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Post by Inspeqtor on May 7, 2021 11:37:18 GMT
I have a screen shot of an Excel file I need some Excel help on it from a friend, but there is much information in the file he does not need to see so I need to "cover much if it up" with a color. I took a screen shot of this so I do now have a jpg image of the excel file to use in PSE 2021
How do I go about selecting an area to block what is there with a color?
Thank you
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Post by Sepiana on May 7, 2021 13:26:43 GMT
Hi Charles,
Try this,
1. Set the Foreground color with the color of your choice.
2. Make a selection of the area using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M).
3. Place the selection on its own layer (Ctrl-J).
4. Ctrl-click on the layer thumbnail, not on the layer name. You will see marching ants around your selection.
5. Edit>Fill Selection (Alt-Backspace).
NOTE:
Placing the selection on its own layer will give you more editing flexibility. If you don't like the results, you can just delete this layer and start over.
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Post by Inspeqtor on May 7, 2021 15:24:40 GMT
Thank you Sepiana,
I just discovered using the "Color Picker" I do not see the color of my choice... I would like to use a grey shade but that will be very difficult to find.
How do you find a color that is not easily seen in the color picker? I know grey is in there somewhere.............
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Post by Sepiana on May 7, 2021 15:33:59 GMT
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Post by Inspeqtor on May 7, 2021 15:43:08 GMT
When I look at them I like the darkgrey with 3 numbers; 169,169,169
When I go to the color picker I find I have to insert 6 numbers..... There must be another place to type in color numbers?
I see in the lower portion of the page there are other colors to choose from. I saved this web page! Thank you
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Post by Sepiana on May 7, 2021 16:02:01 GMT
You need to enter only three numbers (in the R, G, and B boxes). Elements will take care of the other boxes. Use the Adobe Color Picker |
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Chris
Established Forum Member
Posts: 490
Open to constructive criticism of photos: Yes
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Post by Chris on May 7, 2021 16:47:34 GMT
Thank you Sepiana, I just discovered using the "Color Picker" I do not see the color of my choice... I would like to use a grey shade but that will be very difficult to find. How do you find a color that is not easily seen in the color picker? I know grey is in there somewhere............. Charles, Sepiana has given some good advice. Here is another method I use to get a shade of grey. Open the colour picker. It doesn't matter what colour is selected. Drag the cursor all the way to the left side of the window. Then drag the cursor up and down to get the shade of grey you prefer. Kind regards Chris  |
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Post by Inspeqtor on May 7, 2021 20:13:44 GMT
Thank you Chris, I like this idea. I have done this before to some extent but did not know for sure where to find a grey.
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Post by Inspeqtor on May 7, 2021 21:32:18 GMT
Hi Charles, Try this, 1. Set the Foreground color with the color of your choice. 2. Make a selection of the area using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M). 3. Place the selection on its own layer (Ctrl-J). 4. Ctrl-click on the layer thumbnail, not on the layer name. You will see marching ants around your selection. 5. Edit>Fill Selection (Alt-Backspace). NOTE:Placing the selection on its own layer will give you more editing flexibility. If you don't like the results, you can just delete this layer and start over. I just now tried to block the portion pf the image I want with the color selection using Chris's suggestion. I did make a duplicate layer using ctrl-J then using the Marquee tool made my selection. What I do not follow is how to do is the Ctrl-click on the layer thumbnail. Ctrl-click if I am doing this right, I place the mouse on the duplicate thumbnail, then press the Ctrl button and left click with the mouse button. Nothing happens.... |
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Post by Tpgettys on May 7, 2021 21:34:11 GMT
