What Kind of Photo Editing Software Do You Need?
Best Video Software for the Mac How To Run MacOS High Sierra or Another OS on Your Mac Best Graphic Design Software the Mac Stay Safe with Best Free Password. Layer based photo editor for. In fact, with the release of 2.8, Gimpshop has become preferred software for photo & image editing among more professionals than ever. Layers, channels, masks, filters, levels, advanced pattern matching—the remarkable feature list of Gimp is equal to Photoshop in every way except one: the price.
Whether you merely shoot with your smartphone or you're a professional photographer with a studio, you need software to organize and edit your photos. We all know that camera technology is improving at a tremendous rate. Today's smartphones are more powerful than the point-and-shoots of just a few years ago. The same can be said for photo editing software. 'Photoshopping' pictures is no longer the exclusive province of art directors and professional photographers. Whether you're shooting from an iPhone XS or a DSLR, if you really care how your photos look, you'll want to import them into your PC to organize them, pick the best ones, perfect them, and print or share them online. Here we present the best choices in photo editing software to suit every photographer, from the casual to the professional.
Of course, novice shooters will want different software from those shooting with a $50,000 Phase One IQ3 in a studio. We've included all levels of PC software here, however, and reading the linked reviews will make it clear which is for you. Nothing says that pros can't occasionally use an entry-level application or that a prosumer won't be running Photoshop, the most powerful image editor around. The issue is that, in general, users at each of these levels will be most comfortable with the products that are intended for them.
Note that in the table above, it's not a case of 'more checks mean the program is better.' Rather, it's designed to give you the quick overview of the products. A product with everything checked doesn't necessarily have the best implementation of those features, and one with fewer checks still may be very capable, and whether you even need the checked feature depends on your photo workflow. For example, DxO Photolab may not have face recognition or keyword tagging, but it has the finest noise reduction in the land and some of the best camera- and lens-based profile corrections.
Free Photo Editing Options
So you've graduated from smartphone photography tools like those offered by Instagram and Facebook. Does that mean you have to pay a ton for high-end software? Absolutely not. Up-to-date desktop operating systems include photo software at no extra cost. The Microsoft Photos app included with Windows 10 may surprise some users with its capabilities. In a touch-friendly interface, it offers a good level of image correction, autotagging, blemish removal, face recognition, and raw camera file support. It can even automatically create editable albums based on photos' dates and locations.
Apple Photos does those things too, though its automatic albums aren't as editable. Both programs also sync with online storage services: iCloud for Apple and OneDrive for Microsoft. With Apple Photos, you can search based on detected object types, like 'tree' or 'cat' in the application (Microsoft Photos now offers this feature, too). Apple Photos also can integrate with plugins like the excellent Perfectly Clear, appeasing power users who lament the company's discontinuation of the prosumer-level Aperture program.
Ubuntu Linux users are also covered when it comes to free, included photo software: They can use the capable-enough Shotwell app. And no discussion of free photo editing software would be complete without mentioning the venerable GIMP, which is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It offers a ton of photoshop-style plugins and editing capabilities, but very little in the way of creature comforts or usability. Other lightweight, low-cost options include Polarr and Pixlr.
How to Edit Your Photos Online
In this roundup, we've only included installable computer software, but entry-level photo shooters may be adequately served by online photo-editing options. These are mostly free, and they're often tied to online photo storage and sharing services. Flickr (with its integrated photo editor) and Google Photos are the biggest names here, and both can spiff up your uploaded pictures and do a lot to help you organize them. They even approach the two entry-level installed programs here, but they lack many tools found in the pro and enthusiast products. The latest version of Lightroom CC includes a good deal of photo-editing capabilties in its included website, too. Other notable names in web-based photo editing include BeFunky, Fotor, and PicMonkey.
