Despite what others may say, this program is not easily used beyond crop and changing brightness/contrast of a photo. Thanks to a class at my local community college I have learned enough to make significant changes to a photo and now can understand the book I bought that was supposed to be the answer to “how to.” The class is a Photoshop hands on experience not a Photoshop Elements class. However everything that was taught is in Photoshop Elements. With a little effort I have found most of the tools.
Artist Chris Burden was the creator of this amalgamation of Los Angeles city street lights. The lights really do turn on every night. Mr. Burden collected and restored dozens of city street lamps at his Topanga Canyon studio. Eventually they became his installation at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art).
My photo was taken in the afternoon when shadows really darkened the entire display. The first photo below is the original. The second is my efforts using Photoshop Elements. I outlined and lightened just the lights and then lightened the entire photo a little more. The squiggly line along the outside base show the boundary of the outlined area. The red line was not there at the far left side in the original photo (probably a step safety marker).
Coast Contact 