Adobe Essentials - A Guide to Basics and Essentials of Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop by Andrew Bauer

ADOBE ESSENTIALS FIRST EDITION

A Guide to Basics & Essentials of

Adobe Illustrator & Adobe Photoshop

Andrew M. Bauer

Preface We are designers. We have access to the tools essential for our work through the Adobe Creative Cloud. The power is right at our fingertips, and we are only limited by the power of our imagination. Okay, that’s not completely true. Other limitations stem from the fact that we don’t always know what is possible in the programs that we use. How do I create this shape? What is the best saving format for my printer? How can I make the person in this photo look perfect? It can be daunting and frustrating sitting in front of your computer not knowing how to properly create the product you picture in your head. Especially when you’re on a time-limited schedule with a client. Maybe you didn’t study as hard as you would have liked back when first learning about these programs. Maybe Adobe’s constant updating of their software turns you around. Whatever the case, Adobe Essentials aims to reeducate and inform about tools, widgets, and tips surrounding some of Adobe’s most powerful programs. In this 1st Edition textbook, you will learn such essentials from Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. Putting together the material for Adobe Essentials has helped me to learn more about the programs I work with daily as a designer. I hope to share some of those learning experiences with you through these texts, so that you may learn as much as I did. Adobe’s power is ready to be used, and it’s about time we learn how to properly wield it!

Contents Preface.............................................................................................................................................................................. 3

Section 1 - Adobe Illustrator Introduction.................................................................................................................................................................... 8 Useful Tips/Shortcuts................................................................................................................................................ 9 Display Options.......................................................................................................................................................... 9 Layer Preview............................................................................................................................................................ 9 The Move Window..................................................................................................................................................... 9 Temporary Hand Tool................................................................................................................................................. 9 Swapping Fill and Outline........................................................................................................................................ 10 Quick Access - Black Arrow/Selection Tool.............................................................................................................. 10 Selecting Similar Objects......................................................................................................................................... 10 Marquis Selecting..................................................................................................................................................... 10 The Transform Menu................................................................................................................................................ 11 Quick Fill/Stroke Negation........................................................................................................................................ 11 Quick Exit Text Edit.................................................................................................................................................. 11 Changing Key Shortcuts.......................................................................................................................................... 11 Resetting the Stroke and Fill.................................................................................................................................... 11 Select Everything on a Layer .................................................................................................................................. 12 Quick Deselect......................................................................................................................................................... 12 Moving Items Between Layers................................................................................................................................. 12

Text in Illustrator........................................................................................................................................................ 13 Replacing Words/Characters................................................................................................................................... 13 Glyphs...................................................................................................................................................................... 13 Text on a Path.......................................................................................................................................................... 13

File Formats for Web................................................................................................................................................ 14 PNG (Portable Network Graphic)............................................................................................................................. 14 JPEG........................................................................................................................................................................ 14 SVG (Scalable Vector Graphic)................................................................................................................................ 14

Drawing in Illustrator................................................................................................................................................ 15 Rulers....................................................................................................................................................................... 15 Duplicate Evenly Through Clicking........................................................................................................................... 15 The Move Window................................................................................................................................................... 16 Joining Line Segments............................................................................................................................................. 16 Moving Shape while Drawing................................................................................................................................... 17 Aligning a Circle while Drawing................................................................................................................................ 17 Applying a Drop Shadow to an Entire Layer............................................................................................................ 17 Compound Path - Creating Cutouts......................................................................................................................... 17 Drawing from Center Out......................................................................................................................................... 18 Curving Corners of a Shape..................................................................................................................................... 18 Fine Tuning a Free-Drawn Line................................................................................................................................ 19 Creating a Smaller, Duplicated Shape..................................................................................................................... 19

Color in Illustrator..................................................................................................................................................... 20 When to use RGB VS CMYK.................................................................................................................................. 20 Use of HSB (Hue, Saturation, and Brightness)....................................................................................................... 20 Global Swatches..................................................................................................................................................... 20 Creating/Managing your Own Color Menu.............................................................................................................. 21

Stroke in Illustrator.................................................................................................................................................. 22 The Stroke Menu..................................................................................................................................................... 22 Changing the Strokeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Uniformity............................................................................................................................ 23 Additional Strokes................................................................................................................................................... 23

