Exporting Work, Sharpening, and Plug-ins

Having successfully navigated the often-complex world of advanced editing and illustration using Photoshop Elements, this chapter is all about setting up those images to achieve the best results when exporting your work to online resources, to print or into a third party software application called a plug-in.

To start this chapter, we look at uploading image files to various social media sites and blogs: Instagram, Facebook, and Flickr. We'll also cover the complex subject of printing to an inkjet printer, dealing with the often confusing printer page setup, as well as how to maximise image quality online while maintaining fast download speeds using the Save for Web feature. We also take a look at various ways to enhance image sharpness, before looking at the fascinating opportunities offered by third party applications called plug-ins.

Finally we look at Elements' Export as New Files feature as well as its amazing auto batch...

Exporting Work, Sharpening, and Plug-ins

Having successfully navigated the often-complex world of advanced editing and illustration using Photoshop Elements, this chapter is all about setting up those images to achieve the best results when exporting your work to online resources, to print or into a third party software application called a plug-in.

To start this chapter, we look at uploading image files to various social media sites and blogs: Instagram, Facebook, and Flickr. We'll also cover the complex subject of printing to an inkjet printer, dealing with the often confusing printer page setup, as well as how to maximise image quality online while maintaining fast download speeds using the Save for Web feature. We also take a look at various ways to enhance image sharpness, before looking at the fascinating opportunities offered by third party applications called plug-ins.

Finally we look at Elements' Export as New Files feature as well as its amazing auto batch...

Posting online: web and blogging

Online display is typically 72 dots per inch (dpi), a standard resolution for everything online. Since this is a fixed number, the more pixels there are present in the file, the larger, physically, it will be displayed.

However, most websites (and blogs) have a finite size for displaying images, which is partly impacted by the design intent, the speed of the internet connection, and storage space, but, ultimately, by the company offering the service. I use Google Blogger, which is free. It offers several image display sizes, topping out at only 640 pixels wide for the largest image view—at the default of 72dpi.

So, if the resolution (number of pixels) in your file exceeds the number needed to display an image at its best, it's essentially pixels wasted. Extra pixels don't add quality and may well slow the onscreen display—and potentially turn your audience off.

If you use a commercial site, such as Google Blogger ...

Posting online: Facebook

According to Facebook guidelines, high-resolution images can be as large as 2,048 pixels (wide). This dimension will produce the best visual result—even if Facebook's automatic compression algorithms, which are added to every upload, are heavier than most people might be comfortable with. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do about the compression level. If the images don't look as good as you hoped, try re-editing them and upload them again—this only takes a few minutes. Facebook is the world's largest repository of images; so, with something like 300 million images uploaded every day, I'm surprised that its compression algorithms aren't more aggressive.

One typical method of reducing the resolution of an image that is destined for posting on a personal website or social media would be to use the Image Size tool (Image>Resize>Image Size). This is fine for one or two images, but tedious if...

Posting online: Instagram and Flickr

As another ever-growing repository of image and video data, Instagram recently increased its standard image resolution requirement to 1,080 pixels per square inch. It's not much, considering the original resolution of most cameras is 24 million pixels or more, but this has been an attempt to keep up with the ever-higher screen resolutions coming onto the market. When I first started writing about imaging technology, a 17-inch screen was a big deal. Now, if it's not 22, 24, or even 30 inches wide, it's considered old technology. 4K and 5K screens are pretty much standard, with higher-resolution 8K screens just around the corner.

As one of the world's largest image resources, Flickr is ever-changing in terms of its online resolution requirements. Currently, you may still upload high-resolution files to this site, but you can elect to set the online display resolution of those files to a maximum of 2,048 x 1,463 pixels, should...

Inkjet printing: general features

Elements is well equipped for print output if you have access to a laser printer or an inkjet device (note that photo-quality inkjet printers will always produce better photographic quality than laser printers). If you have spent time resizing your images to fit your favorite paper sizes, then it's an easy process to choose Print>File>Print and send the data to the printer. As a bonus, Elements allows you to queue multiple files for printing. If you forgot to load an image into this queue, it's easy enough to add (and subtract) images at a later date.

