How to Create Images from Scratch in Photoshop Elements 12
You may want to start from scratch by creating a new document in Photoshop Elements. New, blank pages have a number of uses. You can mix and merge images in a new document, create a canvas where you can draw and paint, or use the New dialog box to find out a file’s size, dimensions, and resolution.
Follow these steps to create a new document while working in any editing mode:
Open Elements and select an editing mode.
From the Welcome screen, clicking the Photo Editor button does the trick.
Choose File→New→Blank File in any workspace or press Ctrl+N (Cmd+N on the Mac).
Alternatively, you can click the Open drop-down menu in the Photo Editor and choose New Blank File.
Either way, the New dialog box opens, as shown in the figure.
Select the attributes for the new file.
When you select these attributes, among the things you need to consider is the output you want to use for the image: screen or paper. Files created for the web or for screen views are measured in pixels, and you don’t need to specify a resolution. For print, you want to use a measurement other than pixels and you need to specify resolution.
You have several options from which to choose:
Name: Type a name for your file.
Preset: Select from a number of sizes.
Size: You can select a preset size from a long drop-down menu. This setting is optional because you can change the file attributes in the other text boxes and drop-down menus.
Dimensions (Width/Height): Values in the Width and Height text boxes are independent; either box can be edited without affecting the other. Adjacent to the values in the Width and Height text boxes, you find drop-down menus that offer many options for units of measure, such as the default units of pixels followed by inches, centimeters (cm), millimeters (mm), points, picas, and columns.
Resolution: Resolution here is similar to editing the resolution value in the Image Size dialog box when the Resample check box is selected. Resolution is a critical concept when working with photo images.
Color Mode: Your choices are Bitmap, Grayscale, and RGB Color.
Background Contents: You have three choices: White, Background Color, and Transparent. The selection you make results in the color of the blank image. If you choose Background Color, the current background color assigned on the Tools panel is applied to the background. If you choose Transparent, the image is created as a layer, and the layer name changes to Layer 0.
Image Size: This value (displayed in the lower-right corner of the dialog box) dynamically changes when you change the Width, Height, and Resolution values. The Image Size value tells you how much file space is required to save the uncompressed file.
Click OK after setting the file attributes to create the new document.
Sometimes you may want to copy a selection to the Clipboard and convert the Clipboard information to an image. Be sure you have copied some image data to the Clipboard. In Elements, choose File→New→Image from Clipboard. The data on the Clipboard appears in a new document window.
In addition to creating new, blank files, the New dialog box can be a helpful source of information for all your work in Elements. Suppose that you want to know how many images you can copy to a USB storage device with 256MB of free space, or how large your digital camera files will print with a 150-ppi resolution.
All you have to do is press Ctrl+N (Cmd+N on the Mac) to open the New dialog box, plug in the values, and read the Image Size number or examine the file dimensions. If your files will be converted to grayscale, choose Grayscale from the Color Mode drop-down menu and check the Image Size number to see how much your file size is reduced.
Because the Image Size number is dynamic, it updates with each change you make to the file attributes.