Computer Info – August 14, 2002

 

This Week’s Meeting

            Creating photo pages in PhotoShop Elements. –  look at copying information from a DOS window to the clipboard so that it can be pasted into an email message or a Word document.  And question and answer. 

            It looks like John Watkins will be here for the meetings on August 21st - August 28th and September 4th.

 

Making Photo Pages in PhotoShop Elements

            Start with a blank sheet  Start with a blank sheet  (FILE – NEW ).  For printing on a 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper, I make the size 7.8 inches wide by 10.2 inches high.  Remember when you are placing text or pictures on this sheet that you do not have to allow for any margins.  You can see that our sheet is already smaller than the 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper – so you can place any of your information all the way to the edge.  Be sure to set the resolution to 300 – the mode to RGB color.

            Find your pictures Now open a picture that you would like to place on this blank sheet  (FILE – OPEN ).  This, of course, is one of the hardest steps – locating the picture.  Once the picture is opened – you can then crop it or select only a portion of it.

            Crop  To crop it – locate your CROP tool.  It is the third tool down in the left column of the tools.  With this tool chosen, draw a box around the portion of the picture that you want to use.  When you have the area chosen, then double-click with the left mouse button in the center of the area – this will make the rest of the picture disappear.

            Select   Determine if you want to place the entire picture on your blank sheet or just a selected area.  To choose the entire picture, choose SELECT – ALL.  This will place a dotted marquee around the entire picture.  To select only a portion of your picture (like the zebra toward the front of your picture and not the animals in the background) – then on the tools, choose the LASSO (second icon down on the left column) and draw around the object to be chosen leaving a nice margin between the object and your lasso.  When you are finished, you will see a dotted marquee surrounding the object.  It is much nicer to soften the edges – so you should FEATHER them.  To do this, choose ( SELECT – FEATHER ) then type in an amount (probably in the range of 10 to 20) then click OK.  You will not see anything different until your selection is moved or copied and pasted.

            Copy & Paste  Next we copy it  (EDIT – COPY ).  This will just copy the area that has been selected.  Before you choose the PASTE command, you must click on your blank sheet to make it the active sheet.  Now you can choose paste  (EDIT – PASTE ).  Your object should now appear on your blank sheet. 

            Moving your object and resizing it  To move your object on your page, use the MOVE tool – this is located on the tools – top right.  Place your cursor on your page, hold the left mouse button down – and you will be able to move your picture to the desired location.  If your picture is too large or too small, you can resize it – you will notice the handles on your picture that you can use to adjust the size.  REMEMBER – IT IS BETTER TO ONLY USE THE CORNER ADJUSTMENTS – AND BE SURE THAT YOU HOLD THE SHIFT KEY DOWN WHEN DOING THIS.  The reason for holding the SHIFT key down, is to maintain the aspect ratio to keep your object proportional.

             Layers  Once you have placed a second object on your sheet,  choose the MOVE tool – each tool’s options are shown  on a menu bar at the top of the screen.  For the MOVE tool, you can place a check-mark in the box next to AUTO SELECT LAYER.  This allows you to simply click on the picture that you now want to move (say the picture on layer one).  The other method is to actually work with the layers.  To see what is on each layer, choose  ( WINDOW – SHOW LAYERS ).  This will open up the layers window.  In order to move an object that is on the first layer, click on that layer in the layer window.  Then when you move your cursor back to your sheet that you are working on, it will be the object that is on your first layer that will move.  Use this method to go back and forth between the layers.

            Move object to the back or front  Sometimes you will find that your pictures are overlapping each other.  This might be the result that you are trying to achieve.  But, maybe you would prefer to have the picture you are working on – to be the picture that is in the front.  To change this, choose  ( LAYER – ARRANGE ) – from there you can send your picture to the FRONT or send it to the BACK.

            Text  It is always nice to title and date your page of pictures – maybe place a few comments or descriptions by some of the pictures.  To do this, choose the TEXT tool.  Click on your page where you would like the text to start.  Set the FONT and FONT SIZE for your text.  You can even create WARPPED TEXT  (arc, wavy, perspective, etc) -- then type in the text that you want on the page.  Once you have placed your text, you can use the MOVE tool to re-position it.  You will notice on your LAYERS window, that the text has become a layer of it’s own.  Every time that you add text, it is placed on another layer.

            Saving your work  When you have finished with your photo page, it is time to save it.  Choose FILE – SAVE AS.  You can save it as a PSD if you still wished to edit the photo page – because the layers are still maintained.  A photoshop format is a very large file.  If you are finished with it, you can save it as a JPG.

 

Copying from DOS to Windows

            Do you run the PAF genealogy program and would like to copy some of your information in order to send it via e-mail?  This program PAF (Personal Ancestral File 3.01) is a DOS version. 

            Open (Run) your PAF program and bring up the information that you would like to copy.

            If your program is being run in the full screen mode, then press ALT-ENTER to make the screen into a window format.  Click on the small box in the upper left of the window – this will produce a drop-down menu.  Choose EDIT – MARK.  You will notice a small yellow box in the upper left corner of the window – use your arrow keys to move the little box to the location that you want to start copying information.  Hold down the left mouse button and move your mouse to the bottom of the area that you want copied – this will highlight the area.  Release the mouse button and PRESS ENTER.  The information has now been copied to the clipboard.

            Open your email program – create a NEW MESSAGE.  Place your cursor where you want to place the data – click on EDIT – PASTE.

 

            This method will work for most DOS programs – and is a way that you can copy a directory.