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Barbara
Brundage
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An Interview with Barbara Brundage
Interviewed by Geetesh Bajaj, May 15th 2006
Barbara Brundage (pictured to the left) has
been teaching people ways to use Photoshop Elements since
the product came out in 2001. She's the author of the best-selling
Photoshop
Elements 4: The Missing Manual, published by O'Reilly
and several other books. In this interview, Barbara discusses her
book, Photoshop Elements, and how you can use it with PowerPoint
effectively.
Read exclusive excerpts from Barbara's book here...
Geetesh:
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Tell us more about yourself and your books?
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Barbara:
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Well, my day job is playing the harp, which seems to surprise
people, but that's actually how I got into working with Photoshop
Elements. I started using the program to create graphics for
my website and promo materials. I also arrange and publish
harp music, and Elements is very useful, there, too. The folks
at Missing Manuals know that sometimes it's easier for someone
who isn't from a technical background to explain things to
people who don't have a lot of technical knowledge, either.
In the process of writing the Photoshop Elements Missing
Manuals, I got hooked on digital photography. I'd worked
briefly in advertising a long time ago and had a closet
full
of old Nikon and Nikkormat film SLRs and lenses, but I'd
stopped using them because it's so much stuff to lug around.
I'm really
impressed with the image quality you can get these days with
a prosumer digicam and Elements. As a matter of fact, I'm
one of the co-authors of the upcoming Digital Photography:
the Missing Manual, along with David Pogue, Andy Rathbone,
and Chris Grover.
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Geetesh:
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What do you think sets your book (Photoshop Elements 4
- The MissingManual) apart from other similar books?
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Barbara:
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I tried really hard to create a book that wouldn't be just
a bunch of recipes for completing different tasks in Elements,
but also give the reader a good understanding of why you're
doing what you're doing, so that you'll know how to apply
your knowledge to other projects down the road. I wanted the
book to have practical advice, but also be a useful reference,
even after you've gotten more familiar with Elements. It always
makes me happy when people who are pretty advanced with Elements
tell me, "I had no idea how much of Elements I hadn't
been using," after they've read the book. Elements is
a terrifically capable program, but people often dismiss it
because Adobe has done such a good job of hiding some of the
more advanced controls.
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Geetesh:
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What are your favorite features in Photoshop Elements 4?
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Barbara:
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Well, I love the Straighten tool (I'm terrible with horizons
when I shoot), and also the Magic Extractor, which removes
an object from its background. It doesn't always work–-it
depends on your image– but golly, it can save you a lot
of time when it does! Then if you save it as a PNG file, you've
got a cut-out object you can just drop right into PowerPoint.
I also love having the temperature and tint sliders available
in the Quick Fix window, because this gives you the kind of
corrections for white balance and color casts that otherwise
you'd only have in the RAW converter. It's great to have that
kind of control for JPEG photos, too.
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Geetesh:
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How easy is it for a user of Microsoft PowerPoint (or
even Microsoft Word) to create content in Photoshop Elements,
and then
take it to PowerPoint or Word?
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Barbara:
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I don't see how it could be much easier. You can create content
from scratch, like shapes, for example, or even take
photos
and just drop them into your PowerPoint slide or Word document.
To me, Elements is the perfect companion program for
Office,
because it gives you so much scope for creating truly excellent
graphics. That's pretty important these days. Even though
Office comes with an excellent art library, most people have
seen so many PowerPoint presentations by now that it
takes
some heavy-duty thinking to use those images in unique ways.
Easier to create your own.
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Geetesh:
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How can a user integrate Photoshop Elements and PowerPoint
to create a seamless graphic design workflow?
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Barbara:
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One thing to remember, I think, is that PowerPoint
loves PNG files. If you save your Elements creations as PNGs,
it's very easy to create high-quality graphics that look terrific
when you insert them in PowerPoint. If you need transparency,
saving as PNG lets keep the transparency from your Elements
file.
Elements is also great for creating your own animated GIF
files. Just create each frame as a new layer in your document,
go to File | Save for Web, choose GIF and adjust your
settings in the Animate section at the bottom of the Save
for Web window.
Save your GIF and insert it into your PowerPoint slide. You
can also use the Organizer's Create section to make WMV
slideshows to use in Powerpoint.
Now, I must admit that I use Office for Mac as my primary
version of Office, but I checked with a friend
of mine and he says it works the same way on Microsoft Office
for Windows as well.
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Geetesh:
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Can you share some trivia, an interesting incident,
or just some tip with readers of Indezine.com?
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Barbara: |
Sure. I mentioned creating your own graphics earlier. The Cookie
Cutter tool in Elements may seem like a really stupid idea (do
you really want to create hear-shaped photos?), but it's a wonderful
resource for making sophisticated edge effects, too, if you
investigate the Crop Shapes (Click the shape icon in the Options
bar, then the right-pointing arrow on on the pop-out menu, and
choose Crop Shapes.) They don't look like much in the palette
thumbnails, but there are some wonderful edges in there. The
Cookie Cutter leaves transparency around the edges of your photo,
so it will blend right into the PowerPoint slide background.
You can use the same shapes with the Shape tool if you want
to create just a shape to use for, say, text background. In
both the Cookie Cutter and the Shape tool, you can further customize
your shape by dragging the edges to transform it before you
press the Enter key. Stacking up a couple of different colored
shapes with fancy edges can create a really eye-catching effect.
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