Image Editing for Enthusiasts and Prosumers
Most of the products in this roundup fall into this category, which includes people who genuinely love working with digital photographs. These are not free applications, and they require a few hundred megabytes of your disk space. Several, such as Lightroom and CyberLink PhotoDirector, are strong when it comes to workflow—importing, organizing, editing, and outputting the photos from a DSLR. Such apps offer nondestructive editing, meaning the original photo files aren't touched. Instead, a database of edits you apply is maintained, and they appear in photos that you export from the application. These apps also offer strong organization tools, including keyword tagging, color-coding, geo-tagging with maps, and in some cases face recognition to organize photos by what people appear in them.
At the back end of workflow is output. Capable software like Lightroom Classic offers powerful printing options such as soft-proofing, which shows you whether the printer you use can produce the colors in your photo or not. (Strangely, the new version of Lightroom CC—non-Classic—offers no printing capability at all.) Lightroom Classic can directly share photos to sites like Flickr and SmugMug. In fact, all really good software at this level offers strong printing and sharing, and some, like ACDSee and Lightroom, offer their own online photo hosting.
The programs at the enthusiast level and the professional level can import and edit raw files from your digital camera. These are files that include every bit of data from the camera's image sensor. Each camera manufacturer uses its own format and file extension for these. For example, Canon DSLRs use CR2 files and Nikon uses NEF. (Raw here simply means what it sounds like, a file with the raw sensor data; it's not an acronym or file extension, so there's no reason to capitalize it.)
Working with raw files provides some big advantages when it comes to correcting (often termed adjusting) photos. Since the photo you see on screen is just one interpretation of what's in the raw file, the software can dig into that data to recover more detail in a bright sky, or it can fully fix an improperly rendered white balance. If you set your camera to shoot with JPGs, you're losing those capabilities.
Enthusiasts want to do more than just import, organize and render their photos: They want to do fun stuff, too! Editors' Choice Adobe Photoshop Elements includes Guided Edits, which make special effects like motion blur or color splash (where only one color shows on an otherwise black-and-white photo) a simple step-by-step process.
Content-aware tools in some of these products let you do things like move objects around while maintaining a consistent background, or remove objects entirely—say you want to remove a couple of strangers from a serene beach scene—and have the app fill in the background. These edits don't involve simple filters like you get in Instagram. Rather, they produce highly customized, one-off images. Another good example is CyberLink PhotoDirector's Multiple Exposure effect, which lets you create an image with ten versions of Johnny jumping that curb on his skateboard, for example.
Most of these products can produce HDR effects and panoramas after you feed them multiple shots, and local edit brushes let you paint adjustments onto only specific areas of an image. Affinity Photo has those features, but its interface isn't intuitive, and it lacks management and lens profile corrections. Capture One, Paintshop Pro, and Lightroom have those and even more precise tools for local selections in recent versions. For example they let you select everything in a photo within a precise color range and refine the selection of difficult content such as a model's hair or trees on the horizon.
Professional Photo Editing Software
At the very top end of image editing is Photoshop, which has no real rival. Its layered editing, drawing, text, and 3D-imaging tools are the industry standard for a reason. Of course, pros need more than this one application, and many use workflow programs like Lightroom, AfterShot Pro, or Photo Mechanic for workflow functions like import and organization. In addition to its workflow prowess, Lightroom offers mobile photo apps so that photographers on the run can get some work done before they even get back to their PC. Those who need tethered shooting (taking pictures in the software from the computer while it's attached to the camera) may want Capture One, which is offers lots of tools for that along with its top-notch raw-file conversion.
Photoshop offers all and more of the image editing capabilities in anything mentioned above, though it doesn't always make producing those effects as simple, and it doesn't offer a nondestructive workflow, as Lightroom and some others do. Of course, some users with less-intensive needs can get all the Photoshop-type features they need from other products in this roundup, such as Corel PaintShop Pro. DxO OpticPro is another tool pros may want in their kit, because of its excellent lens-profile based corrections and unmatched DxO Prime noise reduction.
