DIY Graphics: A Beginner’s PhotoShop Tutorial

You want to design , but learning a new program looks daunting?
This DIY graphics total beginner’s Photoshop Elements tutorial is for you.

DIY Graphics.
A beginners beginning Photoshop Elements tutorial.

Do you have an idea for a DIY graphics design, but you have never used a design program?

Maybe you want a one of a kind planner that you can’t buy anywhere, because no one makes a planner just like you need. So you’re in search of a design program that can produce the design you see in your head.

There are free design programs you can use, such as Canva (Free or Paid) or Gimp.com. I do use Canva some, but haven’t tried Gimp. Since Photoshop Elements is the only program I feel at home with, that’s the one I present this tutorial in. You can start with a free trial before you purchase the program. This tutorial can help you decide if you want to buy Photoshop Elements.

Learning a new program can be daunting, especially if you only use it for occasional projects. It can be frustrating and baffling and soon you say forget it, because you thought you’d quickly make this thing and you discover that your so-called beginner-level program is more complicated than you expected.

I can’t give you an easy answer to mastering Photoshop Elements, but I’d love to show you how to begin. Be aware, anyone who has used Photoshop Elements even a little, this tutorial is not for you. This tutorial is for someone who has never opened the program before.

Purchasing might sound like a lot of money if you only plan to use it occasionally. Many of you already use Cricut or Silhouette for designing, and if that meets your needs, that’s great.

Download Photoshop Elements Free Trial

In your web browser, go to Adobe.com Photoshop Elements.

When the page opens, the top bar shows “Free Trial” off to the left. Click the link and a new page will open. Click “Start Free Trial” and the program will download onto your computer.

You can use your email as your ID.  Then create a strong password.  Record both of these in a safe place.

Go through the steps, and after you agree to the Terms and Services, follow the screens.

One screen asked me to go to my download folder and double click the new Adobe folder, but I didn’t have to do that.  Since I already have an older Elements version installed, it went directly into download.

The download takes a long time, maybe for me because my PC is getting old.  Maybe for you it will go faster, but I twiddled my thumbs for half an hour or more before the program was ready to open.

Open your new Photoshop Elements!

When the screen pops up that asks you what you want to do today, you can take the time to explore everything, or if you’re ready to roll, look to the bottom right of the screen and pick photo editor.

The next screen will have the words: Quick, Guided and Expert.  Again, click around if you want to and explore the possibilities of Photoshop Elements.

But to follow this tutorial, choose Expert.  Even though you don’t feel expert.  I don’t either, but that’s the program we need for what we want to do today.

When the “Expert” screen opens, go to the lower right and click on Layers.  This opens a side bar that shows what we’re doing.

Now go to the upper left and click the “Open” arrow.  Choose “New Blank File.”

A box pops up.  Name your file.  I called it “Motivational Meme.”

Skip down to the size blocks, and click the inches arrow.  This opens a choice of dimensions, and I chose pixels.  In both boxes I typed 1000.  This will have decent resolution for sharing.

Resolution means quality.  For some applications you would change the number of pixels/inch to a higher number.  This would give the best viewing on all apps.  For a simple meme, we’ll leave it at 300.

You will leave the color at RGB, which stands for Red, Green, Blue.  We want color for our meme, not black and white or gray tones.

Leave the background at white.

We’re ready to click okay in the upper right of the pop up box.  This will make the box go away, and a white square will appear on your design space.  Since it’s kind of large, go to the upper left and click on the magnifying glass.  This opens a dialog below the white square.  This dialog has a slider.  Click a smidge to the left of where it is, and your screen will go smaller.  Find the size you like that doesn’t hurt your eyes.  I put mine at 50%.

Ready!  Set!  Design!

