Photoshop Elements 9: The Missing Manual

Chapter 15. Creating Projects

If you’re into making scrapbooks, greeting cards, or other photo concoctions, Elements is perfect for you. You can dress up your pictures in all sorts of creative ways without any other software. Elements is crammed with add-on graphics, frames, and other special effects; you can even create multipage documents.

Elements 9 includes a new, enhanced window for creating these kinds of projects. You get to pick between working in a simple mode where Elements only gives you options designed to work well with your chosen project layout, and working in a new Advanced mode where you have access to all the tools you can use in Full Edit. This chapter kicks off with an in-depth look at how to create a photo collage. Once you’ve got those steps under your belt, all the other projects (summarized starting on Photo Books) use the same basic method. You’ll also learn how to create photo books and calendars using Kodak Gallery and Shutterfly, Adobe’s online photo-printing partners.

Note

You can also create online albums (photo-filled web pages) and slideshows in Elements. You’ll learn all about those projects in Chapter 18.

Photo Collages

The Create tab (in both the Editor and the Organizer) helps you make fancy pages featuring your photos, which you can then share as either printouts or digital files. Although Elements gives you lots of preset layouts to start from, you can customize every aspect of them to create projects that are totally your own.

One type ...