As you start into digital scrapbooking with Photoshop Elements, you should familiarize yourself with the tools found on the toolbar. They are commonly referenced in many of the digital scrapbooking tutorials found here on About.com and on other websites. This guide is going to show you what each tool icon looks like and give you a quick overview of what each tool does.
1. The Full Toolbar
The toolbar found as a two column bar on the left hand of your workspace by default. You can reposition the toolbar by grabbing toolbar at the dots on the top and dragging it to your preferred position in your workspace
2. Move Tool
The move tool is used to move images on a selected layer around the canvas. For example, if you have a photo positioned in the middle of the canvas and you want to move it to the lower left corner, you would use the move tool to drag your photo where you want it to be.
3. Zoom Tool
The zoom tool allows you to zoom into a closer view of your canvas. When the zoom tool is active, a sub-menu appears at the top of your workspace, below the main menu with additional zoom options.
4. Hand Tool
Use the hand tool to move around your canvas when you’re zoomed in. Use it when you need to move your image within the window.
5. Eyedropper Tool
The eyedropper tool is used to set your foreground to a color that you choose from whatever colors/images are in your canvas.
6. Marquee Tool
The marquee tool is perfect for making selections on the layer you have selected. You have the choice of a rectangular selection or an elliptical selection.
7. Magnetic Lasso Tool
The magnetic lasso tool is a selection tool that automatically conforms to edges of the object that you drag the tool over. To select the additional tools available along with the magnetic lasso, hold your mouse button down for a second when selecting the magnetic lasso and you will receive a fly-out menu containing the lasso tool and the polygonal lasso tool. The lasso tool allows you to draw a selection freehand based on your mouse movements. The polygonal lasso tool creates a straight-edged selection based on points you set with each mouse click.
8. Magic Wand Tool
Use the magic wand tool when you’d like to select an area within a specific color range. This tool works well for deleting specific areas of an image.
9. Quick Selection Tool
The quick selection tool creates selections in an image intelligently based on areas with similar colors or textures. You can also choose the selection brush from the fly out menu, which allows you to “paint” areas that you want to include in a selection. You can also conversely paint areas you’d like left out of a selection.
10. Text Tool
The text tool is used when you want to type text onto a layer in your canvas. Choosing this tool then clicking anywhere in your canvas automatically creates a new text layer in your layers palette.