Hi Inspeqtor . The information you have already been given is probably more than enough, but this may be of interest/use. The Color Picker dialog looks very complex because it gives you several ways to choose a color, either by specifying Hue-Saturation-Brightness values OR by entering the strength of Red-Green-Blue in decimal numbers, OR as a single hexadecimal number OR you can click in the colored box. If you select a color using any one of these methods, the others are automatically changed to match the one you used. You expressed interest in shades of grey. These are particularly easy because the RGB values are always equal for any shade of grey! About all you need to know is that the numbers range from 0 to 255. 0,0,0 is black, 127,127,127 is middle grey, and 255,255,255 is white. The screen shot shared by Sepiana shows a grey of value 169,169,169 which is a tad lighter than middle grey. One final observation is that 169 / 256 is 66%, the value shown in the Brightness box! With Hue and Saturation set to 0, You can select a shade of grey by entering a percent value for the Brightness; 0% for black, 50% for middle grey, 100% for white. The method shown by Chris is certainly the easiest of all. It is fun to just drag the circle in the color-picker box up and down and watch the numbers change! |
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Post by Sepiana on May 7, 2021 21:47:53 GMT
I just now tried to block the portion pf the image I want with the color selection using Chris's suggestion. I did make a duplicate layer using ctrl-J then using the Marquee tool made my selection. What I do not follow is how to do is the Ctrl-click on the layer thumbnail. Ctrl-click if I am doing this right, I place the mouse on the duplicate thumbnail, then press the Ctrl button and left click with the mouse button. Nothing happens.... Charles, - You need to make your selection first, and, then, place your selection on its own layer (Ctrl-J). - Next, you need to load your selection so that you can fill it with color. - Hold down the Ctrl key and click on the selection layer thumbnail. - Look at the file in the working space. You will see marching ants around the area you selected. - Now you can fill your selection with the color of your choice. |
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Post by Inspeqtor on May 7, 2021 22:17:07 GMT
Sepiana,
Step 1: I follow/understand this
Step 2: What do you mean by "Load my selection to fill it with color"?
Step 3: Was my explanation of how I did this above correct?
Step 4: I do know what you mean by "marching ants"
Step 5: OK, get it...
I started completely over from the beginning closing PSE then reloading my image into PSE then making my selection with the marquee tool. Now I press Ctrl-J.
Since my selection using the marquee tool has now been made with the outline of the area, but no marching ants yet, then I place my mouse over the new duplicate layer now hold the Ctrl key PRESSING THE LEFT MOUSE KEY to place the color on my image? This is not working for me......
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Post by Sepiana on May 7, 2021 22:52:08 GMT
Step 2: What do you mean by "Load my selection to fill it with color"? Since my selection using the marquee tool has now been made with the outline of the area, but no marching ants yet, then I place my mouse over the new duplicate layer now hold the Ctrl key PRESSING THE LEFT MOUSE KEY to place the color on my image? This is not working for me...... When you place your selection on its own layer (Ctrl-J), it gets deselected. You need to select it again, i.e., load it as a selection. That’s when you will see the marching ants, showing the boundaries of your selection. This will tell Elements to fill with color the area within the marching-ants boundaries. (If you look closer, you will see the marching ants around the edges of the gray rectangle selection.) You need to hold down the Ctrl key and, then, click on the selection layer thumbnail.  |
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Post by Inspeqtor on May 8, 2021 1:30:26 GMT
Sepiana,
You said: "When you place your selection on its own layer (Ctrl-J), it gets deselected."
If this is the case, then I do not understand why I need to do the selection using the marquee tool of where I want to block the information in the image BEFORE doing the Ctrl-J
Why can't I do Ctrl-J first THEN do the marquee selection? That is what I understood you to say to me earlier in this conversation.
One other thing to clarify, the layer thumbnail is on the far right hand side of Elements, correct?
I just tried doing it again, but still not working. I am beginning to wonder if I will ever figure out what I am not doing correctly......
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Post by Sepiana on May 8, 2021 3:34:47 GMT
I do not understand why I need to do the selection using the marquee tool of where I want to block the information in the image BEFORE doing the Ctrl-J Why can't I do Ctrl-J first THEN do the marquee selection? Elements offers more than one way to accomplish something. Placing the selection on its own layer gives you more editing flexibility. If that's not important, just do it the way you describe. Then, Elements will duplicate the background layer and you make the selection and fill it with color in this duplicate layer. One other thing to clarify, the layer thumbnail is on the far right hand side of Elements, correct? Yes, it's in the layer stack, to the left of the layer name, displaying the contents of the layer.  |
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