I've been away for a while.  I am wanting to do another video tutorial, this one on using brushes, but I cannot get my microphone to work!  I've downloaded 5 different programs and it works with none of them.  Went to the microsoft site and tried all of their solutions, including downloading a recording software...I can record audio on that- but not on my video recorders.  Banging my head.  I'll get it eventually.

Also, I've been cheating on my photoediting with a renewed love of sewing.  Teaching the kid above to sew and she is so psyched about it!!  Which fired me up as well.  Moved (almost) all of my gear, turned up one machine, ordered parts for the vintage, and I'm leaving the serger alone for now.  Getting ready to go full blast for christmas- I see heirloom baby dresses, lovely flannel jammies that fit perfect with great style, quilts.....oh boy!!  I have a huge fabric stash and now the internet has all kinds of free patterns for downloads.  I've even seen some photo editing/ textile arts mergers.  Oh, BOY!

I have surgery scheduled in two months and then I'll be mobile for photography again, eagerly awaiting that.  Right now I only photograph from the car and in my house, I walk no where that isn't necessary.  I imagine I'll find a day job and totally rejoin the land of the living.  But I'm going to hang with this blog thing for at least a year.

This is another poor photograph (don't even know where this camera came from, the photographer was my daughter who usually does better exposure, she nailed the action though) that I edited in RAW even though it was a jpeg image.  Check out that link in a previous post if you want to learn how.  It certainly helped this shot!

Editing Raw in Photoshop Elements

The above photos were taken from a friends phone- I know none of the details of the model or brand.  The first is the jpeg file, and the second was edited in photoshop elements version 9 in RAW mode.  I do realize the Washington monument is leaning like the tower of Piza, but this was a very quick experiment to see if I could edit a jpeg format in Raw mode, and I CAN!

I shoot with a Canon S2-IS that I've had maybe 6 or 7 years, my 4th digital camera and well loved.  One of my main beefs with it is that it does not shoot in Raw mode.  As my skills in photography and editing have progressed, I have missed not having that option to explore, and my next camera will have it.  Just as the previous post touched on the importance of having enough data to process and produce with scanned photos, shooting and processing in Raw keeps all of the data the camera has captured protected and available, even some stuff you might not be able to see until you start fiddling with it.  J peg is wonderful for being able to send anywhere, but the files degrade every time you save them.  Raw saves it.

So even with a camera that does not capture Raw images, I can process in Raw and then save it in that format by using a little "cheat" in elements.  Clever folks are always figuring out these cheats until Adobe breaks down and puts it in a new version of elements, like layer masks- if you have an elements version older than 9, search for "layer mask cheats for elements" and you will find that process on the internet.

I understand that because I'm working on jpeg and not true raw files, "not all of the options in Raw editing will be available".  I'm not sure why editing in Raw is going to be beneficial, the article I read said that it gives me options not otherwise available and I'll have fast and professional results.  I'll have to play with it much more to figure it all out.  I am excited I have a new trick to learn!

I found this trick at a site called Essential Photoshop Elements.com and here is a link to the article.  Looks like they have a wealth of other information as well.