Going Right Back to Basics: Preferences

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I’m glad I showed you all how to make your thumbnails actually work for you. Now I think it might be worth it to walk through ALL the settings that might make your scrapping more fun, less frustrating and you more productive. So let’s talk about Preferences.

To make this tutorial as useful for beginners as possible, I reset all my Preferences back to the Elements defaults… which don’t work for me in any way. You’ll have to Edit Preferences when you upgrade to a more recent version of Elements, or when you change computers, so maybe bookmark this for the future. 😉 We’re going to work our way down the list.

These are the basic or General settings. You have control over what Elements will use as a Color Picker, the keys used for Undo/Redo (CTRL/CMD>Z and CTRL/CMD>Y) and a host of other options. You can change any or all of them, but be careful. If you change something you end up not liking, you might have trouble remembering what it was.

These are my preferences. As you may already know, I really don’t love Smart Objects, so I Disabled them. On the other hand, I DO like to have the Move Tool activated when I commit to my text so I can position it properly. A lot of people DON’T like that so here’s where you get to decide. The other settings depend on your level of comfort with your computer, what you’re used to with other software and how you manage your workflow. One tip I can offer is about Enable Soft Notifications. This setting will give Elements the ability to warn you if you’re making a mistake, but it can be a PITA when it keeps asking you if you’re sure you want to delete a layer or resize an element. Lastly, only click on that Reset Preferences on next launch, because it’ll literally put you right back on Square One. For EVERYTHING.

Saving Files is next. Here’s where you decide how much you want Elements to do automatically when you’re Saving a layout or a photo. The headings are reasonably self-explanatory. Remember that if you Save Over Current File, you’ll end up losing the original, and that’s not a good idea. Especially with heritage photos. Also pay attention to where the files are being saved. If you’re a folder person like I am, but sometimes open a template from its original folder, when you go to Save your finished layout, you might never find it again! Elements will put it in the template folder, not the layout folder. Don’t ask me how I know these things.

Here you can decide if you want to save your Image Previews. Consider how much storage you have when you make this choice.

This setting may not be one you care about at all… whether the file extension (JPEG, PSD, PNG) is in upper or lower case letters. Feel free to skip it.

I do think this setting matters though. I ALWAYS want to Maximize PSD File Compatibility.

Most of what happens on this screen will depend on your computer. Elements will analyze your your system and set defaults according to the size of your hard drive. Graphics use a LOT of hard drive resources. You can decide how much you want to sacrifice speed for utility. Personally, I like those 50 History States and 6 Cache Levels so that I can UNDO a ton when I’m working on these tuts! But for that I pay the price.

Most of you will have no idea what a Scratch Disk is, but you should know at least what they’re for. Most software needs somewhere to store temporary files created as it’s used. If you have multiple drives on your computer, you can opt to have your scratch disk go to whichever one is NOT your system drive. If you only have a single drive, like I do, there are no choices to be made.

The Display & Cursors menu gives you a lot of choice over how you see things while you’re working. You choose what your Painting Cursor, your Color Picker Cursor and your Crop Tool Shield look like.

I like crosshairs! When using the Color Picker, I want to choose the exact part of an image that I’m sampling, so my eyedropper is set to Precise.

Just in case you have trouble seeing what I mean, here’s a close-up.

Transparency is a term you’ll remember me using a lot. It’s an important aspect of digiscrapping.

Don’t let anybody tell you Size doesn’t matter! It definitely DOES. Your Transparency Grid should be visible but not intrusive. And Small is going to give you that. Think about the embellishments in your favourite kits. They all have white space around them that is filled with tiny gray squares, right? That’s how you know there’s nothing in the background, and that when you layer them with other embellishments, there won’t be any unnecessary junk in there.

You can also control what you see in living colour! If you’re content with gray, you’re good to go.

Okay, so this is one of my MUST-FIXes. Canada has been using the metric system since April 1, 1975. I was living in Minnesota then, and obviously, had gotten to my late teens using the good ol’ standard system of measures. Am I comfortable with metric measurements? Sure. But do I THINK in metric? Not usually! So my Units & Rulers can’t be metric.

<insert image that speaks for itself>

Type Units are a bit um… weird. I’m most comfortable with Points, but if you’re used to Picas, or would like a Pixel count, have at it.