Photoshop is also where you find Adobe's latest and greatest imaging technology, such as Content-Aware Crop, Camera Shake Reduction, Perspective Warp, and Detail Enhancement. The program has the most tools for professionals in the imaging industry, including Artboards, Design Spaces, and realistic, customizable brushes.
Another advantage of pro-level photo editing software is that you can take advantage of third-party plug-ins such as the excellent Nik Collection by DxO. These can add more effects and adjustments than you find in the base software. They often include tools for film looks, sharpening, and noise reduction.
Some users have taken umbrage at Adobe's move to a subscription-only option for Photoshop, but at $9.99 per month, it hardly seems exorbitant for any serious image professional, and it includes a copy of Lightroom, online services like Adobe Stock, and multiple mobile apps. It definitely makes the app more affordable for prosumer users, too, when you consider that a full copy of Photoshop used to cost a cool $999.
If you're an absolute beginner in digital photography, your first step is to make sure you've got good hardware to shoot with, otherwise you're sunk before you start. Consider our roundups of the Best Digital Cameras and the Best Camera phones for equipment that can fit any budget. Once you've got your hardware sorted, make sure to educate yourself with our Quick Photography Tips for Beginners and our Beyond-Basic Photography Tips, too. That done, you'll be ready to shoot great pictures that you can make better with the software featured in this story. Click the links below for to read the full reviews.
Best Photo Editing Software in This Roundup:
Adobe Photoshop CC Review
MSRP: $9.99
Pros: Multitude of photo correction and manipulation tools. Slick interface with lots of help. Tools for mobile and web design. Rich set of drawing and typography tools. 3D design capability. Synced Libraries.Cons: No perpetual-license option. Premium assets aren't cheap. Interface can be overwhelming at times. Lacks support for HEIC.Bottom Line: Adobe continues to improve the world's leading photo editing software. The 2018 edition adds a new auto-select tool, raw camera profiles, loads of font and drawing capabilities, and support for the Microsoft Surface Dial.Read ReviewAdobe Lightroom Classic Review
MSRP: $9.99
Pros: Excellent photo management and organization. Camera and lens-based corrections. Brush and gradient adjustments with color and luminance masking. Face detection and tagging. Plug-in support. Connected mobile apps.Cons: Although improved, import is still slow. Initial raw conversion is slightly more detailed in some competing products.Bottom Line: Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom remains the gold standard in pro photo workflow software. It's a complete package, with top-notch organization tools, state of-the-art adjustments, and all the output and printing options you'd want. Read ReviewAdobe Photoshop Elements Review
MSRP: $99.99
Pros: Many powerful image-manipulation tools. Strong face- and geo-tagging capabilities. Excellent output options. Auto-tagging and powerful search options. Helpful guidance for advanced techniques.Cons: Large disk footprint. No HEIF support on Windows. No chromatic aberration correction or lens geometry profiles. Lacks many social sharing outputs. No local help system.Bottom Line: Adobe Photoshop Elements, our favorite consumer-level photo editor and organizer, adds AI-powered auto-curation, an open closed eyes tool, and new Guided Edits. Read ReviewDxO PhotoLab Review
MSRP: $129.00
Pros: Clear interface. Best-in-class noise reduction. Excellent autocorrection based on camera and lens characteristics. Haze remover. Geometry corrections. Powerful local adjustments.Cons: Few workflow tools. Highest noise-reduction setting can require long waits.Bottom Line: Though it's still not a complete photo workflow solution, DxO PhotoLab can deliver image results beyond what's possible in other photo software.Read ReviewCorel PaintShop Pro Review
MSRP: $79.99
Pros: Photoshop-like features at a lower price. Powerful effects and editing tools. Tutorials. Good assortment of vector drawing tools. Cons: Interface can get cluttered. Ineffective chromatic aberration removal. No face or object recognition. No Mac version.Bottom Line: Corel continues to add new photo editing possibilities to its PaintShop Pro software, making it a worthy Photoshop alternative at a budget-conscious, one-time price.Read ReviewCyberLink PhotoDirector Review
