Photoshop

What is Photoshop?

Adobe Photoshop is an industry standard for raster graphic manipulation, creation and editing. As a professional image editing software package, it comes with a number of tools for retouching photos. It offers a large number of filters and plugins which enable you to add cool effects to your images. Also, it has a premium set of image transformation tools. Among other things, the latest Photoshop version comes with enhanced vector graphics and 3D editing capabilities. You can easily create vector-based 2D images, for example website logos, and then apply them to a 3D object with excellent results. These extended features won't make Photoshop an artist's primary vector graphics or 3D animation application, but it is useful for some people to have it at hand and can be used instead of Adobe Illustrator or 3DMax for some basic operations.

The Work Area

The Photshop workspace consists of five main components: the Application Bar, the Tools Panel, the Options Bar, the Document Window, and the Panel Dock. One of the nice things about using Photoshop is that its workspace interface is very similar to that of other products in the Adobe Creative Suite, for example Indesign and Illustrator.

 

The Application Bar

The Application Bar, new to Photoshop CS4, is located across the top of the screen. It contains the old menu bar, along with a number of other controls, for example a dropdown zoom menu, a button for launching Adobe Bridge, and a button for viewing extras. The menu bar contains controls for managing and editing files, manipulating images, managing layers, and more.

 

Tools Panel

The familiar Tools Panel contains a collection of tools for creating, selecting, and manipulating images. Tools that have a similar function are grouped together.

You can access more options for each tool by holding down the mouse on a tool.

Options Bar

The Options Bar is located below the Application Bar. The options change depending on the tool you have selected. For example, when you select the Type tool, options pertaining to text editing will appear across the bar.

Document Window 

The Document Window displays the file you're working on.

Panel Dock

A vertical dock of panels is located on the right of the workspace. Panels help you manage and edit your images, allowing for quick and easy access to the most common controls for a particular task. By default, three panels will appear when you open Photoshop: the layers, adjustments and styles panels.

To access more panels, click Windows from the Application Bar, and click the panel you want to open. To hide a panel, click Windows from the Application Bar, and click the panel you want to hide.

Creating a New Image

To create a new image, follow these steps:

1. Click File from the Application Bar.
2. Click New. A dialog box will open, allowing you to define the following elements of your image:
   • Name - allows you to name your image.
   • Size - allows you to predetermine the width and height of your image. Photoshop offers preset dimensions for sizing your image, or you can customize your own size using many types of measurements including pixels, centimeters, inches, and millimeters.
   • Resolution - allows you to set the image resolution. A resolution of 72 ppi (pixels per inch) is generally used for Internet images. If you wish to use your images for print or video, they will need to be a higher resolution.
   • Color - allows you to control the color mode of your image. The standard color mode is RGB (Red Green Blue). You can also choose to create your image in grayscale, bitmap, and more. Some modes will limit your color range.
   • Background Content - allows you to choose the initial background color of your image.
3. When you are happy with your selections, click OK.

 

Opening an Existing Image

To open an existing image, follow these steps:

1. Click File from the Application Bar.
2. Click Open.
3. Navigate to your saved file.
4. Click Open.

Saving an Image

To save an image, click File and then click Save.

The type tool

The Type Tool is used to create text in Photoshop. is a feature used mostly with desktop publishing and the Web, as most people don't tend to print out home photos with text on the pictures.

To create text in Photoshop, follow these steps:

1. Open the image that you want to add text to.
2. Click the Type tool from the Tools Panel.
3. Click the document where you want the text to appear.
4. Type your text.

Type Examples

Photoshop provides many different options for writing text. To access these options, hold the mouse down on the Type Tool on the Tools Palette. The following options will appear.

Arched Text

1. Create a new image by selecting File > New. Make the image 400 pixels wide by 100 pixels high.
2. Create a new text layer by selecting the Type tool and clicking on the image.
3. Type "Example of ARC text," or whatever other text you want.
4. Click on the Create warped text button, next to the text color selector, in the toolbar.
5. Use the following values: Style: Arc, Bend: +20, Horizonal Distortion: -20, Vertical Distortion: -20. Click OK.

Vertical Text

1. Save this file to your computer: eagle.jpg.
2. Use the Marquee option and toggle the text orientation to vertical.
3. Use the following values: Verdana as the font family, 48 pt as the font size, and bold the text.
4. Type "EAGLE." Before you do anything else, move the marqueed type so that the bottom stroke of the letter "E" is on the eagle's eye.
5. Tap the Enter key, or click the checkmark button on the toolbar to commit your text.
6. Now Edit > Copy the marqueed text and Edit > Paste where appropriate.

 

 

Formatting Text

Once the Type Tool is selected, the following text options will open in the Options Bar:

• (insert image) - allows you to create a new text layer.
• (image) - allows you to change the orientation of your text from horizontal to vertical.
• - The first field defines the "font family" of the text (such as Times New Roman or Arial). The next field defines the point size of the text. The next option is to control anti-aliasing, or sharp or fuzzy the text looks. The next three boxes denote the alignment of the text within a preset space: left align, center, and right align. The solidly colored box represents the currently selected color, and the second to last button enables you to warp text over a preset path line.
  The last button on the toolbar toggles the Character and Paragraph palette. This palatte allows you to manipulate several type options, such as letter width and height, as well as including all the options available in the Type toolbar.
  
  

Drawing an Image from Scratch - Photoshop or Illustrator?

Photoshop's drawing tools are very powerful in their own way, but if you want to create and draw an image from scratch, it's better to use Adobe's Illustrator program. Like Photoshop, Illustrator is one of the top industry standard drawing programs. The big difference between the two programs is that Photoshop uses raster graphics and Illustrator uses vector graphics. Raster graphics store picture data as a matrix of pixels (dots). When you zoom in on the picture, the pixels become enlarged, resulting in a fuzzy, jagged picture with visible pixels. Vector graphics are made with mathematical equations and formulas. When you zoom in on a vector graphic, its variables change to accommodate your action and you end up with a graphic that looks exactly the same, except bigger.

Drawing Tools

The main drawing tools are located on the Tools Palette: the Pen Tool, Shapes Tool, Path Selection Tool. To expand the options for a tool, hold the mouse down on the tool icon.

Pen Tool

 

Use the Pen tool to create drawing paths. You can create custom shapes and complicated curves that can be scaled easily. By accessing the expanded Pen tool, you can add, delete and covert points on your drawing path.

Path Selection Tool

Use the Path Selection tool to select an existing drawing path. You can also use it to move, resize, copy, or delete paths. Use the Direct Selection tool to reshape a path, or to delete a component of a path.

Shape Tool

Use the Shape tool to create paths with a certain shape. It creates the same path points that the Pen tool does. Each shape can be modified with the Path Selection tool.

Type Tool

Use the Type tool to add text to your image. For more information on using the Type tool, visit the Type page.

Painting

Painting Tools

Each of the expanded options (shown on the right) for Photoshop's painting tools can be accessed by holding down the mouse on a tool.

Using the Painting Tools

Brushes When working with all of the drawing tools (except the Gradient tool), the Brushes option is available in the toolbar to allow you to use different brushes and textures. You can also load one (or several) of Photoshop's included brush sets by clicking on the black triangle at the top right hand corner of the Brushes menu.
Airbrush Tool The Airbrush tool acts similar to an airbrush or a spray can. The longer you activate it in one place, the more color is applied.	Paintbrush Tool The Paintbrush tool behaves the same as the Airbrush tool except that pressure is kept constant.
Pencil Tool The Pencil tool is similar to the two tools mentioned above, except that the edges of the applied color are not fuzzy—using the Pencil tool produces hard edges.	Clone Tool The Clone tool allows you to copy a part of an image to another area of the image by pressing and holding the key while clicking on an image and then using the tool in another area. The Pattern Stamp tool is slightly different in that you may paste the copied image more than once (the Clone tool allots only one copy).
History Tool The History tool allows you to combine previous versions of your image with the current version. When working with an image, you may decide that you like some of the current changes as well as some of the past changes. You can combine the two by selecting the history state (from the History palette) that includes the old changes that you liked and using the History tool to paint the past image onto the current state.	Eraser Tool The default Eraser tool replaces the erased portion of the image with the current background color. When using the Background Eraser tool, however, the erased portion simply disappears. The Magic Eraser tool behaves similar to the Magic Wand tool in that it will select similar shades of a certain color and erase portions of the image with those colors and erase them.

Brush Dynamics The Brush Dynamics options may be accessed in the brush pallete, which is located on the right-hand side of the toolbars for all the painting tools (except for the Eraser and Gradient tools). Lots of cool effects can be created if you play around with these settings.

Gradient Tool The Gradient tool is a very simple way to paint a gradient between colors into your image. The default settings produce a linear gradient between the current foreground and background colors. Radial, angle, reflected, and diamond gradients are also available. Adding more colors and settings can be done in the Gradient tool's toolbar. Working with Layout  Layers are a basic founding concept you need to understand when working with Photoshop. Each time you add something to your image (for example text or shapes), Photoshop will create it as a layer. It might help for you to think about layers as several sheets of transparencies, each with a different picture. Each layer is one smaller part within the bigger picture. Take the following as an example: This is layer 1, a transparency with a black border and a red circle in the upper-left corner. This is layer 2, a transparency with a green circle in the middle. This is layer 3, our final transparency with a blue circle in the bottom-right corner. If we place layer 2 (green circle) over layer 1 (red circle), and then place layer 3 (blue circle) over layer 2, we'll get an overlapping of colors within a single image. That's how layers work! Working with Layers The Layers palette is located on the right of the workspace, in the palette dock. All of your layers are displayed in hierarchical order on the Layers palette. From here, you can lock and hide layers, create new layers, work with layer groups, and format your layers. Here are some of the most commonly used functions on the Layers palette: The Layers Palette Layer Lock - allows you to lock a layer, or specific features within a layer. Eye icon - allows you to hide a layer. You can still work on a layer even though you can't see it. The Paintbrush icon - indicates which layer is currently selected. A layer must be selected before you can make any modifications to it. To select a layer, simply click it. Selecting a layer makes it visible. Dragging a layer to either to the New/Copy Layer or Delete Layer buttons on the bottom of the palette will copy or delete the layer. You can also rearrange layers. For example, in our color circle example, the blue circle could be placed beneath the red and green circles. To do this, you simply click and drag the layer to be above or below other layers in the Layers list. Selection About Selections When working with Photoshop, you will use selections all the time. Selections are areas of an image that you choose to isolate from the rest of the image to make modifications to, or to copy and paste into other images (or even the same image again). You can also start with a new layer and use selections as a drawing tool. A fancy effect that selections are famous for is replacing heads! With a little practice you can, for example, select your head and place it into another body seamlessly. Or at least in this example, semi-seamlessly! + =  Selection Basics A "marquee" is a moving, dotted line in the shape of your selection. It's also called the "selection path," and sometimes informally called the "ant trail." When working with a selection within an image, changes can be made only within that selection. In this example, a circular selection has been made and color has been applied. As you can see, the paint only appears inside the circle selection. To create a selection, first select the desired Marquee tool. Then click on the upper-left portion of the area you want to select and drag the mouse down and and to the right until you reach the desired dimensions. By holding down while dragging, you are constraining the proportions evenly, which will create a perfect square or a perfect circle. By holding down (Windows) or (Mac OS) while dragging, the selection will expand evently outwards from a central point. Selection Tools As detailed below, Marquee tools include a Rectangular Marquee tool (default), which makes square and rectangular selections. The Elliptical Marquee tool makes circular and oval type selections. The Single Row Marquee and Single Column Marquee tools select a single row or column of pixels. The default Rectangular Marquee tool Three additional Marquee tools are available when you click and hold down the default tool button in the toolbox. The default Lasso tool Three additional Lasso tools are available when you click and hold down the default tool button in the toolbox. The Magic Wand tool Manipulating Selections It's possible to select and deselect more than one portion of the already existing selection. Located in the left side of the Marquee toolbar are four buttons that enable you to, from left, select normally, add to a selection, subtract from a selectio, and intersect with a selection. There are also key combinations that enable the same options. By holding down after a selection has already been made, you can add to that selection. A tiny plus sign appears next to the mouse pointer, and the Addition button in the Marquee toolbar will be highlighted. By holding down (Windows) or (Mac OS), on the other hand, you can subtract from a current selection. A tiny minus sign appears next to the mouse pointer, and the Subtraction button in the Marquee toolbar will be highlighted. Advanced Selection Tools The Lasso, Polygonal Lasso, and Magnetic Lasso Tools The Lasso tool allows "freehand" selection controlled by the movement of the mouse. The Polygonal Lasso tool lets you draw straight-edged segments of a selection border. The Magnetic Lasso tool snaps the selection border to the edges of defined areas in the image. This can be very powerful. The Magic Wand Tool The Magic Wand tool works similar to the Magnetic Lasso tool in that it can be used to select highly defined areas. The way the Magic Wand tool works is to select an area of similar colors: for example, to select only a red ball lying on green grass. What's great about the tool is that there is no need to trace the outline of the ball by hand. Just click anywhere where in the red area the tool will automatically select similar shades of that color. You can change the "tolerance level," or how tolerant the tool will be in selecting "similar" shades. Selecting a low number (the scale is from 0 to 255) will make the Magic Wand tool select only colors that are very similar to the one you selected. Higher numbers will broaden the range of selection. Image Sizing Changing the Size of an Image Changing the size of an image is one of the most common tasks carried out in Photoshop. Whether you want to turn an 8x10 image into a 4x5 image, or enlarge a small wallet photo into a larger one, the place to start is the Image Size dialog box. To access the Image Size dialog box, follow these steps: Click Image from the Menu Bar. Click Image Size. The Image Size dialog box will open. In the example below, you can see that the document size is approximately 14x10 inches with a resolution of 72 pixels/inches. To change this size, type in a new value for width or height. If the Constrain Proportions box is checked, the other value will change automatically. The Constrain Proportions option ensures that you won't distort your image when you resize it. You can see how the changes to the size of an image affects file size by examining the values displayed next to the words "Pixel Dimensions" at the top of the dialog box. Changing the Canvas Size The Canvas Size dialog box allows you to add or subtract working space from the current image. To access the Canvas Size dialog, follow these steps: Click Image from the Menu Bar. Click Canvas Size. From here, you can change the values for width and height to modify the amount of canvas available. If the Relative checkbox is checked, you can simply enter the amounts by which you want to increase or decrease the size of the canvas instead of needing to calculate how big your image should be after the canvas is modified. Additional canvas is the color of the current background color. Subtracting from the canvas will effectively crop your image.  Image Adjusting Adjusting? When editing scanned or digital camera pictures, other programs can hardly top off Photoshop's excellent tools and features. Under Image > Adjust, you can manipulate the picture's hue and saturation, levels, contrast, curves, and color balance. These tools enable the user to enhance any picture. For the basic purposes of this site, we'll go over the main features when adjusting images. Levels When you open the Levels dialog, you are presented with a histogram that represents the pixels of your image in graph form. As shown from the gradient at the bottom, the number of pixels the image contains is charted from dark to bright tones in a left-to-right manner. The levels from which this picture was taken is from Photoshop's Waterfall(16bit).tif, which is included in the program's sample files directory. In this example, there are very few white pixels, as shown on the right-hand side of the histogram. Open the example by going to File > Open, and find Waterfall(16bit).tif in Photoshop's samples directory. Once the image is opened, go to Image > Adjust > Levels, or use <Ctrl>L (Windows) or <Cmd>L (Mac OS). Sure, this is a nice waterfall with dark green foliage all around, but we want the image to portray a more lively forest. By clicking and dragging the white pointer slider in the histogram to the left until a value of 210 is reached, the number of white tones in the image will increase, making the image a little brighter. You can change what is defined as black or white in an image using the Levels Eyedropper tools located in the bottom right-hand portion of the Levels dialog box. To designate what is black and white in an image, select the appropriate eyedropper and click on a color on the image