Like PaintShop Pro, PhotoElements has a built in image browser. So it was easy to find the Bruce Trail shot from the dozens of thumbnails by just scanning A double click loads the file into PhotoElements where the first order of business is cropping the shot. Our purpose here is to have the final image suggest some of the ogrish, nature of a forest after it crosses from fall into winter.

Thus the black( reflected ? or does it lurk just below the surface) tree is made a right hand corner diagonal. The upper fallen grey trunk is chopped out; but not the brackiskish swamp at the lower left.

The image needs to convey some sinister possibilities. To do this we create a duplicate layer of the basic image. PhotoElements does not have the full layering capabilities of PhotoShop 7; but more than enough for our purposes There is the added bonus that PhotoElements kept the same basic dialog layout and menu command sof the parent software. In fact the only major point of departure is the color correction features. Fortunately, we are going to do all our color corrections by combining the two layers.

The filters in PhotoElements are almost identically the same as the one in Photoshop - another plus, because if you master the PhotoElement's filters you have also mastered Photoshops too. In general this is a consistent theme in working with PhotoElements.

The figure to the left shows the preview of the Dry Brush filter in PhotoElements (and Photoshop for that matter). It is a far cry from the lavish preview facilities in Corel PhotoPaint or even Jasc's PaintShop Pro. very utilitarian preview capabilities.

So a couple of iterations were required before the mottled color look was achieved. Again, there is more art than science to making filters effects - so seing is believing; hence the importance of good preview capabilities.

Filters | Blur | Smart Blur is the menu selection and as you can see from the dialog shot at the left smart blur preserves sharp edges while smoothing the contained areas. This is a big improvement over the classic smooth and blur effects which indiscriminately smooth out every edge and wrinkle.

The other advantage of the smart blur is that colors move to a saturated mean giving a pastel look. This sets up for combining the top, modified layer with the underlying backround with all its rich detail.

The trick is to use the Layer dialog and to change the image combine mode from Normal to either Screen or Overlay. The Combine mode is set using the top left dropdown. We chose Overlay because it had more punchy colors while allowing

the underlying edges to come through. This method of combining or merging a duplicate layer with itself after making adjustments for color, sharpness or , as in our case, a broad range of effects, is one of the vital "tricks" for adding subtle styling to your photos. Of course with the use of masks one can limit the effects to specific portions of an image for very subtle photo processing effects similar to the Ansel Adams Zone system for black white processing and development

If the after image even hints at lurking danger - then perhaps one can get a sense of the nature of the murky tales Grimm from the woods and forests of Europe.