Surrealist art with Photoshop Elements 12?

[Ubele]

I recently became intrigued by some of the surrealist collage art people have created. I discovered that there are many tutorials that explain how to do this using Photoshop. Is it possible to do it using Photoshop Elements 12, which is much less expensive? I haven't found any references to people using PSE for this sort of thing. I've read about the differences between PSE and Photoshop CS6, but I can't tell whether they're relevant. The impression I get is that PSE is fine for processing single images, but that PS is required if you want to layer and blend multiple images.

 

[CrickettGrrrl]

I recently became intrigued by some of the surrealist collage art people have created. I discovered that there are many tutorials that explain how to do this using Photoshop. Is it possible to do it using Photoshop Elements 12, which is much less expensive? I haven't found any references to people using PSE for this sort of thing. I've read about the differences between PSE and Photoshop CS6, but I can't tell whether they're relevant. The impression I get is that PSE is fine for processing single images, but that PS is required if you want to layer and blend multiple images.

Here's a link to a free 30 day trial for Pixelmator which has layers & effects, etc.:
http://www.pixelmator.com/try/

If you look at this 3rd parties tutorial page on their website, there are a bunch of tuts with surrealistic effects, especially from middle to bottom of the page:
http://www.pixelmator.com/tutorials/third-party/

I.e., fish in a bubble, mental wave, etc. Some of these are from before the recent update with layers styles, so there are now easier ways to achieve these effects, but there are tutorials for the new tools too, on another page. Once you know the basics about the tools I've found that it's not too difficult to follow some Illustrator & Photoshop tutorials. --Making some adjustments of course.

 

[Ubele]

Great -- thanks, CrickettGrrrl!