Other Illustrator Tools............................................................................................................................................. 24 The White Arrow Tool.............................................................................................................................................. 24 The Line Tool........................................................................................................................................................... 24 The Scissors Tool.................................................................................................................................................... 24 The Rectangular Grid Tool...................................................................................................................................... 24 The Arc Tool............................................................................................................................................................ 25 The Elipse Tool Widget............................................................................................................................................ 26 The Star Tool........................................................................................................................................................... 26 The Width Tool........................................................................................................................................................ 27 The Join Tool........................................................................................................................................................... 27 The Pencil Tool........................................................................................................................................................ 27 The Shape Builder Tool........................................................................................................................................... 28 The Eraser Tool....................................................................................................................................................... 28 The Curvature Tool.................................................................................................................................................. 28 The Shaper Tool...................................................................................................................................................... 29 The Smoother Tool.................................................................................................................................................. 29 The Blob Brush Tool................................................................................................................................................ 29 The Pen Tool........................................................................................................................................................... 30

Section 2 - Adobe Photoshop Introduction................................................................................................................................................................. 32 Useful Tips/Shortcuts............................................................................................................................................. 33 Fit on Screen........................................................................................................................................................... 33 Switching Between Project Windows...................................................................................................................... 33 Moving Images/Layers Between Documents.......................................................................................................... 33 Layer Mask: Deleting Everything Outside of a Selection........................................................................................ 33 Turning Snapping On and Off................................................................................................................................. 34 Moving a Selection Outline..................................................................................................................................... 34 Photo Experimenting............................................................................................................................................... 34 Adding to a Selection.............................................................................................................................................. 34 Adjusting Layer Thumbnail Size.............................................................................................................................. 35 Zooming.................................................................................................................................................................. 35

Navigation and Info.................................................................................................................................................. 36 Opening Files.......................................................................................................................................................... 36 Click-and-Drag View................................................................................................................................................ 36 Size and Resolution................................................................................................................................................ 36

Saving and Printing.............................................................................................................................................. 37 Image Sizing and Resolution............................................................................................................................... 37 Properly Changing Print Resolution..................................................................................................................... 37 Common Print Resolutions.................................................................................................................................. 38 Downsampling (Downsizing) an Image................................................................................................................ 38 Upsampling (Increasing) an Image:..................................................................................................................... 38 Undoing a Save.................................................................................................................................................... 38 Brightening an Image for Print............................................................................................................................. 39 Saving formats..................................................................................................................................................... 39 Expanding/Contracting a Selection...................................................................................................................... 40 Assigning Copyright Info...................................................................................................................................... 40

Color............................................................................................................................................................................. 41 Color Cast............................................................................................................................................................ 41 Hue/Saturation..................................................................................................................................................... 42 Color Overlay....................................................................................................................................................... 42 Vibrance............................................................................................................................................................... 42

Other Photoshop Commands & Tools......................................................................................................... 43 The Crop Tool (C)................................................................................................................................................. 43 The Straighten Tool.............................................................................................................................................. 45 The Clone Stamp Tool.......................................................................................................................................... 45 The Clone Source Tool......................................................................................................................................... 46 Auto-Selecting...................................................................................................................................................... 46 Free Transform (Ctrl+T)....................................................................................................................................... 46 Brightness/Contrast.............................................................................................................................................. 46 The Spot Healing Brush Tool............................................................................................................................... 47 The Dodge Tool.................................................................................................................................................... 48 The Burn Tool....................................................................................................................................................... 48 Non-Destructive Dodging and Burning................................................................................................................. 48 The Sponge Tool.................................................................................................................................................. 49 Liquifying Photos.................................................................................................................................................. 49 The Forward Warp Tool........................................................................................................................................ 49 Gaussian Blur....................................................................................................................................................... 50 The Brush Tool..................................................................................................................................................... 50 The Perspective Crop Tool................................................................................................................................... 51 Auto Commands.................................................................................................................................................. 51 Creating a Black and White Silhouette Picture.................................................................................................... 52 Blending Modes................................................................................................................................................... 53 The Histogram...................................................................................................................................................... 53 The Quick Selection Tool...................................................................................................................................... 54 Saving & Loading Selections............................................................................................................................... 54 Refining Selections.............................................................................................................................................. 54 Brightening Shadows/Highlights.......................................................................................................................... 55 Adding a Gradient Overlay................................................................................................................................... 55 Camera Raw........................................................................................................................................................ 56

Closing Closing.........................................................................................................................................................................57 Book Credits..............................................................................................................................................................58

Section Section 11

Adobe Illustrator Adobe Illustrator, the most powerful tool for drawing and creating logos in the Adobe Creative Cloud! Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a lot to it though, and one can be easily overwhelmed with the sheer amount of tools and power at their fingertips. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m still pretty intimidated by the program myself! But the purpose of this section is to dispel such feelings of anxiety with the program. Here, we will explore a good chunk of tips and info about what Illustrator has to offer. The best ways to draw, print, and format are only a few aspects of what awaits ahead! Read on, and explore what Illustrator has to offer you!

Useful Tips/Shortcuts Display Options Near the upper right hand corner of the Illustrator screen, next to the “Search Adobe Stock” bar, you can switch your view of your Properties Panel. It can be viewed as the “Essentials Classic” view, which takes the form of a control bar at the top of the screen associated with earlier forms of Adobe Illustrator. Otherwise, “Essentials” serves as the new view, in which the properties panel takes up a larger, more detailed portion of the right side of one’s Illustrator screen. To center the document at a full size on your screen, press Control+0.

Layer Preview To change the size of the layer preview thumbnail, go to the options tab at the corner of your layers panel, go down to panel options, and change to a desired value or size under “Row Size.” 60 pixels is a good size.

The Move Window Any time that you have an object selected, you can press Enter to bring up the Move window. This will allow you to move and position the element in any way you want to. This can be useful in moving diagonal shapes to be parallel with one another in certain artistic illustrations.

Temporary Hand Tool Rather than using the mouse “scroller” with shift and alt, you can freely drag your view throughout the document by holding down the spacebar key. This will give you a Hand Tool temporarily for as long as the spacebar is held down.

Changing the layer thumbnail sizes.

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Swapping Fill and Outline Pressing X on the keyboard switches the focus between the fill and stroke of an element. In order to swap the fill and stroke of an object, a quick keyboard shortcut is Shift+X.

Switching the focus between fill and stroke with X.

Swapping the colors of fill and stroke with Shift+X.

Quick Access - Black Arrow / Selection Tool When you have another tool selected, rather than painstakingly selecting the Black Arrow Tool when you want to move or select something else, instead hold down the Ctrl key to temporarily switch to the Selection Tool.

Marquis-Selecting This is a term for when you use either one of the arrow tools to select multiple items by clicking and dragging the selection with the arrow.

Selecting Similar Objects If you have duplicated elements in your document, whether they are shapes, pictures, etc, you can select them all quickly by traveling to the upper-right hand corner of the screen, near the “Transform” option (make sure “Essentials Classic” view is active), and pressing the “Select Similar Objects” button.

Selecting similar objects in a document.

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The Transform Menu This menu can be found near the upper right corner of the Illustrator application (make sure that the “Essentials Classic” view is active), under “Transform.” Here, a shape/element can be freely transformed with size, angle, skew, and other options. Also, rather than change values under inches/pixels, one can enter something like 130% to scale it up by a percentage value instead.

Quick Exit Text Edit If you are currently typing in a text box you’ve made in your document, you can press the Esc key to deselect the text box and return to the Black Arrow Tool.

Changing Key Shortcuts Some of the keyboard shortcuts in Illustrator can be confusing or difficult to remember. If you wish to alter these keyboard shortcuts (knowing that it may affect other shortcuts), go to Edit, Keyboard Shortcuts.

The transform menu and all of its options.

Resetting the Stroke and Fill By default, a user always starts with black stroke and white fill when they open a new document. This may be changed during their current project. To restore these values to default, the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+D.

Quick Fill/Stroke Negation If you want your fill to be transparent/no fill, or the stroke, have the appropriate one selected and just press the / key.

The window for changing your key shortcuts.

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Select Everything on a Layer Normally, one would select everything quickly with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A. However, if there happen to be multiple layers in an Illustrator document, one would have to painstakingly lock or turn off every other layer apart from the desired one. Instead, open your layers panel, and click the white arrow in the upper right hand corner of the desired layer. This will select everything on that layer.

