Newbie Old Old Guy

[PAtony]

What am I doing wrong???
I followed Lesa King's article 'Wide World of Filters'-Elements Techniques Vol 4 No. 7, but something is went wrong...maybe a couple of things.
I'm using Elements 4. I'm okay until the "Pres D" in STEP FIVE. Now, are we talking about the keyboard "D" or somewhere else??? And what for?? I don't do it all the time.
Second problem; The first three photos I did went off without a problem and I was very proud of myself until I started the foreth photo. Everthing was okay until STEP SIX. After that I can't get anything to work. Did I reset a button I shouldn't have?? I can't get it to unblur the central subject like it did in the first three photos.
HELP!!! I DON"T HAVE MANY MORE YEARS TO LIVE!!!

[Lesa]

I'm so very sorry that you're having trouble. Can you tell me what the article was named, as in, what technique? I did several called "Wide World of Filters" and can't find the darn magazine to look it up :)

That being said, pressing D will reset your color chips (which live at the bottom of the main Tools box) to the default of black and white.

[PAtony]

The title was "focusing on filters" in the step by step section. The magazine is falling apart from me going back and forth. I should have had the section laminated.
I can't believe someone (besides me) is actually up at Midnight and reading this forum.
PAtony

[Wendy]

Hi ...

OK .. now you have the press D sorted out :) lets look at the next problem.

For your image 4 just take a look in the layers palette and make sure that what you have in there looks like the image in Step 4.

Then make sure that black is your foreground colour (Just press D)
Now in the layers palette click on that white area in the middle layer (thats the mask itself). That will make sure that the mask is selected.

... Then paint on your main image

Hopefully it will now work ... :)

Wendy

[Lesa]

Thanks for helping Wendy! I still have no idea exactly which tutorial we're talking about here :p

[Bayla]

Lesa,

It's your article in the Photoshop Elements Techniques newsletter, Vol 4 Number 7. It's on page 12 and is called 'Focusing on Filters'.

Bayla

[Lesa]

AHA! Found it. Thanks Bayla!

LOL The title was throwing me off as the editor changed it from what I originally submitted. I had named it "Selective Focus."

Okay PATony--let us know if Wendy's instructions helped and if not, we'll get you there eventually :)

[Bayla]

Lesa,

In my opinion the title they used (Focus on Filters) is a bit of a misnomer. The tutorial uses one item which is found under the filter menu - Gaussian Blur. Selective Focus is a much better description.

Bayla

[Lesa]

LOL Thanks :)

It's funny, I never see the edits on my articles so it's a bit of a surprise when they come out on what got cut, how it was named, etc. etc.

It's still a great magazine and I'm constantly recommending it to folks in my presentations.

[PAtony]

This is the second time I'm typing this so if it shows up twice in the posts I'm sorry, but I have fat fingers and sometimes I hit two keypads at a time and weird things happen and even funnier words appear.
Well anyway, I found an article in The Graphic Reporter on blur filters and it had better photos than the article in Elements Magazine. The GR article also was on a Elements 4 or 5 which matched the version of my Elements 4 that I'm using right now.
Anyway, right before I was going to reinstall Elements 4 I found an old Elements filters article, like I mention before, and I followed it step by step and found out a "Secret or Missing" step from the newer article - Hit the 'X' key. And so.."Holy Jumping Beans Batman" I was back in business doing the blur thing again on more photos.
I would like to thank everyone, including the Acadamy of Arts and Science in Hollywood, who tried to help out me with this silly problem but I don't think I'm totally at fault for my problem. Everyone is at a faster speed on a lot of this stuff - tricks of the trade- and sometimes old newbies like myself don't know the "I though everyone knew that step" routine. And then to top it off Adobie comes out with a newer version of whatever, leaving old newies farther back in the pack.
But can The Graphic Report be actually better the Elements Magazine???
I think so and I thank them with whatever little time I have left.:o

Now if someone could help me with how I "should" be saving the blur photos. I tried a couple of times with mixed results. I'm not sure I like the file name 'copy' on my photos or why I can't just use a jpeg extension.:confused: