GameAmp: Tutorials: Photoshop for Dummies

Marquee is used to select an area on the document; either by selecting a Rectangle, an Elliptical (Circle), Sing Row (Horizontal Selection), or Single Column (Vertical Selection).Upon selecting you’ll be able to apply any effect, change color, change setting, and even cut or paste that portion of the document.

My favorite way to move things around, the move tool, you simple drag the image/layer wherever you want.

By using ctr t , you activate free transform which will resize or rotate what you have selected.

Utilize your tools by selecting an area first and then transforming and moving it… However, when designing signatures for the site and what not…I just use the move tool and crop too to place the “main picture” where I want and work from there.

Usually the default is the freehand lasso (Labeled Lasso in my version). Where you’d use your mouse to select an area… Magnetic Lasso is probably the most useful. If you have a picture that the background is pretty plain and doesn’t blend too much in with your focus area (example: your character in guild wars). Then you can use it to easily select your character and cut/copy it into a new layer or document. This way you can work with just your character.

I suggest doing a feather selection however; which will blur the edges of your selection to whatever setting you apply. If you right click when you have an area selected (using any selection tool) you’ll notice there’s a feather option. Click there and a box will open up asking you to type in a number. Until you move the picture, like, cutting and pasting it into a new layer, you will not see the effects of the feather.

This tool will select an area based on the color. To be more accurate, it selects common pixels… So if you had a huge gray area… you could select the gray and delete it. (Cut it/color it/etc). Hold down shift key to continue selecting different “colored” portions of the picture.

This is where whenever you finish an image you can select your cropping tool to make your document size the exact size you selected. It crops your document to whatever you have highlighted. Keep in mind, the crop tool uses a rectangular shape.

You can drag the corners to extend the area you want saved. Any area not selected (highlighted) will be deleted.

The crop tool affects the canvas size!! Whatever is left out of the highlighted area will be deleted. So if you had any images hanging off the page to edit…Hold off on cropping till you’re finish with your editing and know what you don’t mind losing.

Most likely you won’t be using this tool, but it breaks up an image into smaller pieces. I used this tool in making my website template that I transferred into Dreamweaver…It’ll make an area “selectable” for links/texts/etc.

The Healing Brush allows you to fix any imperfections in an image. Blemishes, scratches, age, etc. You basically sample another area in the document and it’ll blend the color into the image.

Basically are your drawing tools. I usually use the brush tool..and have different designs downloaded to paint with.

Keep in mind, the foreground is the color you’ll be painting with. And you’ll want to keep track of the settings you’re using on the main bar to change the effects you’re painting with.

Use the keystrokes [ and ] to increase and decrease your brush size quickly.

If you’re worried about painting outside of the lines (like in kindergarten) then select an area first and it won’t matter if you do. The area outside the selected portion won’t appear.

It does just as the name implies, it will duplicate an image. You “stamp” a portion of the image as the reference and the new one will be a clone of the original.

Hint: if your keys don’t seem to be working for some reason, turn off any programs running in the background…We learned in class that it may cause some issues.

Basically it utilizes the information in the history palette and applies it to the current active layer.

I really don’t bother with it. But if it’s used correctly, it can be an effective tool.

This tool removes an area of the picture as you drag it. Keep in mind; in your toolbar (located at the top of your workstation) there are modifications you can make to erase in different ways. You can edit the type of brush you’re using to soften the edges or removing with a hard block brush, changing the opacity will erase a little bit at a time, making the area transparent as you drag. If you want to be careful how much you erase at a time, modify your flow settings. Lowering the flow will make the effect more restrained. There are also three different types of an erasing tool: The basic eraser, magic eraser, and background eraser. The magic eraser will work very similar to the magic wand, removing the selected color in the area. The background eraser will basically sample a color automatically and as you drag it’ll erase that color.

The paint bucket tool you should be familiarized with, but the gradient maybe new to you… You can change the settings of the gradient too at the top property bar. Your options are: Linear, Radial, Angle, Reflected, and Diamond gradients. The gradients cover up the entire layer you place it on. So if you don’t want to lose the image your working on, create a new layer before applying a gradient so you can change the settings of that layer to not “destroy” your main focus. You can utilize your selection tools to apply a gradient to a selected area.

The Blur, Sharpen and Smudge tools are used for retouching an image. Each tool can have its settings altered to your preferences. If you want to reduce the speed you’re applying these tools, reduce the strength setting in the options bar (located at the top of the work station). Personally, I use the blur tool to smooth over an uneven transition or to minimize the areas I want less effective (A common reason would be to help the clone stamp in receiving a more accurate sample). The smudge tool can be extremely helpful in moving the color needed for the healing brush to be more effective as well. (Of course, use a small brush to do this effect).

Burn, Sponge, and Dodge tools are more tools that are used to edit an image further. The Burn tool darkens an area, while the dodge tool lightens it. The sponge tool increases/decreases the color saturation. Color saturation is basically the intensity of the color.

Tip: Use your Flow/Opacity settings.

These tools are used for other tools, such as the pen tool and shape tools. The Direct Selection Tool will select a single path segment (meaning the box on the line you made with either the pen/shape tool). It’s used to move/reshape that selection and path. You can also create new anchor points to edit this way. (An anchor point is basically that box I was referring to that appears).

Pretty much self explanatory, the text tool is where you’d put text! (Gee Wiz).

However it does offer other things. Like typing mask that you maybe unfamiliar with. The mask tool basically creates an outline of the text. This is like creating a “text” selection to where you can fill in an image with, for example.

The pen tool is fun to use when you get used to it. It’s used for creating paths, outlines which can become selections, filled with color, or stroked. Don’t worry about this tool if you’re a beginner to Photoshop…practice with other things before getting into more “intermediate” tools.

This is where you can make geometric paths. If you didn’t know, paths are outlines which can be used to make selections, stroked, or filled with a color/filter.

The vector objects in the listing are restricted by pixels. Meaning, when you reduce and increase the size…the quality won’t be affected.

Pretty much, the notes tool will add almost a ‘post-it’ looking image to your document. Basically, you can collapse the text box that it created and it will leave behind a small icon (a box). The icon created will appear on the image for other users to view and read your note.

Basically the eyedropper takes a sample of a color and replaces your foreground color with it. You can select anything on the current canvas, or one on a different canvas currently opened up in Photoshop.

Just so you know the color sampler tool is basically to monitor color values. Be careful you aren’t using this tool… you’ll create dots if you do!

The hand tool can move your image around as if it were a scrollbar. All you do is click and drag to use this tool.

(I hardly bother with it honestly)

I prefer the move tool...

In the “Toolbar” example above…The black color is my current foreground. If you click on the square you’ll access the color palettes and if you noticed, moving your cursor off the palette will result in the “eyedropper” tool appearing. This can help with you want to select a color already in an image. You can switch the background and foreground colors back to the defults by clicking the little black and white box to the lower left hand side of it. The two arrows pointing at the two main boxes are to reverse the two colors back and forth.

The quick mask tool makes it awfully easy to select an area you want by pretty much painting it. To quicken your “painting” making a quick selection with the lasso tool around the area you’ll want to touch up the mask. However, you don’t have to use the lasso tool to activate Quick mask mode! =)

Use the black color on you background/foreground options which will result in a red coloring. You’ll use white basically as an eraser. If you paint the image with a different color you’ll receive a transparent look almost…However, you can still get this effect by changing your opacity settings while painting with the black color. When you have painted the mask to perfection, click on standard mode and you’ll notice that basically you were making a selection area more precise.

The screen mode option is basically a way to view. You know how in word you’d go to View-Full screen to see your outcome? That’s basically what you’re doing here. It’s multiple ways to view and work on your image.

Photoshop offers a quick jump to the image ready program. –At school, I have extended which already includes image ready inside the basic Photoshop. But in my home version, you have to flip back and forth to edit. Image ready is used for animation…Keep in mind, you can always use the Image ready button to switch back to Photoshop to edit a mistake you noticed.