Quick Deselect This can be found under Select, Deselect, but a quicker, more efficient way to accomplish this is the keyboard shortcut Shift+Ctrl+A. The small arrow used to select everything on a layer.

Moving Items Between Layers To move an item from one layer to another, other than copying and pasting in place (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+Shift+V), select your desired item to move, go over to the layers panel, and then find the colored square that appears next to the circle on the right side of the layer. Click and drag this square, which represents the selected item, to the desired layer to move it there.

With an object selected, watch for the colored square.

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Drag the colored square to the desired layer.

Text in Illustrator Replacing Words/Characters Edit, and then Find and Replace. This will allow you to search for a word or character, and then replace every matching result with a desired character or word.

Glyphs To insert unique characters, open Type, and then Glyphs. Having a different font style will provide you access to different kinds of glyphs, so exploring your options could be endless. Further still, glyphs shown that contain a small triangle symbol in the lower right hand corner of their box can be clicked and held to display further variations of that particular glyph.

The glyphs available under the Myriad Pro font.

The triangle next to some glyphs will reveal more!

Text on a Path When typing on a shape or line, the text may end up upside down. To fix it, find a central guide bar jutting out from the center of the text, and then click and drag that bar upwards/downwards to change the text orientation.

Locate the central bar in the middle of your text.

Click and drag the bar to change text orientation.

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File Formats for Web PNG (Portable Network Graphic) The best file format for images bound for mobile devices or presentations. It is universally compatible across devices and programs. PNG does not rewrite a single pixel. But it is not recommended for web graphics, because it results in a large file size.

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphic) Like PNG, SVG supports full color and lossless compression. However, SVG saves in what is known as a vector format, rather than pixel-based like PNG. This makes SVG an ideal file format for files to be shared on the web.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) JPEG is a space-saving file. It attempts to rewrite the pixels of your image in order to reduce the file size as much as possible. But the amount compression for both quality and file size can be controlled while saving. JPEG always results in rewriting of color.

The window youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re presented with upon saving a JPEG file. Allows you to change compression settings.

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Drawing in Illustrator Rulers To create a guide directly on a tick mark of a ruler guide, double click near or on the desired tick mark on the appropriate ruler itself. To get rid of guidelines quickly, rather than selecting all of them and deleting them, one can go to View, Guides, and then Clear Guides. To avoid accidentally selecting and moving these guides when selecting artwork on your document, go to View, Guides, and then Lock Guides. An alternative for this is creating a layer for the guides alone, and then locking the layer. In order to drag two lines at once, an intersecting horizontal and vertical, drag from the corner where the two rulers meet while holding the Ctrl key.

Ctrl-drag from the corner to make intersecting lines.

Duplicate Evenly Through Clicking To duplicate a selected element without copying and pasting, begin dragging the element and, once holding it, press and hold the alt key until you release the object. A useful thing that you can do after performing this is â&#x20AC;&#x153;repeatingâ&#x20AC;? the action with Ctrl+D. This will place another duplicated object at the same distance from the one that was just duplicated. Useful for tiling objects at an equal distance from one another without the clicking and dragging.

Alt-dragging an object pulls a duplicated object out.

Ctrl+D clones the object again at the same distance.

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The Move Window With an object/shape(s) selected, press enter with the Black Arrow Tool selected to bring up the Move menu. From here, choose and preview the distance you want the duplicated object(s) to sit at. Press Copy to duplicate the object in the new set position, or OK to simply move the object. If the object was copied, remember that you can press Ctrl+D to duplicate/repeat the action for the pattern to continue in the same direction.

The Move window, able to move desired objects, or create clones at a new placement.

Joining Line Segments If creating an illustration and the lines are not properly attached together to form a shape, one can use this trick to join them together. Select the lines in question, then go to Object, Path, and Join, with a handy keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+J. If the shape/object in question does not have a complete perimeter still, one can also use Ctrl+J to join the final corners together, rather than draw another line altogether and then manually join all of it together. Super handy!

Ctrl+J will attempt to finish and join what you drew.

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Touching corners will join. Open ends will have additional segments automatically added.

Moving Shape while Drawing When clicking and dragging to draw a shape with a shape tool or a line with a line tool, you can press and hold the Spacebar in order to pause shaping the shape and drag it around the document to a new location before resuming its shaping by releasing the Spacebar.