To get an idea of both its capabilities as well as its complexity, the following screenshots illustrate the various steps needed for a regular home print, plus all of the many options it includes. Let's go over these now:

Above: This is the Elements Print panel for Windows. I think it is overly complex, confusing, and poorly designed. There are too many windows...

Images online: Save for Web

Photoshop Elements comes with a feature called Save for Web (File>Save for Web), a slightly simplified legacy feature that was passed down from Adobe Photoshop. You would use this feature to specifically fine-tune image output so that it performs optimally on web-based media, such as blogs and websites. Note that although this is an excellent process for perfecting web-bound images, uploading to some social media sites might produce a slightly different quality because those sites (such as Facebook and Instagram) might apply additional manipulation, particularly with regard to file compression, but also in relation to maximum permissible file sizes. It's easy enough to test this.

Before you start using this feature, it's probably best to reduce your files to a reasonably manageable size before fine-tuning with Save for Web. For most web applications, if the file's longest edge is 1,000 or 1,200 pixels, this is a perfectly sufficient...

The Sharpen tools: Unsharp Mask

We looked at the sharpening process in Chapter 3, The Basics of Image Editing, but I think it's worth going over some of the more important points again to ensure that your output quality is perfect.

The regular Unsharp Mask filter from the Enhance menu has three sliders and a small preview window:

• The Amount slider is the amount of enhancement that's added to the edges of the contrast.
• The Radius slider controls how much attention is spread either side of the contrast edge.
• The Threshold slider has the effect of blending or softening the contrast edge.

If the Amount and Radius sliders are increased too much, the sharpening effect looks very gritty and unpleasant to the eye. Adding a Threshold amount will help to soften the overall result.

Unfortunately, the downside of using this particular filter is that it's not possible to control the unsharp mask. We can do this in the Camera R...

The Sharpen tools: Unsharp Mask

We looked at the sharpening process in Chapter 3, The Basics of Image Editing, but I think it's worth going over some of the more important points again to ensure that your output quality is perfect.

The regular Unsharp Mask filter from the Enhance menu has three sliders and a small preview window:

• The Amount slider is the amount of enhancement that's added to the edges of the contrast.
• The Radius slider controls how much attention is spread either side of the contrast edge.
• The Threshold slider has the effect of blending or softening the contrast edge.

If the Amount and Radius sliders are increased too much, the sharpening effect looks very gritty and unpleasant to the eye. Adding a Threshold amount will help to soften the overall result.

Unfortunately, the downside of using this particular filter is that it's not possible to control the unsharp mask. We can do this in the Camera R...

The Sharpen tools: Shake Reduction

As the name suggests, Shake Reduction (Enhance>Shake Reduction) is included in the sharpening toolbox and targets those pictures that are not 100% clear. I've always been a bit suspicious of tools like this because, let's face it, if the image is really unsharp, there's little we can do to reverse the problem. This tool allows you to select a portion of the image onto which shake reduction, a processor-intensive process, can be imposed (inset screenshot below). In the example shown here, I think it actually works well (improved on the right-hand side), but it won't work quite so well on all blurry images. Its efficiency depends on the degree of shake, and the area the problem covers in the file. But don't take my word for it—try it yourself and see whether it works on your images.

The Sharpen tools: Sharpen filters

Elements has several other places where it's possible to add sharpness to an image. This includes the Quick Edit mode, the Guided Edit mode, and the Adjust Sharpness control under the Enhance menu in the Expert mode. All three work well but can be a little heavy-handed, and, of course, somewhat lacking in control, which is one good reason to use the better-featured unsharp Mask or adjust sharpness tools.

General sharpening: Here are screenshots of two filters that you'll find in Photoshop Elements: the Sharpen feature (top) in the Quick Edit mode and, at the bottom, the Sharpen Photo panel, located in the Guided Edit mode.

Adjust Sharpness feature: I rarely use any of the auto sharpen filters because they don't offer much control. Even the Sharpen feature in Guided Edit mode is quite aggressive and hard to temper without the luxury of a mask. But if you want...