MSRP: $99.99
Pros: Friendly yet powerful interface. Effective noise reduction. Cool multiple-exposure and faux HDR effects. Body shaper and other powerful editing tools. Layer support. Cool AI styles. Tethered shooting support.Cons: Not enough lens-profile corrections. Inadequate chromatic aberration correction. No geotag maps. Bottom Line: Photo workflow and editing program CyberLink PhotoDirector offers a smooth interface and powerful capabilities. New in this version are multiple-exposure effects, more layer options, and a video-to-photo tool. Read ReviewPhase One Capture One Pro Review
MSRP: $299.00
Pros: Excellent raw file conversion. Pleasing interface. Fast import. Good photo-adjustment toolset. Keyword tagging tool.Cons: Some usability quirks. No online-sharing features. No face recognition. No panorama or HDR merging capabilities.Bottom Line: Phase One Capture One offers pro and prosumer digital photographers excellent detail from raw camera files, and local adjustments including layers, but it trails in organization tools.Read ReviewACDSee Photo Studio Professional Review
MSRP: $99.99
Pros: Full set of image editing tools. Good performance. Lens-profile-based geometry correction. Face recognition and geotagging. Good skin-improvement tools. Responsive performance. Cloud storage integration. Cons: Interface not as polished as others. Lens-profile-based image correction tools less effective than the competition's. Weak noise and chromatic aberration tools.Bottom Line: ACDSee's pro-level tool offers many powerful photo organizing and editing tools, but it falls short of competitors in raw camera file conversion and usability.Read ReviewExposure Review
MSRP: $149.00
Pros: Pleasing interface. Lots of nifty effects and filters. Fast image transfer. Layers and local adjustments. Good printing options.Cons: No auto-correction tools. Weak lens-profile corrections. No chromatic aberration correction. No face or geo-tagging.Bottom Line: Photo-workflow application Exposure is similar to Adobe's Lightroom. It boasts lots of filter effects, but it's missing some key capabilities, such as automatic image correction.Read ReviewSkylum Luminar Review
MSRP: $69.00
Pros: Pleasing interface. Good automatic photo fixes. Lots of filters. Local adjustments with brush and gradients. Curves. Multiple workspaces and catalogs.Cons: Some speed and reliability issues on Windows. No Library search. Some standard controls are buried. No face recognition or keyword tagging.Bottom Line: Skylum Luminar offers effective automatic photo enhancement, a modern interface, and some unique filters and adjustment tools. Its organization capabilities, however, fall short of the competition's.Read Review
Best Photo Editing Software in This Roundup:
Adobe Photoshop CC Review
MSRP: $9.99Pros: Multitude of photo correction and manipulation tools. Slick interface with lots of help. Tools for mobile and web design. Rich set of drawing and typography tools. 3D design capability. Synced Libraries.Cons: No perpetual-license option. Premium assets aren't cheap. Interface can be overwhelming at times. Lacks support for HEIC.Bottom Line: Adobe continues to improve the world's leading photo editing software. The 2018 edition adds a new auto-select tool, raw camera profiles, loads of font and drawing capabilities, and support for the Microsoft Surface Dial.Read ReviewAdobe Lightroom Classic Review
MSRP: $9.99Pros: Excellent photo management and organization. Camera and lens-based corrections. Brush and gradient adjustments with color and luminance masking. Face detection and tagging. Plug-in support. Connected mobile apps.Cons: Although improved, import is still slow. Initial raw conversion is slightly more detailed in some competing products.Bottom Line: Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom remains the gold standard in pro photo workflow software. It's a complete package, with top-notch organization tools, state of-the-art adjustments, and all the output and printing options you'd want.Read ReviewAdobe Photoshop Elements Review
MSRP: $99.99Pros: Many powerful image-manipulation tools. Strong face- and geo-tagging capabilities. Excellent output options. Auto-tagging and powerful search options. Helpful guidance for advanced techniques.Cons: Large disk footprint. No HEIF support on Windows. No chromatic aberration correction or lens geometry profiles. Lacks many social sharing outputs. No local help system.Bottom Line: Adobe Photoshop Elements, our favorite consumer-level photo editor and organizer, adds AI-powered auto-curation, an open closed eyes tool, and new Guided Edits.Read ReviewDxO PhotoLab Review
MSRP: $129.00Pros: Clear interface. Best-in-class noise reduction. Excellent autocorrection based on camera and lens characteristics. Haze remover. Geometry corrections. Powerful local adjustments.Cons: Few workflow tools. Highest noise-reduction setting can require long waits.Bottom Line: Though it's still not a complete photo workflow solution, DxO PhotoLab can deliver image results beyond what's possible in other photo software.Read ReviewCorel PaintShop Pro Review
MSRP: $79.99Pros: Photoshop-like features at a lower price. Powerful effects and editing tools. Tutorials. Good assortment of vector drawing tools.Cons: Interface can get cluttered. Ineffective chromatic aberration removal. No face or object recognition. No Mac version.Bottom Line: Corel continues to add new photo editing possibilities to its PaintShop Pro software, making it a worthy Photoshop alternative at a budget-conscious, one-time price.Read ReviewCyberLink PhotoDirector Review
MSRP: $99.99Pros: Friendly yet powerful interface. Effective noise reduction. Cool multiple-exposure and faux HDR effects. Body shaper and other powerful editing tools. Layer support. Cool AI styles. Tethered shooting support.Cons: Not enough lens-profile corrections. Inadequate chromatic aberration correction. No geotag maps.Bottom Line: Photo workflow and editing program CyberLink PhotoDirector offers a smooth interface and powerful capabilities. New in this version are multiple-exposure effects, more layer options, and a video-to-photo tool.Read ReviewPhase One Capture One Pro Review
MSRP: $299.00Pros: Excellent raw file conversion. Pleasing interface. Fast import. Good photo-adjustment toolset. Keyword tagging tool.Cons: Some usability quirks. No online-sharing features. No face recognition. No panorama or HDR merging capabilities.Bottom Line: Phase One Capture One offers pro and prosumer digital photographers excellent detail from raw camera files, and local adjustments including layers, but it trails in organization tools.Read ReviewACDSee Photo Studio Professional Review
MSRP: $99.99Pros: Full set of image editing tools. Good performance. Lens-profile-based geometry correction. Face recognition and geotagging. Good skin-improvement tools. Responsive performance. Cloud storage integration.Cons: Interface not as polished as others. Lens-profile-based image correction tools less effective than the competition's. Weak noise and chromatic aberration tools.Bottom Line: ACDSee's pro-level tool offers many powerful photo organizing and editing tools, but it falls short of competitors in raw camera file conversion and usability.Read ReviewExposure Review
MSRP: $149.00Pros: Pleasing interface. Lots of nifty effects and filters. Fast image transfer. Layers and local adjustments. Good printing options.Cons: No auto-correction tools. Weak lens-profile corrections. No chromatic aberration correction. No face or geo-tagging.Bottom Line: Photo-workflow application Exposure is similar to Adobe's Lightroom. It boasts lots of filter effects, but it's missing some key capabilities, such as automatic image correction.Read ReviewSkylum Luminar Review
MSRP: $69.00Pros: Pleasing interface. Good automatic photo fixes. Lots of filters. Local adjustments with brush and gradients. Curves. Multiple workspaces and catalogs.Cons: Some speed and reliability issues on Windows. No Library search. Some standard controls are buried. No face recognition or keyword tagging.Bottom Line: Skylum Luminar offers effective automatic photo enhancement, a modern interface, and some unique filters and adjustment tools. Its organization capabilities, however, fall short of the competition's.Read Review
Do you edit your digital photos using layers? If not, you're missing out on the single most powerful tool in your photo editing repertoire. Layers may seem baffling at first, but they're not hard to use—and they permit all sorts of powerful digital editing tricks.