Aligning a Circle While Drawing Normally when drawing with a circle, it is difficult to determine where the outward edge at the beginning of your stroke will end up. If you want to ensure this is lined up with another circle or element, press and hold the Ctrl key while clicking and dragging to keep that edge of the circle aligned with a desired area.

Applying a Drop Shadow to an Entire Layer In some cases, you may have an illustration with many elements pasted onto a single layer, and you want the completed form to have a drop shadow. However, you do not want every element of this illustration to have a drop shadow, which would happen if you would just Ctrl+A everything and do a drop shadow effect. Instead, select the layer by tapping the circle button on the appropriate layer panel, which will select everything in the layer. Then, you are able to do a drop shadow without the elements interfering with one another in their drop shadow.

Another way to select everything on a layer!

Compound Path - Creating Cutouts In order to cut out portions of elements, one needs to first have an object they wish to cut portions out of. Draw a cutout shape on top of the desired element. After that, select both the original shape and the cutout on top of it. Then, go to Object, Compound Path, and then Make (or Ctrl+8). Placement of the cutout in the shape matters!

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Drawing from Center Out Holding down the Alt key whilst drawing a circle, line, or other shape allows the user to draw the shape from the center outward, rather than from one corner to another.

Curving Corners of a Shape After you draw a shape with defined corners, just inside of each corner of the shape will be a small dot. This dot can be clicked and dragged to change the shapeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s corners to a more curved shape. Double clicking one of these dots will bring up the transform menu, where the shapeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s features can be more precisely altered, including rounded corner features.

The dot to click and drag in order to round your corners.

The menu where corners can be rounded precisely.

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A hexagon with its corners successfully rounded.

Fine Tuning a Free-Drawn Line In some cases, while using the Pencil Tool or Blob Brush Tool, your lines may run too short or too long. Using the Eraser tool can help solve this, and then the Smooth Tool can help make things look more natural as a final result.

What a bit of erasing and smoothing did to this rough drawing of a cluster of rocks, in three steps.

Creating a Smaller, Duplicated Shape This is handy for adding an extra outline/effect to an object. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve created a particularly intricate shape, sizing it down to fit perfectly inside of the bigger shape can be done copying the original shape, pasting it in place, and then selecting the shape on top. Select Object, Path, and then Offset Path. Crank the offset value to a negative amount to perfectly size it down.

The base shape, followed by the downsized, duplicated shape. And then a bit of recoloring on the original shape.

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Color in Illustrator Global Swatches When you double click a swatch, you have the option to make it a global swatch by checking the “Global” box in the following menu. When you then create objects in your document that incorporate this global swatch, any adjustments you make to the global swatch itself will be immediately applied to the elements consisting of the swatch in your document.

When to use RGB VS CMYK RGB: Use when developing a product for: Web, PDF, eBook, devices/apps, video, presentations, kiosk, or when printing inkjet on a personal printer. Inkjet printers can actually print off more variety in inks, tending to have as many as 8 inks. Because of this, they can print off more colors. CMYK: Use when developing a product for: print, prepress (i.e., commercial reproduction), or when printing toner-based CMYK ink on a personal laser printer.

Make sure the “Global” box is selected!

Use of HSB (Hue, Saturation & Brightness) Access this menu by choosing Window, Color, and then finding HSB under the “hamburger” options in the upper right of the Color menu. This will allow you to adjust Hue, Saturation, and Brightness in a selected element.

Click the “hamburger” in order to locate HSB mode.

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Creating/Managing your Own Color Menu You’ll always have a set amount of swatches available to you by default when you make a new document. More often than not, many of these swatches will go unused. Therefore, it is handy to delete these swatches when beginning a new, long-term project. Selecting all of the swatches you don’t plan on using and trashing them is advised. A handy option for deleting unused swatches in a project is under the “hamburger” button in the upper right of the swatch menu, called “Select All Unused.” It is a quick way to identify all unused, or otherwise useless colors in your current project, making them easy to locate and delete at once. To restore any default swatches, select the “Library” button in the lower-left corner of the Swatches Menu. Select “Default Swatches,” and choose the appropriate color mode you’re working with, and then you will have the default swatches brought up in a separate menu. To add these to your current swatches, click and drag the desired swatch from the default menu onto your own swatch menu.

