Using Tools from Photoshop's Toolbar

Now it's time to learn how to use some of the tools in the Photoshop toolbar.

Marquee Selection tools: The following tools allow you to select regions in your image to alter, copy, move, and apply filters. 

This is the default selection setting. You can make a selection of any rectangular size and shape.

Elliptical marquee tool: This tool, available when you click and hold down on the selection tool region of the tool bar, selects elliptical spaces. To select a round area, hold the shift key while clicking and dragging.

Single row: This tool will select a 1pixel region that is as wide as your image. Very useful for trimming edges and making straight lines.

Single column: The tool will select a 1pixel region that is as tall as your image. Also very useful for trimming edges and making straight lines.

A Note on Selection Modes (in the options bar):


# Normal mode allows you to drag the cursor to create the selection size you want.
# Constrained aspect ratio allows you to choose a scalable rectangle, say with a width to height ratio of 1 to 2. The selection will grow when you drag, but will remain the same shape.
# Fixed Size/Fixed Aspect Ratio allows you to predetermine the size, in pixels or a ratio, of the selection you will make. When you click with fixed size selected, a selection box of the exact size you specified will automatically appear. With fixed aspect ratio, you can make different-sized selections of the same shape. This is a particularly helpful tool when cropping images to a certain size or drawing identical boxes.

Move Tool
the move tool moves an entire layer at a time. When you have selected this tool, click on a layer in the layer pane, and then click and drag on the image. The current layer will move all at once. You can even move it outside of the current image size. Don't worry, though, parts of an image that move outside the borders still exist - they are just hidden. They will only be cropped out if you flatten the image. 

Lasso tools
The lasso selection tools are similar to the marquee tools, except that the lasso tools give you ultimate freedom in terms of the shape of your selection. There are three different lasso tools:

Lasso tool, which allows you to draw a selection by dragging the cursor freehand. The selection will close itself.
Polygon Lasso tool, which creates a selection composed of straight lines that can be as short as one pixel. The selection grows with each additional click. This tool is especially useful for cutting out objects in an image to place on new backgrounds.
Magnetic Polygon Lasso tool works a little like a combination of the other two lasso tool. As you drag, the selection maps to natural borders in the image. This is a useful tool when dealing with well-defined and high-contrast images.

A note about lasso tool options: When extracting part of an image from its background, the result will be choppy and rough around the edges unless you adjust the feather value in the options bar. This fades the edges you create and can smooth the region into its new background.


Magic Wand Tool
The magic wand tool is similar to the magnetic polygon lasso tool except that rather than dragging to make a selection, you click in a region and a selection appears around similar colored pixels. You can control how similar pixels must be to be included in the selection by altering the tolerance value.
This tool is useful for selecting monochromatic regions or pieces of high-contrast images. 

Using the Image Menu

Most basic Photoshop tasks involve the Image menu, which I showed you earlier. In this chapter of the tutorial, I’ll go a little deeper into what you can do with the Image menu. I'm skipping around a little here; this represents the most commonly used items on the Image menu. 
Mode
The first item on the Image menu is Mode. This is what you use to change the color mode and appearance on the entire image. I discussed RGB, the web mode, and CMYK, the print mode, earlier. You have some other choices here, including grayscale and duotone. Some modes’ availability depends on the pre-existing color mode.


Adjust
You can see that the adjust option on the Image menu gives you a lot of different tools for adjusting your image. The most basic types of adjustments you can make with Photoshop involve colors and brightness.

The most simple is the contrast/brightness adjustment. When you select contrast/brightness, you are confronted with a dialog box with a slider for both brightness and contrast. Moving the sliders to the left makes the picture more murky or darker, and moving the sliders to the right brightens and increases the contrast between the dark and light colors in the image. You can play around with both sliders until you get a suitable mix; the change is previewed in the image. This tool is helpful for brightening pictures that were taken in low light.


The other adjustments you can make with the options on the adjustments menu are a little more complex, and the best way to learn about them is just to experiment. Because Photoshop allows you to preview your adjustments, you can get a good feel for the adjustments without hurting your image.


Image size
Another common basic feature of Photoshop that lives on the Image menu is image size. You use this function to resize an image, and it’s pretty straightforward. When you select image size from the Image menu, a dialog box appears with some numbers corresponding to the current size.

You'll notice that there are two sets of sizes, Pixel Dimensions and Document Size. Pixel Dimensions refers to the image's size on screen, and Document Size refers to the size at which the document will print.You'll notice that all the numbers change when you change one of them. This default setting preserves the original h/w ratio of your image when you make changes to it size. If you want to change only one dimension of the image, uncheck the "constrain proportions" checkbox at the bottom of the dialog.

Notice that in the Documents size settings, you have the option to change the resolution (remember, things images will always be approximately 72 pixels/inch on screen). You can use this to change the resolution of your image, but remember, if you don't want the quality to decrease, you should only go from hi-res to low-res.


Canvas Size
Canvas Size is similar to Image Size, but changes to an image's canvas size can provide you with more working area for your image, in case you want to annotate it, copy more images into it, or perform. any number of other graphic variations. 


Crop
The Crop function in the image menu is fairly straightforward. Make a selection, go to Image and select crop, and then everyting outside your selection disappears. The image size reflects the change.

Creating Graphics in PhotoshopAn advantage of Photoshop over basic photo editing software is the capabilities it gives you to create your own graphics. There's an exhaustive number of tools in Photoshop (and resources about them), so I'll just cover the basics.

Most of the functions these tools perform are based on your selection in an image. The effect or tool only operates within a selection.

Make a small selection and select the paintbrush tool. Move the mouse over your selection holding down the mouse button. You'll see that the image is only altered within the selection.

Colors and Graphics

Before I get to some of the main tools, I'll tell you a little about colors. The foreground color, which will be applied by tools like the paintbrush, is represented by the top square in the middle of the toolbar. 

Stroke & Fill

The most basic ways to apply colors to an image are to use Fill and Stroke, both available on the edit menu. Make a selection, and choose fill from the edit menu. A dialog will appear asking you to make some decisions about colors and transparency. Make your selections, and press OK to fill the selection with the chosen color. Stroke operates in much the same manner, though you are given the chance to determine the weight of the lines you create. 

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The Incredible Pen Tool

By:pandasauure

A lot of tutorials tell you to use the pen tool; this one will show you HOW to use the pen tool. Creating true vector shapes, partial pixel selections, curvature modification, and saved paths are just some of its features.

Step 1
The pen tool has 2 main functions: Shape Layers and Paths. For this tutorial, we'll be using Paths. Select the pen tool and then make sure you have Paths selected as well.


Step 2
Now start by drawing a simple curve. Do this by clicking on some point in the image, then clicking and holding in a different spot. While holding the click, move the mouse some and you will see a curve start to form. Let go of the mouse button when you've got the curve you want.


Step 3
Now you can click again and repeat the process to create another curve. You'll notice that this time the curve was automatic and followed the general direction of the previous curve. I bet you're wondering how you can change that.


Step 4
Let's start over with the first curve. Click somewhere, then click again and drag. Once you get the curve you want, instead of letting go of the mouse button, this time hold down the alt button on your keyboard and move your mouse some. You can dictate which way the next curve will go by doing thi


Step 5
With the line adjusted, this time when we click for the next point the curve will not be the same. The curve always follows this line we just adjusted -- the longer the line the more sharp the curve will be. The direction of the line indicates which way the curve will go.


Step 6
You can also add points after your curve is created. If you hover over the existing path you will see the pen tool with + beside it. If you click the mouse you can add a point, and if you hold down alt you can see how adjusting the line affects curves.


Step 7
If you hover over an existing point, you will see the pen tool with a - beside it. This means if you click it will delete the point you're on. I'll go ahead and delete the anchor point we added in the last step.


Step 8
Now you may be wondering what to do with the path you've created. There are lots of options. To see them, right click anywhere in your image with the pen tool selected.


Step 9
Let's go through each of the options. Delete Path is obvious. It will delete the path you've just created. Define Custom Shape will take the shape you just created, turn it into a true vector, and add it to the pen tool's shape menu so you can use it whenever you like. Make Selection will turn your current path into a selection. This has a major advantage over the marquee tool: the pen tool can select partial pixels while the marquee tool selects only whole pixels. It does this by adding a transparency to existing pixels that are on the edge of your selection. This means your selections will be much smoother.

Step 10
Fill path will fill your path with the options you specify. This includes opacity, blending mode, and a few others. Stroke Path will allow you to choose what tool you want to stroke the path with, and then do so. Finally Free Transform Path will allow you to adjust the scale of your path. Right clicking again will give you even more options such as skew, distort and perspective

Step 11

Let's look closer at the Define Custom Shape option. First make some shape with the pen tool


Step 12
Right click and select Define Custom Shape. It will ask you for a name, just call it whatever you like


Step 13
Your shape is now saved. You can delete the path. To use your shape, select the Custom Shape Tool, then select your shape from the Shape drop down box.


Step 14Now all you have to do is click and drag to re-create the shape any time. Holding down shift will create the shape at the original proportions. Making a shape is great for anything that might become repetitive, or for things that need to be scalable like logos.


Step 15
Let's look at one more very useful function of the pen tool: cutting out images. This is better than using the lasso tool for many reasons. First of all it will select partial pixels as mentioned above. You also have the ability to adjust your path at any time. And moreover, once your image is traced you have the extra option of doing things like creating a shape from the object, or putting a stroke around it.

Step 16
Open up a picture you'd like to cut out and use the pen tool to trace around it. It doesn't have to be perfect because you can adjust it later. Some people even prefer to click on each point or junction and then go back and modify the curves later. Personally I tend to modify the curves as I go -- just do whatever you're more comfortable with. I'm an old-timer StarCraft fan so I'll use something from the game.


