Well I have to say that everyone seems to be having fun
Great pictures from you all, Kiya is going great guns and LLL is enjoying her self so much, Grandads selections are top notch now so everyone is on a roll.
Grandad I will come back to you on that last question you asked
I often have friends and neighbours who are new to computing who will call upon me for help, especially if they have just purchased a new machine or maybe a new program to use. The one thing I always impress upon them is the phrase "there is more than one way to skin a cat" it is a common phrase where I come from and no doubt most of you have heard it before.
The reason that I impress this phrase upon them is because in computing it is very true, it is very rare that you cannot find several ways of doing the same thing in a program. Photo editing is no different and there are often several ways of doing the same task, for example you may use the 'Edit' menu in PSP and choose either the 'Clear' option or the 'Delete' option to perform the same task, in addition just pressing your keyboard 'Delete' key will do exactly the same thing.
So my point is that there are often many ways within the same program to do certain tasks so we should never be too dogmatic when we give our own advice, also as different programs will operate using different menus and keys, it is better if we try to describe the
method of doing the task, rather than the precise details of how to do it as these may be different for other peoples software.
To that end, here is some basic layer info I promised.
Grandad wrote:
Secondly can you please explain what the diference is between raster and vector layers. And following from that what are art media, layer group, mask layer, and adjustment layers all about? As I have said, I don't have patience with the 'help'. Because it doesn't help, or at least, not in terms that simple folk can understand.
OK Grandad I will try to explain and avoid it being too technical if possible although I must point out that it is something you need to get to grips with and it can be difficult to try and cover all the explanations of what each type is for, but generally speaking:
A Raster Layer will contain a grid comprising of pixels that will vary in colour and can be zoomed in or out and all the pixels can be changed, the complete layer of pixels will be viewed as your picture.
A Vector layer is best described as a layer for putting in geometric shapes such as circles, curves, squares, ovals etc. While the ‘shape’ is still on a Vector layer it can still be manipulated as a complete entity. That is to say you can change the colour, size, line width and other things that cannot be done if it were on a Raster Layer.
Best to think of it like this: in a ‘Vector Layer’ you edit the shape, in a ‘Raster layer’ you edit the pixels.
Also any geometric shapes you create do not lose any definition regardless of how you increase or decrease their sizes.
Art Media is another way of adding more effects to your photo, there are more colours available plus various canvases that you can use as backgrounds, to be honest I have not used it much so maybe I will investigate it at a later date.
Layer groups are fairly easy to understand, basically you create these groups if you want the same action to apply to them all, for example changing all the opacity levels at the same time and at the same level.
Mask Layers work by allowing you to remove some of the uppermost layer to reveal the layer beneath it. You can obtain the same effect using your eraser brush.
Adjustment layers are as they sound like, when you create a new adjustment layer it gives you the opportunity to pick your adjustment method, so you may wish to create several. You could make one to adjust the ‘Brightness & Contrast’ and another to adjust the ‘Curve’ properties. I would suggest that you pick a photograph then create a few different type of adjustment layers then change the settings of each layer, you should soon get the idea.
I know this is all a bit basic but it may get you going in the right direction.
its all these things I have to try & remember before taking pictures.
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