Print Sizes isn’t really a choice that needs thought, considering most print processors in North America still function in inches.

For the digiscrapper, Photo Project Units is another meh! thing. But Print Resolution is an ESSENTIAL factor. Always have it set to 300 pixels/inch so you’ll have the crispest, sharpest prints possible. Home printers typically can’t produce that kind of resolution and they’ll tell you when you go to print at home. Shutterfly, Persnickety and Blurb though… they’ll give you great results. Screen Resolution at 72 pixels/inch is plenty.

We discussed Guides & Grids a few weeks ago, but a little refresher won’t hurt.

When you use a Guide, you might find the colour you’ve set isn’t really visible enough so don’t hesitate to change it. You’re the only one who will see it! I find cyan works well enough most of the time.

When visibility is the key, you’ll want to choose Lines – otherwise why bother?

For the longest time I had my Grid set to red but not any more. Again, if you find the colour you’ve chosen isn’t working, it’s easy enough to change on the fly. It’s not one of those settings you’ll have to hunt for.

<insert another image that speaks for itself>

See previous comments about units of measure.

In terms of where your Grid lines lie, the best choice is the one that makes sense for you. I like the notion of old-fashioned graph paper, with a heavy line every inch, divided by fourths. That lets me work without having to make any calculations. 😉

I skipped Adobe Partner Services, since the average Elements user who dabbles in photo editing and digital scrapbooking isn’t going to be bothered with those. But Application Updates needs attention. I HATE automatic updates. I want to consciously participate in updating my stuff. Too many times my laptop has restarted in the middle of the night and wiped out something I had open on my desktop. (Bad habit, I know.) I usually have Family Tree Maker open all the time and work on my branches when the notion strikes; it resents those improper shut-downs. Anyway, you do you here!

Omigosh! These might be the most important settings of all!! Type Options have a gigantic impact on the text parts of layouts. Smart Quotes drives me crazy, so it’s history. Asian Text Options lets you use the extra characters that come with some fancy fonts. And who doesn’t want a JUMBO Font Preview?

Enable Missing Glyph Protection came into play in more recent versions. If you see it, tick it! Who hasn’t been merrily journaling away with a cute font (like the free ones used for the Font Challenge) only to be punted into Myriad Pro when it’s time to add some punctuation? But if you have the option to Enable, you’ll get a gap where the punctuation would be and your font wouldn’t change. Then later you can choose a font WITH punctuation that coordinates with your original font so it looks intentional.

Lastly, Elements wants to know where you are so you can be directed to the correct Adobe website for things like help, updates and upgrades.

Now, since I reset everything so I could walk you through the Preferences menu, that means everything else was reset too. Where did my Layers Panel go?? There are at least 3 ways to access it. The easiest is to just click on the Layers button at the bottom right of the workspace. Another is Window>Layers and the third is a keyboard shortcut: F11.

I also like to have the Rulers there so I can align and resize things appropriately. That’s why the Rulers units matter… Click View>Rulers or CTRL/CMD>SHIFT>R to get them on the workspace.

View>Snap To can be useful, or a curse. For now I’ve got all the options set. Will it stay that way? Maybe.

The very last thing I recommend to beginners is to untick that Auto Select Layers box. Why? Because Elements is going to grab whichever layer your cursor is on, not necessarily the layer you’ve got active in the Layers Panel, and your next action might be something you really didn’t want to do. Or you can live dangerously.

Can you think of any settings you’ve customized that I haven’t touched on? Let me know!

Quick Trick: Layer Thumbnail Appearance

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I was looking through some previous tutorials and it occurred to me that I’d neglected a really simple thing that makes my life so much easier, and the screenshots for our tutorials easier to follow… Layer Thumbnails. I work on a 14″ laptop, backlit by 100 square feet of windows, and I have senior eyes, so I like those thumbnails to show me exactly WHAT’s on the layer at just a glance. I’m not so worried about WHERE it is on the layer. So the default Thumbnail settings (see below) really fail me. If you’re trying to work with the defaults and wish you weren’t, read on!

This is what I see when I’m scrapping. Those BIG Thumbnails are so helpful.

Go over the the upper right corner of your Layers Panel and click on the stack of horizontal lines. The menu that opens has a lot of options. We’re only concerned with one at the moment.