1. Eyes upper right above the layers panel:  You’ll see a white page icon, etc.  Hover over the icons to see what they do.  Click on create new layer.
2. Layer 1 pops up above the white background.  When this layer is chosen, you are working on this layer only.  What you do on this layer will not affect any of the other layers at this point.
4. Let’s make a box.  Eyes left, hover over the icons up and down the left side of the design space.  There’s a smudgy blue blob that is called “custom shape tool.”  Click this.  A dialogue opens below the design space.  To the left are several shapes to choose from.  Pick the “rounded rectangle tool.”  I’m using a mouse, so I hover over the white square, left click, drag the cursor, and create a black box with slightly rounded corners.  I want them more rounded.  Go back down to the dialogue box and see that the corners are at 10 pixels.  Click and type in 50.  Eyes up and left, you will find crossed arrows that’s called “move tool.”  Click on that, then on the black square.  Click delete.  Now draw another black box, and the corners will be rounded at 50 pixels instead of the puny 10.  That’s better.
5. Eyes left, to bottom of icon panel. See “Color” and the two boxes, one black, one white.  Click on black.  On the pop up box you will see a range of colors between white in the upper left, and black on the lower right.  Notice that all the boxes with numbers, including the ones that say R, G and B beside them, are all at 0.  0 everything means black.
6. To match the color chosen, fill the boxes with the numbers you see on this screenshot.  Click OK.

DIY Graphics, Steps 7 to 11

7. Eyes left. Choose “paint bucket tool”.  Hover the cursor over the black box and click.  Magic.  The black box changes color.
8. To do anything with this box, we have to simplify it. Eyes right. Right click the “Shape 1”  layer.  Scan the drop down menu and pick “Simplify layer.”  Now double click the layer name and change it to “pink box.”  Now we can do fun things with this layer.  When it was just a shape, we couldn’t do anything except move it around.
9. Pick “eraser tool.”  Eyes down. In the dialogue box find “brush,” “size” and “opacity.”  We’ll use the brush as is.  Slide the size button to the right to between 300 and 400 pixels.  Then slide the opacity button to the left to around 20%.  When you hover the cursor over the pink box, it is now a round circle.  Left click your mouse, and without lifting your finger ever, make one slide around the whole box.  Look upper right and you’ll see you just made the shape see through.
10. Let’s find a pretty picture to place behind the box layer to see the fun that opacity creates.  Go to Pexels.com. (Click on the gold words and the link will take you to their website.)  Type “flatlay” into the search box.  Pick this photo: silver-colored-open-end-bracelet-beside-two-brown-stars-ornament-744662.  Right click, copy, go to Photoshop. Eyes top, click on “Edit.” Click “paste” on the drop down.  Bingo, your beautiful flatlay appears.  Except that it is too large.
11. Eyes left. Pick “move tool.”  Hover over the top left corner of the photo until an arrow appears.  Click on the arrow and move the corner down and right to make the picture smaller.  Set it the way you like it.  You can see on the right that we now have Layer 1 above the background layer.

Beginner’s Tutorial Continued

12. Now I’m not sure I like the box color.  Let’s play with it. Eyes Left. Find “color picker tool” and hover above one of the stars.  Click the tool.  Eyes left and down: pink color square has turned gold (RGB 189, 128, 79).  Find the “paint bucket tool” and dump this gold onto the layer that says “pink box.”  Be sure to pick this layer before dumping!  Now the box will be opaque again, so go through the steps with the “eraser tool” from step 11.  Erase the layer twice.  Change the name of this layer to “gold box.”
13. Eyes left: click on “horizontal type tool.”  Click on the design.  A new type layer will be created. Eyes down: change type size to 36.  Change text align left to “center text.”  Click the arrow on the font choice box, and choose Mistral Regular.  Click your cursor on the design and begin to type.
14. Almost done!
15. Before we flatten our design into one layer, let’s save it so that we can go back and easily make changes to any layer and create a whole new design.
16. Eyes up: click on File.  Pick “save as” and choose where you want to save your design.  Give it a name and click save.
17. Eyes up: click on Layers and pick the bottom choice on the drop down, “flatten image.”
18. Mouse back up to File, pick “save as” and save again with a different name.
19. You can now share this meme wherever you want.  Upload it to your phone via email to make it available to your apps.

That concludes this very long DIY graphics Photoshop Elements tutorial.

Do you think you’ll try Photoshop Elements?
Do you want another tutorial?

Find another tutorial here: Photoshop Elements Tutorial.