Getting Started with Adobe Photoshop

Hot to Use This Tutorial

• Nested commands from within menus will be given in a format where the menu name is bold and the menu command is italicized
  • for example #1
    • FileOpen with thedenoting a sub command or menu within a menu
    • this example directs you to “Open the File menu and select the Open command”
  • for example #2
    • ImageAdjustBrightness/Contrast
    • this example directs you to “Open the Adjust submenu of the Image menu and select the Brightness/Contract command”

Adobe Photoshop Macintosh and Windows are virtually the same.

Using the Tool Box

First things first, a brief description of the tools in the tool box. These will be described in a left-to-right, top-to-bottom order, assuming the tool bar is in a vertical position (default).

Most of the tool buttons have related tools on the same pop-out menus. If this is the case, you will see a small triangle in the lower right corner of the button. To access these, use the mouse and click and hold on the tool button. A pop-out menu will appear, allowing you to change the tool that is associated with that button (the icon will change also). Don’t release the mouse-click until you have the desired tool highlighted. To access certain tools’ options, double-click on that tool’s button.

The Tools

Marquee tool

• Regular marquee tool to make rectangular selections
• Also available (not shown)
  • Elliptical marquee tool to make oval selections
  • Single row marquee tool to make 1-pixel-high selections'
  • Single column marquee tool to make 1-pixel-wide selections

Move or Position tool

• used to move selections

Lasso tool

• the Lasso tool is used to make freehand selections
• Wonderful for tracing around irregularly shaped objects like people, etc.
• Also available (not shown)
  • Polygonal lasso tool to make polygonal selections
  • Magnetic lasso tool to make snap-to freehand selections

Magic Wand tool

• used to select similarly-colored pixels
• great for selecting all the background and not the person, assuming the background is semi-uniform in color and texture

Crop tool

• used to crop your image

Slice tool

• used to slice images, generally in preparation for web pages

Healing Brush tool

• new in Photoshop 7
• used to correct flaws in the image
• Also available (not shown) is the Patch tool which is used to repair flaws in an image

Brush tool

• aka the Airbrush tool
• used to apply colors with a feathery, airbrush-like texture (remarkable considering the name, eh?)
• choosing WindowBrushes is particularly useful with this tool
• Also available (not shown) is the Pencil tool which is used to draw freehand lines

Clone Stamp tool

• wonderful tool for digital editing and correction/touch-up work
• used to clone imagery from one image layer to another layer in the same image, or from one image to another one
• there are a variety of ways to use this tool, here is one:
  • hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Macintosh) and then click to select a starting point
  • release Alt/Option and now click somewhere else
  • copy (using brush strokes) the area surrounding the point chosen while holding Alt/Option

History brush tool

• I have never used this one!
• Also available (not shown) is the Art History brush; the only difference between it and the History brush is that it does the restoration in more stylized strokes
• Both make use of the History palette so that you can selectively undo one or more previous steps. Each operation that you have performed is listed separately on the palette with the most recent action at the bottom of the list

Eraser

• used to erase information pixel-by-pixel
• Also available (not shown)
  • Background Eraser tool is used to erase the sampled color to transparency
  • Magic Eraser tool is used to erase color areas by clicking

Gradient tool

• used to create a color blend or gradient (spectrum, rainbow, etc.) along a line you click and drag to create
• lots of options here, so play with it!
• Also available (not shown) is the Paint Bucket tool which is used to fill similarly colored areas by clicking

This page currently under revision. No changes have been made past this point. Do not proceed!

Blur tool

• blurs (or smudges; again with the appropriate naming….) in a brush motion. The tool’s options will allow you to change the strength of this smudge. Useful for getting out tiny nicks and scratches in photos, although I prefer to paint them in with the paintbrush or clone tool.

Dodge tool

• (burn tool is secondary): Just like in a dark room, used to dodge (lighten) or burn (darken) areas of the image.

Path Selection tool

• again one I don’t use. Used to alter paths.

Horizontal Type tool

• used to put text into a picture. Secondary selection is the “text selection” tool, which will select an area in the shape of whatever text you put in. NOTE: the text tool creates a new layer that the text resides on (for ease of movement later), so to save this as a .jpg file you will need to flatten the image, located in Image/Flatten Image. Ruler tool: measures in a line (click and drag). Let me know if you think of a use for this…

Pen tool

Rectangle tool

• used to make straight lines. Hold down the shift key to make a perfectly horizontal line. (This is a secondary tool. By default this is the pencil tool, which works identically to the brush tool, but in a less circular pattern.)

