Horsing Around with Photoshop Elements

Now that I have gotten well enough to sit a while at my desktop computer, I am teaching myself some more new tricks on Photoshop Elements. I am using multiple sources of information, including those that I discussed in a couple of June posts.
One web site that I recently discovered is Jessica Sprague, who specializes in digital scrapbooking. She offered a free online class for photo editing techniques for frame-ups and special effects, and I signed up to try it. I am more than halfway through the series of online videos for the class and have learned several new techniques. In addition to informative videos, her courses include some text instructions and digital support files for download. I believe that it would be best to have a little bit of Photoshop Elements experience before signing up for one of her online classes.
I have previously delved into creating altered photos by adding a textured layer. Some of you may remember the photos that I shared in my March 7, 2009, post for a photo challenge. Jessica Sprague’s class had me again venturing into this territory, this time using multiple texture layers on one image.
How cool is this? In my digital library, I had this image of one of my horse neighbors…

And I transformed it into this antiqued image within a few short minutes!

Another web source I have found very helpful is Rick Peterson’s Essential Photoshop Elements. I found this fellow’s site through Twitter. It includes useful handy tips, tutorials, and instructive videos. His information has aided me already. For example, I didn’t know about Element’s “magic extractor” tool. But I followed his video and was able to put the knowledge to use immediately. The web site is relatively new and Rick is adding more features to it on a regular basis. If you are new to using Photoshop Elements, make sure that you visit his web site!