itself. For our example, we'll select the Highlight Eyedropper, the right-hand one, and select the position circled in red. This creates a brilliant aura over the forest in a higher contrasting tone. If you want the trees to be a little more reddish, we can give it a blush by selecting the Midtones Eyedropper, the central one, and clicking on the position circled in red here. As you can see, the original image on the left has now been transformed into a lush, vibrant forest on the right. Curves The Curves dialog box is accessed by Image > Adjust > Curves, or <Ctrl>M (Windows) or <Cmd>M (Mac OS). Manipulating curves is similar to manipulating levels, but you are offered greater control when adjusting image tones. As you can see by the gradients, you can also adjust the shadows, midtones, and highlights. When working with curves, you can also add points for increased accuracy. To do this, click on the diagonal line and drag to the desired value. To add another point, click on another area of the line and repeat the procedure until you get the desired affect. The Curves Eyedropper work the same as the Levels Eyedroppers. Color Balance The Color Balance dialog box allows you to specifically changes the tonal colors of the image. Clicking and dragging the sliders to the left or right will change the tonal color of the whole image to that specific color. Again, you can adjust the shadows, midtones, or highlights of an image. The Color Balance dialog, however, does not have Eyedropper tools because you are changing the colors directly. Brightness and Contrast The Brightness and Contrast dialog is simple and is used just as often as the other image adjust features, if not more, for quick fixes. Simply, the higher the Brightness value, the brighter and lighter the image will be. The same goes for the Contrast value. A high Contrast value would imply that the whites are whiter and the darks are darker. Filters What are Filters? Filters are great, but used mostly for special effects. Some are used for enhancing pictures, but most distort pictures in one way or another. To apply a filter to an image, go to the Filter menu and choose a filter out of the many sets that come with Photoshop. Each filter has its own options and customization. Here is just an example of some filters than can be used: Original picture Palette Knife Angled Strokes Glass Final Filter words Photoshop has several filters. There are companies out there, however, who are known for making Photoshop plug-ins and filters, such as Eye Candy® and Kai's Power Tools®. By going to Help > About Plug-in, you will can see Photoshop's default filters. Preferences Preferences can be customized in Photoshop to fit your needs. When working with print you can specify several types of units of measurement, for example, and Photoshop can be customized in the same fashion. To customize Photoshop for yourself, select Edit > Preferences from the menu bar, or use one of these two key combinations: <Ctrl><Shift>K (Windows) or <Cmd><Shift>K (Mac OS). Although a lot of the material included in the Preferences dialog box can certainly help with advanced features and functions, there are only a few things that most people use. Here is a brief overview of each of the eight customizable option sets included in Preferences:  General: As shown in the picture above, this option set allows you to customize some of the general and more miscellaneous features in Photshop, such as zooming and the number of history states. To access this set directly once the Preferences dialog has been opened, you may use one of the following key combinations: <Ctrl>1 (Windows) or <Cmd>1 (Mac OS) Saving Files: This set includes defining upper or lowercase file extensions when saving, and how often Photoshop autosaves. <Ctrl>2 (Windows) or<Cmd>2 (Mac OS) Display and Cursors: This set changes cursors for painting and other tools. <Ctrl>3 (Windows) or <Cmd>3 (Mac OS) Transparency and Gamut: This set allows you to change background grid size and color. <Ctrl>4 (Windows) or <Cmd>4 (Mac OS) Units and Rulers: This set is perhaps the most used one, and enables you to change measurement units. <Ctrl>5 (Windows) or <Cmd>5 (Mac OS) Guides and Grid: This set is another commonly used one, and allows you to change grid color and gridline intervals. <Ctrl>6 (Windows) or <Cmd>6 (Mac OS) Plug-ins and Scratch Disks: This set controls filters (a type of plug-in) to extend Photoshop's capabilities. You may also name additional virtual RAM locations for your scratch disks. <Ctrl>7 (Windows) or <Cmd>7 (Mac OS) Memory and Image Cache: This set determines how much memory Photoshop uses. <Ctrl>8 (Windows) or <Cmd>8 (Mac OS) Here are some tutorials on Photoshop : 1. Action Zoom Blurring Effect 2. Add Dramatic Color to Photographs 3. Removing Background   Sources cited from : 1. http://www.ntchosting.com/web-design/photoshop.html 2. http://www.washington.edu/lst/help/graphics/photoshop/index 3. http://www.photoshopessentials.com/ebooks/samples/pdf-sample.pdf