Step 17
Now right click and choose Make Selection.



Step 18
Now you can press ctrl-c (or edit>copy) to copy the selection to the clipboard. Create a new image and paste the selection with ctrl-v (or edit>paste). Now you can do whatever you want with the background layer and your image should look good because of the partial pixel selections. I used the horribly ugly rainbow gradient just to show you how the partial pixel selecting automatically blends the edges into the background no matter what color it is.


Step 19

The pen tool admittedly takes more time than some other tools -- both to learn and to cut out images. However when it's quality that counts, it's the pen tool hands down. Learn it, live it, love it.

Step 20
Just for grins let's go back into the original image where you created the path. Click on the Paths palette (by default it is in between Layers and Channels). You will see the path you created. Click on it and it should appear again.


Step 21
Now you can right click (with the pen tool selected, of course) and choose Define Custom Shape. Now I have my own Protoss shape to use whenever, and however I like -- even to create my own terrible protoss army, a silhouette of fear stalking in the night MWAHAHA!


HOPE YOU LIKE IT
THIS IS A SIMPLE TUTORIAL

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Beginners' Guide to Adobe Photoshop

By:pandasauure

This basic, thirty-minute tutorial is not a comprehensive instruction manual. It only teaches you the few simple features you need to know, to start using Adobe Photoshop. From there, you'll quickly discover most of the other features of the program yourself.

1 – Creating a New Image, and Setting Adobe Photoshop's Undo Option
Click File > New, and create a new image of any size you desire.

Press Ctrl+K to bring up the Preferences window.

Change your "Redo Key" to Ctrl+Shift+Z. This enables you to press Ctrl+Z at any time, to undo the last thing(s) you did. Remember this.


2 – Using Adobe Photoshop's Layers window
The Layers window shows the various layers that your image is made up of.

To make a new layer, click the New Layer button, as shown by the red arrow.

To work on a different layer, click on that layer. The eyeball will apear next to that layer.

You can drag layers up and down the list.

Remember – create a new layer for each part of your image. This allows you to go back and edit the layers individually. Every Adobe Photoshop beginner at some time makes a masterpiece, only to find out that they did it all on one layer, and now they can't remove those pink clouds they put on it. 


3 – Learning about Selection
One of the most important concepts in Adobe Photoshop is Selection.

This is the Rectangular Selection Tool.

Use this tool on your image to select an area of the image. This lets Photoshop know that that's the area you want to work on.


4 – Adding to a Selection and making a square
To add to a selection, hold Shift before dragging.

Tomake the selection exactly square, start dragging, then hold Shift.

You can press Ctrl+D to "deselect" and remove the selection at any time.


5 – Elliptical Selections and subtracting Selections
Hold down on the Selection Tool on the Toolbar, and choose the Ellipse.

To move the selection, just click inside it and drag.

Holding Alt while selecting subtracts that area from the selection. I've done that with the Ellipse Selection Tool.


6 – A Selection exercise
If you're following this tutorial in Adobe Photoshop, see if you can make these shapes.

Other relevant Adobe Photoshop tools
Lasso Tool – Allows you to draw a selection area with the cursor.
Magic Wand – Summons elves. (Also believed to select an area of one colour.) :P


7 – Choosing a colour
Now that you know how to select an area in Adobe Photoshop, we can look at some tools that can do something with that area.

Before we get started on colouring your selection, you'll need to pick a colour.

This part of the Toolbox is where you select your colours.

The top square is the foreground colour. If you use a brush or paint bucket, it will apply this colour.

The bottom square is the background colour. It has various purposes, but it's also a good place to store a second colour that you're using.

Click on either square to change its colour.
Click the arrow to swap the two colours.
Click the little squares to reset the colours to black and white.


8 – The Paint Bucket and Gradient tools
These two tools share a button on the toolbar. To select one, click and hold.

On a new layer, just click the Paint Bucket tool inside the area of your selection to fill it with the colour you've selected.


9 – A colour exercise
With what you've learned so far, you should be able to recreate this piece of hippy history. 

Remember to create each step on a new layer.

Other Adobe Photoshop tools of interest includeThe Text Tool – Just click it wherever you want text to appear. Choose a font, colour, and size, and start typing.
The Move Tool – Use this tool to drag things around. If you have a selection, it will drag the contents of the selection. If not, it will drag the contents of the layer you're on. 

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Adobe Photoshop Starters

Adobe Photoshop is an image editing, or image creating application, with alot of advanced and useful tools. 

Definitions, understanding terms:

Image - picture, a visual representation of an object or scene or person or abstraction produced on a surface.

Pixel - the information stored for a single grid point in the image. The complete image is a rectangular array of pixels. A pixel consists of a single color.

Diffrence between canvas size and image size.
The image is an object that was drawn and when changing the size of it, it either shrinks or expands, cavans is the space provided to draw the image on, decreasing the size of the canvas doesn't shrink the image but cuts it off, when increasing the cavas size there is more space provided and you can draw out side of the image.

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