You can use layers to combine photos, create double exposures, achieve special effects like selective color in a partly black-and-white image, and even correct a shot's exposure or color balance.
What Layers Do
Imagine taking two photos and laying one on top of the other. You can't see the one on the bottom, of course. But suppose that you could make the top photo somewhat transparent, so that the other photo showed through. That, in a nutshell, is the concept of layers.
In most photo editing programs, you can add as many layers as you like, and you can vary the opacity of each layer: The lower the opacity, the more readily visible the underlying layers will be. A layer can be composed of almost anything. You can layer two different photos, or two copies of the same photo. A layer may even be a solid color. You usually control your layers by working with a Layer Palette, such as this one in Adobe Photoshop Elements.
Add a Layer
There are lots of ways to use layers to add two photos to a project, but let's begin with a simple method. I'll describe how the process works in Photoshop Elements, but the technique translates to many other photo editors as well.
To add a new layer to any image in Photoshop Elements, select Layer -> New -> Layer from the top of your screen (or press Shift-Command-N) and click OK in the New Layer dialog box. To combine images, start by opening two photos in Photoshop Elements. You'll see them in the Project Bin at the bottom of the screen, but only one will be in the workspace at a time. Your first task is to copy the image in the workspace: Press Command-A to select the entire photo, and then press Command-C to copy it. Next, double-click the other photo in the Project Bin to make that image appear in the workspace. Press Command-V to paste the copied image. It will automatically appear on its own new layer, and that layer will appear on top of the original photo in the Layer Palette. Your workspace will show the new image, but fear not: The other photo is still there, underneath.
Do Basic Editing with Layers
In the Layer Palette, you should see two images in different layers. You can toggle the top layer off and on by clicking the eye icon to the left of the top layer. To vary the transparency of the top layer so that the bottom photo shows through, select the top layer (by clicking it in the Layer Palette) and then adjust the Opacity control.
You can also change the position of the layers. If you decide that you want the bottom layer on top, just drag it there. There's just one catch: By default, the original bottom layer is locked as the background layer (that's what the padlock icon means). Before you can move it, you must promote the layer. To do that, double-click the bottom layer and then click OK in the New Layer dialog box. Now you can drag the bottom layer above the top layer to switch their position.
Use Color Selectively
Now let's try making a photo with selective color: Most of the photo will be black-and-white, but it will also contain a splash of color. Open a photo in Photoshop Elements, select the photo with Command-A, and copy it using Command-C. Choose File -> New -> Image From Clipboard. At this point, the Project Bin should show two identical color images; we'll convert one of them to black-and-white. Choose Image -> Mode -> Grayscale. Select the image and copy it.
Double-click the color version of the image in the Project Bin to switch to it, then press Command-V to paste the black and white version of the image into a new top layer. Now let's add some color. Click the Eraser tool in the toolbar on the left side of the screen and start erasing. Use the Tool Options toolbar at the top of the screen to adjust the size of the eraser. Everywhere you paint with the Eraser, you'll see color bleed through from the bottom layer. For more control, choose the Smart Selection tool and select the area of your image that you'd like to appear in color. When you use the eraser, it will only erase within that selection.
Adjustment Layers
You can also improve your photos by using adjustment layers. Open the photo that you want to edit in Photoshop Elements. In the menu, go to Layer -> New Adjustment Layer to see a list of adjustment layer options.
To adjust your photo's exposure, you can use Levels (which lets you make histogram adjustments) or Brightness/Contrast. If you want to change the color saturation, or even bleach your photo so that it becomes a nearly monochromatic image, try Hue/Saturation.
In this instance, choose Levels and click OK on the New Layer dialog box. You will see the Levels histogram, which you can manipulate to improve the exposure of you photo.