Notes tool

Eyedropper

• used to “grab” the color of the point you click on. Puts that color in the primary spot.

Hand tool

• Used to scroll.

Zoom tool

• zooms in or (by holding alt) out.

General Things

To Crop: select the area you wish to keep using the selection tool, then image/crop. To reduce file size: scanning an 8x10 at 300 dpi leads to really obnoxious file sizes, so to reduce the file size you’ve got two choices: change the image size, or resolution. Luckily for you, they’re both in the same menu, found under Image/Image Size. Special note: make sure the constrain proportions box is checked if you change the file size, otherwise you’ll end up with a funhouse-mirror effect. Layers: whenever you use the text tool, or paste anything, Photoshop creates a new layer so that moving these new things won’t affect the background (conveniently known as the “background layer”. To navigate the layers, window/show layers). Unfortunately, having more than one layer leads to a limited number of file types the image can be saved as. To get rid of the layer effect, make sure everything is positioned where you want it (because this step is irreversible) then Layers/Flatten Image. Special viewing options: a couple of nice overlays are available: View\Show Rulers or \Show Grid. Rulers are, of course, rulers along the edge of the picture. Grid is a grid that overlays the picture (no it will not print out with the grid, unless you play around with some settings). These can both be of tremendous help in lining things up. Changing brush size: Window/Show Brushes Whoops, I wanna undo that: Window/Show History. The history is a record of everything you’ve done since opening the picture (or your last save), and by clicking on a step, everything preformed after that step is undone. You can redo all of that by simply clicking on the desired step UNLESS you performed an action (other than zoom) between undoing and redoing. Once you perform that action, all steps are lost. Saving the image will also clear the history. Digital cameras: File/Import/Select twain source (this step need only be done once, unless you change cameras). Just pick the camera that you wish to take images from. After configuring this, then File/Import/Twain_32 will bring up a box allowing you to pull images from the selected source. Computers with low amounts of RAM: File/Preferences\Memory & Image Cache… You may want to set the amount of RAM that Photoshop is allowed to use to be higher than 50% (the default). Actually, this may not be a bad thing for anyone who uses Photoshop… Converting from Gif to Jpg: image/mode. Change the mode from indexed to RGB. Rotating the image: Image/Rotate Canvas. You figure it out from there.

Since I just finished 45 minutes worth of digital touch up (one picture), I’ll go over some tips and tricks for that.

Anti-dust filters: if you scan anything in at a high resolution, you’re bound to notice tons of dust and tiny scratches that you didn’t see on the original. Some filters to get rid of that: Filters/Noise/Despeckle. Just found that one tonight and it works wonders! Previously I used Dust & Scratches, found under that same submenu, with radius 1 and threshold 25. Works fairly well, but despeckle works wonderfully. Artifact removal: The lasso tool should become your new best friend. If you select an area (say… the visual artifact to be removed) then any brush strokes, filters, etc. you apply will affect ONLY the area selected. Useful say, if you want to take a hand off a shoulder, but don’t want to disturb any of the shoulder material. By selecting the hand via the magic lasso, any editing subsequently done affects only the hand. I’ve found it to be extremely useful to select whatever I want to take out, then use the paintbrush and a really wide brush to fill in the area with a really obnoxious color (there’s a really gaudy pink that video game programmers use, and I’ve found it works fairly well). That way you can use the magic wand to quickly select the area to be edited, and by using an obnoxious color, you won’t accidentally select something that needed to remain, nor will you leave some of the “mask” color behind, because it is so different from the normal colors. If you want to paste something into that selected area, use Edit/Paste Into. You may need to move the pasted piece (using the move tool) to be able to see it, but it’s there somewhere. Background replacement: if you need to replace something in the background with just a generic background, try copying a section (of background) from near where you’ll be filling and then opening 4 new images (leave the default size; it’ll be set to the size of the section you copied). Paste that small section into those 4 new (blank) images, then flip one horizontal, flip another vertical, and a third one flip both vertical and horizontal. By putting these corner-to-corner in the proper order (untouched, horizontal flip to the right, vertical flip below untouched, and vert and horiz flipped under the horiz flip) you should notice a faint starburst-like pattern. Put a bunch of these starbursts in the background area you need to fill in, then use some of the blur filters soften the edges. The Gaussian blur with a radius of about 8 makes for a nice one. If the new background borders a face or other skin then the Gaussian blur creates a faint shine effect; like light faintly reflected off the skin onto the artificial background. Lends realism to your new background.

Chris Bond

Copyright©2003
last updated June 02, 2003