The Sharpen tools: Sharpen filters

Elements has several other places where it's possible to add sharpness to an image. This includes the Quick Edit mode, the Guided Edit mode, and the Adjust Sharpness control under the Enhance menu in the Expert mode. All three work well but can be a little heavy-handed, and, of course, somewhat lacking in control, which is one good reason to use the better-featured unsharp Mask or adjust sharpness tools.

General sharpening: Here are screenshots of two filters that you'll find in Photoshop Elements: the Sharpen feature (top) in the Quick Edit mode and, at the bottom, the Sharpen Photo panel, located in the Guided Edit mode.

Adjust Sharpness feature: I rarely use any of the auto sharpen filters because they don't offer much control. Even the Sharpen feature in Guided Edit mode is quite aggressive and hard to temper without the luxury of a mask. But if you want...

How a plug-in works:

Once the plug-in has installed correctly, restart Elements and test it. Open a suitable photo (this image was snapped in the nocturnal house at a local wildlife park—it was so dark I had to boost the ISO way past my normal comfort zone to ISO12,800, so the noise in the image is very pronounced!

Step 1: Open the image, then, from the Filter drop-down menu, click the name of the appropriate plug-in to start it. In this example I'm using the Denoise plug-in from Topaz Labs.

Step 2: Once the plug-in is started you lose sight of Elements and work within the plug-in software itself. Denoise has a range of presets: RAW, Standard, Clear, and Severe Noise, all of which can be further modified if needed. Some plug-ins have hundreds of possible processing combinations, making it tricky to decide on which is best. In this case you can usually save your own favourite combination as a preset to use later.

...

Exporting work: Export as New Files

Resizing images one at a time in order to upload them to Facebook, Instagram, or another social media site is one technique that works well for a few images at a time. But if you have a lot of material you'd like to resize, and need it done fast, the Organizer's Export New Files tool might be your best option.

It has many advantages. You can export a lot of images to a specified location, add a common name to all exports, change the file format, and even choose a specific image dimension. It takes around 2 minutes to export 200 images—so it's fast.

As you can see from the preceding screenshot, this feature is handy because it works right out of the Organizer (there's no need to open images in the editor first). It also allows you to add more to the Export as New Files window if you missed a few, then all that's needed is to change to the preferred file format (such as PNG or TIFF), choose a desired...

Exporting work: Process Multiple Files

I don't think Actions (prerecorded edit processes that can be played on a batch of other files) in Photoshop Elements is a very strong feature, because every action recorded originates from Photoshop CC (you cannot record actions in Elements). The ones that come with Elements work (there are 20 in all) but if you download any of the thousands available online, they might not work because its toolset is quite different. Have a look for yourself—you'll find the Actions panel under the Window menu (as shown in the following screenshot).

Process Multiple Files, on the other hand, works brilliantly for many automated editing operations. For example, you can use it to change the file format, reduce the file size, and add unique names to files. And, as its name might suggest, you can use it to process a couple of files, or a few hundred in one go. Provided that it's set up correctly from the outset, you'll find...

Keyboard shortcuts

Here are a few handy keyboard shortcuts that fit nicely with the topics we discussed in this chapter:

• Export as New Files: Ctrl/Cmd + E.
• Change resolution and image size: Image>Resize>Image Size or Alt/Opt + Ctrl + I.
• Change Canvas Size: Image>Resize>Canvas Size or Alt/Opt + Ctrl/Cmd + C.
• Copy, resize, name, and format change images in bulk: File>Export as New Files (Organizer).
• Copy, resize, name, add tone changes, file format changes, add a copyright stamp, and export in bulk: File>Process Multiple Files.
• Send the current image to a local printer: File>Print or Ctrl/Cmd + P.
• Optimize the image for best online web display: File>Save for Web or Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S (PC) and Opt + Shift + Cmd + S (Mac).
• Open non-RAW files in the Camera RAW editor: File>Open in Camera RAW or Alt/Opt + Ctrl + O.
• Used in conjunction with a layer blend mode to make image sharpness pop: Filter>Other>High Pass.
...