Adjust the white point, black point, and gamma to your taste. For more infomation on how to use a histogram, read this article on tone and this article on color correction. When you're satisfied with the results, click OK. If this were a single-layer photo, you'd be done at this point; anything that you did to the levels would be baked into the original image. But that's where the magic of layers becomes evident: Our various manipulations so far haven't affected the original photo at all. As a result, you can now blend the original photo with the adjustment layer by using the Opacity control. Click Opacity in the Levels Palette and back off from 100 percent; when you reach a combination of the two levels that you like, stop.
Tricks for Manual Adjustment Layers
What if your photo editing program has some basic support for layers, but no 'adjustment' layers? Or what if there's no option for the kind of adjustment you'd like to make? No problem; doing it manually is easy. Suppose that you want to sharpen a photo, for example. There's no Adjustment Layer menu option for sharpening in Photoshop Elements.
Here's one way to perform this task: Open a photo and create a duplicate layer. Now, with the top layer selected in the layer palette, select Enhance -> Unsharp Mask and set the sharpness as desired. You might even want to oversharpen the photo a little, because afterward you can use the opacity slider to back it down until it's just right. Once you've made an adjustment like this in a layer, you can use selectively remove the effect from the image by using the Eraser tool. You might want to erase sharpening from people's faces, for example, while leaving their clothes and the background sharpened.
Punch Out the Subject With Magic Extractor
Another common way to use layers is to 'punch out' (that is, remove) the subject from one photo and insert it into another. The subject and the background, of course, will exist as separate layers. First, we'll use Photoshop Elements' Magic Extractor to do this the easy way. This feature lets you select the subject (the foreground) and the background; then it automatically punches out the subject for you.
Open a photo, and choose Image, Magic Extractor, or select the Magic Extractor. The Foreground Brush tool is automatically selected; you'll use this to identify your subject. It's important to mark regions that change color so the Magic Extractor will recognize that they're still part of the main subject. When you're done highlighting the subject, click the icon for the Background Brush tool and paint sections around the subject to indicate the parts of the photo you don't need. If you make a mistake, use the Point Eraser tool to undo any unwanted marks. When you think you've adequately marked your photo, click Preview. You can continue painting with the foreground and background tools if necessary, and make corrections with the eraser. When you're done, click OK, and the subject will appear on its own. From here, you can copy it into another photo or add a custom background to it.
Pluck Out the Subject With Basic Selection Tools
If you have an older version of Photoshop Elements (one that lacks the Magic Extractor) or another program altogether, you'll need to isolate the subject by hand. As long as your image editor has some sort of selection tool, though, you can get similar results.
In older versions of Photoshop Elements, activate the Magnetic Lasso tool, and then choose a small feather value (the higher the photo's resolution, the more feathering you'll want). Next, click on an edge of your subject and slowly move the tool along the edge. The 'magnetic' property of the tool will snap the selection to the edge as you go. At certain points, you may need to click to lock in a key point, especially around sharp curves or areas of low contrast. If you make a mistake, press the Delete key. When you get all the way around, double-click to close the selection. Choose Edit -> Copy, and then choose Layer -> New -> Layer Via Copy. You'll have a new, blank layer containing your selected subject.
Best Mac Photo Editing
Drop the Subject Onto a New Background
After you've isolated your subject from the background—by using a feature like Magic Extractor or some other selection method—it's time to add it as a new layer to a different photo.
To begin, open the photo that you want to transfer the subject to. If you're using Photoshop Elements, you should see both images in the Project Bin at the bottom of the screen. Switch to the first photo—the one with the extracted subject—and click the Hand tool, (the third icon from the top of the toolbar). Press Command-A and Command-C to select the whole image and to copy it to the clipboard. Then switch to the other photo and press Command-V. The subject should appear as a new layer in the photo. Because the two photos might be different in size or scale, you may need to grab the copied photo by a corner handle and resize it until it looks right. Afterward, you can tweak the photo using other layer effects until the image is perfect.
This story, 'Basic photo editing tricks with layers' was originally published by PCWorld.
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