EDITING WITH Photoshop Elements: TUTORIAL

This is a follow up of my tutorial about lightbox use. This tutorial assumes you followed the advice given in the previous one, which concerned physical lighting and camera use.

Despite my best effort, seemingly perfect lighting, using all camera features, sometimes the karma just does not cooperate and photos turn out too dark. Time to crack the software open.
I use Photoshop Elements, commonly available in Costco. I hope my older 4.0 version will translate easily into your newer version, or into the features used by other similar software such as free downoadable Picasa. If you know of other good and free editing software, please add a comment!

Here are the most useful PE tabs and commands that will help you revamp your photo; HOWEVER, please make sure not to go overboard with their use or the photo will look overdone and unnatural!!! Most have slider controls and preview features for easier control over what you're doing.

******************************LIGHT********************************
Enhance --> Lighting --> Levels will allow you to use a slider to control the amount of light in the photo. I find it to be one of the most useful and fastest edits.
Enhance --> Lighting --> Brightness and Contrast. I use Contrast slider most often to sharpen color appearance.
Enhance --> Lighting --> Shadows and Highlights may help you eliminate excessive contrast between parts of the object that are well lit and those in the shade. This is especially useful for objects with many angles visible at the same time, such as my jewely boxes photographed when open.

**************************** COLOR******************************
Some colors, such as red, purple, blue, as well as white-on-white or dark-on-dark are famously difficult to photograph to show their full beauty. The following controls should help you correct what the camera did not exactly catch:
Enhance --> Color --> Hue and Saturation will let you dull down that glaring red (saturation slider) or reduce the cold blue cast of some purple items (hue slider)
Enhance --> Color --> Reduce Color Cast allows you to click on a part of the item that should be truly white, gray, or black. Try a few times in various parts of the photo to get the result you need.

***************************IMPERFECTIONS***********************
Large closeups will suddenly reveal what you did not see on the tiny camera screen: dust specks, a piece of the floor showing, a wrinkle in the background fabric. These are the tools I use to correct those problems, you will find them in the left column (tool palette):
The Bandaid tool was designed to remove blemishes, okay, lets call them for what they are: zits, from face photos. Just click on a "zit" and it's gone.
Clone Stamp tool will let you use the neighboring area to "disappear" a long wrinkle in fabric or that floor fragment showing.

What did I forget to mention? Tell me about it in Comments and I'll edit the post, crediting you :)

All those tools require some practice, so don't get discouraged if it all doesn't work at first. Most often not one, but a combination of the tools will get the job done.
And if it's all in vain, guess what - it's time to retake the photos!