Photoshop Elements 3: The Missing Manual

Using Levels

People who've used Elements for awhile will tell you that the Levels command goes right at the top of any list of the program's most essential tools. You can fix an amazing array of problems simply by adjusting the level of each color channel. (On your monitor, each color you see is composed of red, green, and blue. In Elements,

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONSilver Window Borders in Elements

I've set my computer to use the standard blue Windows theme, but all my Elements windows are bordered in silver. What gives?

If you use the standard Windows XP theme with the blue top bars on the windows, you may wonder what happened when you installed Elements, since all your Elements windows are silver. There's nothing wrong with your computer. Bright colors like the Windows shade of blue tend to confuse your ability to judge colors. So Adobe did you a favor and chose a neutral non-interfering color scheme instead.

You may notice, however, that if you use Windows blue for the rest of your system, your floating palettes will revert to blue when you pull them out of the Palette bin and go back to silver when you put them back in the bin.

If you have a Mac, you can get a similar result by going to System Preferences → Desktop and Screen Saver → Desktop and choosing a solid gray desktop, then going to System Preferences → Appearance and choosing Graphite as your appearance. Almost all the color disappears from your desktop, leaving you free to concentrate on the colors in your photos ...