That option is all the way at the bottom of the list. Click on Panel Options…

Here are your Layer Panel Options. Click the biggest of the Thumbnail Size options. For Thumbnail Contents, click Layer Bounds. That tells it you only want to see the actual object on that layer. You don’t really need to see the Entire Document, do you? I mean, it’s right there on your canvas, right? Last, click on Use Default Masks on Fill Layers. Then your Layers Panel will look just like mine!

We finally got some much-needed rain last night and it has cooled off nicely with it, so I’m off to spread some mulch on my flowerbeds. See you next week!

Photo Edit: Plumb and Level

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I’ve been going through my sister’s Maritime vacation photos – I finally have all the ones I want to scrap in a folder on my laptop – and like most vacation albums, there are a number of local landmark photos. They’re important to the story, but especially if taken with a cellphone camera, buildings can look a bit off kilter, more like a pyramid, wider at the base with angled walls. Sometimes that affect is desirable because it gives a sense of the grandeur of the building. Other times it looks odd. But there’s an easy fix!

Let’s practice on this photo. Some of you will recognize it as the setting for Anne of Green Gables near Cavendish, Prince Edward Island. Built in 1831, it was originally the farmstead of David and Margaret Macneill, relatives of Lucy Maud Montgomery. She never actually lived in the house, but grew up nearby. The house is now a national historic site and has been carefully restored and renovated to more closely resemble Maud’s fictional farmhouse. You can expect to see a lot more of Green Gables over the next few months. 😉

The easiest, most accurate way to straighten up a tilted building is to use the Grid Tool. You’ll have seen me use the Grid in previous tutorials, but I’ve never really talked about it. So let’s do that. To access the Tool, click on View>Grid or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL (for Windows users)/CMD (for Mac users)>’.

The Grid can help with object positioning, scale, speed scrapping, pretty much anything that requires precision, and for architectural repairs.

I’ve always used a red Grid, with Guidelines every 1 inch and Subdivisions every 1/4 inch. But it’s not going to be as useful for this with these settings. To change them, Edit>Preferences>Guides & Grid…

Here, you can customize your Guides and Grid to your own liking. My Guidelines are solid lines, Subdivisions are dotted lines, which is the default. If you’d prefer to work with Dashed Lines or Dots for your Division type, set the Style accordingly. They will be harder to see than solid lines though. You can choose the system you prefer: Pixels, Inches, Centimeters, Millimeters, Points, Picas or Percent. Then choose how you’d like your Grid to look. I’ll change my colour to Black; you can use the Color Picker to choose a custom colour if you like.

That Grid looks a lot more helpful now. But before we start messing with adjustments, I want you to make a Copy Layer to work on so the original remains original. Right-click>Duplicate Layer…>OK or CTRL/CMD>J.

Now to do those architectural repairs… Distort will undo distortion! Remember I mentioned how I like Distort because it allows adjustments in multiple directions in one step. Image>Transform>Distort.

Looking at the photo, I knew I had to pull the upper left “handle” further left and down slightly to make the walls plumb, and the upper right “handle” up and to the left a bit to make the foundation level. The Grid lets me align those edges appropriately. If you find that your roofline is raised or lowered by your adjustments, that’s easily fixed too. Turn your working layer’s visibility off and pull a Guide down from the top edge of the canvas so it lines up with the roofline on the original. Then switch back to the working layer and shift the upper edge of your photo so the “new” roofline matches the old one. Don’t worry about those gaps; they’re going away.

Before I sort out the empty gaps, I’ll turn the Grid off by reversing the steps to turn it on. View>Grid or CTRL/CMD>’ .

First I Cropped the photo to clean up the right side. Then to tell Elements what I want to Fill, I used the Magic Wand Tool set to New. That way I can Select the gap with just a single click.

Next, Edit>Fill Selection.

Choose Content-Aware from the pull-down menu, set to Normal Mode and 100% Opacity.

There! The gaps are gone! Select>Deselect or CTRL/CMD>D to remove the marching ants.

That weird lighter arc from taking a photo through a car window will take a bit of fiddling to dampen. But overall, I like how it looks.

This is another little trick I expect to use a LOT now that I’ve taught it to you. Next week I’ll be shining the spotlight on all of you, with the monthly Challenge Spotlight. Which Challenge will I choose?