-based package. I used to recommend Irfanview (and still do for some things) but I was finding it hard to do some of what I do in Photoshop in Irfanview.  So enter Photoshop Elements 2023 - it has more features than Irfanview but isn't as user-hostile as Photoshop can be. And it's available for purchase as a stand-alone package - no monthly subscription fees! If you want to buy a copy of Photoshop Elements 2023 - I suggest purchasing it through Amazon using the affiliate link for Cyndi's List. I use Photoshop Elements on a Windows computer so my instructions are for the Windows version. Mac version may be slightly dif...