chuck snyder

Emma, that's a 'Yes' on the Magnetic Lasso. On the question of Fade, if
you're talking about the capability in big Photoshop to Edit>Fade, the
answer is 'No' - not available in Elements. If there's something else you
mean by Fade, please let us know and we'll tell you what can be done with
Elements.

Chuck

chuck snyder

Bob, I have the original Hidden Power tools from the book, plus one labeled
More Hidden Power. Fade isn't in either of those; is there another set I
should be downloading? Thanks

Chuck

roberthjones

Yep, that's it.

Looks like I'm slightly "out of sync" today. <g> But, that's ok.

Bob

chuck snyder

Bob, I think I found it - sitting in an unzipped download on my desktop
(HPA3).

Chuck

roberthjones

Emma,

Elements does indeed have the magnetic lasso.

It does not have fade but that is not a big deal. I wouldn't let that stop
you from considering purchasing Elements. If you do want a fade effect,
Richard Lynch has a free add-on package for Elements that includes a fade
effect along with other useful tools.
http://hiddenelements.com/freetools.html

Bob

chuck snyder

No, Bob, I think it's I who's out of sync - had the file on my desktop for a
long time and probably had asked myself, 'What IS that??"

:-)

Chuck

chuck snyder

Bob, thanks for the tip on Fade being in the Hidden Elements tools; I missed
that. I'm not sophisticated enough to use it, I guess!

Chuck

mark reibman

Would someone like to tell me or show me what you can do with 'fade'?

susan s.

Mark - fade is a photoshop command you can use after running a filter - if you decide that the effect is a bit too strong you can fade by a particular percentage. You can also fade to a particular blending mode. It is equivalent to running a filter on a duplicate layer and then reducing the opacity/changing the blending mode - except you have to decide in advance to do this whereas the PS command lets you decide after the event. The fading to a lower percentage will have subtley different effect to running the filter at a lower setting.

My favorite use for fade(using Richard's implementaton for Elements - hit fade after running a filter and it goes back in history to create the extra layer with the filter effect on it) is to run USM, hit fade, and then fiddle with the opacity and change the blending mode to darken - it gives only the darker part of the increased contrast around edges and for some subjects - eyelashes, tree branches against blue sky, I find the haloes are less obvious. If you try PS tutorials there are a few which use the fade command and this allows them to be followed more exactly.

My favorite new tools in HPA3 are the shadow/highight masks - useful in conjunction with a levels adjustment layer for quick and efficient opening up of underexposed shadows.

Susan S

richard coencas

If you are not using Richard's tools and want a simple workaround to get something similar to a fade command (not exactly, but still a useful thing to do) is to try this:

Duplicate your layer. Apply filter to the duplicate. Adjust the opacity of the duplicate layer. This gives you the ability to make a filter more subtle. Often use this with a gaussian blur to soften an image with a lot of control.

Rich