To retrieve a set of swatches from another document, click the “Library” button in the lower left corner of the Swatches menu. Click “Other Library.” Locate the appropriate file and open it. This will bring those swatches up in a window, where you can click the drag swatches into your current swatches. To save a set of swatches, click the “Library” button in the lower left corner of the Swatches menu, and then “Save Swatches.” Save to a place you will remember, and open the document you desire to bring these swatches into. Click the “Library” button in the lower left corner of the Swatches menu, and then “Other Library.” Find the swatches you saved, and then open them.

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Stroke The Stroke Menu On the top panel of you Illustrator window, click the word “Stroke” to open up the stroke menu. There, you will have many options to alter the attributes of your stroke. Cap: When selecting a single stroke, you have the ability to change its end, or “cap.” By default, the stroke ends completely with the “butt” cap. However, the stroke can also be curved at the end with the “round” cap, or extended slightly with the “projecting” cap. Both the round and projecting caps extend the line outward by half of the line weight.

Different stroke caps. Notice how the third, highlighted line has a “projecting” cap outside of its length.

Corner: Here, one can change the appearance of the corner. Mitre is the default, pointed join, Round is a rounded join, and Bevel joining, where the corner appears to have a portion sliced off. Changing Stroke “Alignment:” Normally when you create a shape/line, the weight of the stroke is spaced evenly on both sides of the outline of the shape you initially drew. You can change this, however, to align all of the weight to the inside of the outline, or the outside of it.

Different stroke corners, mitre, round, and bevel.

Creating a Dashed line: With an element selected that has an outline, you’re able to make that outline dashed, and adjust the appearance of that dash as well. You also have access to two buttons, one of which will give Illustrator permission to fix any corners that may disappear as a result of a misplaced dash. Creating Arrows/Arrowheads: In this menu, you can change a line to an arrow. You can choose from a variety of arrowheads, as well as arrow rears to put on the other side of the line as well. The scale of these can be adjusted also. Different stroke alignments. Notice how the stroke rests on, inside, or outside of the original shape.

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Changing the Strokeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Uniformity By default, the stroke is a consistent weight throughout its entire length. Adjusting the uniformity (drop arrow next to stroke weight) can change the line to be more varied in its weight throughout. In this case, the line weight serves only as a maximum weight that the custom line uniformity can follow. Several different varieties of stroke uniformity, as compared to the normal rectangle in the center.

Additional Strokes More than one stroke can be added under the Appearance panel with the button in the lowerleft corner of the menu. This can be useful when attempting to add depth or detail to a shape or object.

The Appearance menu, where one can add multiple strokes with the lower-left button.

Normal, eyesore text without a stroke.

Not-as-eyesore text with several strokes added.

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Other Illustrator Tools The White Arrow Tool The White Arrow Tool can be used to select individual elements of an illustration for editing or deletion, such as one side of a drawn square.

The Line Segment Tool We all generally know how to use the Line Segment Tool by now. But one trick that you can do with this tool is to mirror/duplicate what line you are dragging/drawing in the opposite direction as well. This can be accomplished by holding down the Shift key as you are dragging that line.

The Rectangular Grid Tool The Rectangular Grid Tool is useful for laying out evenly spaced rectangular shapes and guidelines. While clicking and dragging to create a shape, increase/decrease the number of horizontal lines by pressing the up and down arrow keys respectively. To increase/decrease the number of vertical lines, press the right and left arrow keys respectively.

The Scissors Tool The Scissors Tool is useful for Illustrations. If attempting to make a shape where one line extends too far or something of the sort, select the shape where this overextended line is attached to. After this, use the Scissors tool to select the area where this line intersects with the area it should NOT cross over. This will snip off the remainder of that overextended line, and allow one to easily select that now-separated overextended line to delete it.

Select the line(s) you want to trim, use the Scissors Tool to cut the areas where the lines intersect/overextend.

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Delete the now-separated cut-off lines. More handy than the Eraser tool in certain situations!

The Arc Tool The Arc Tool is an off-branch of the Line Tool that draws arcs, or “quarterelipses.” Holding shift will make these cornercircles perfectly circular. Or if you prefer, you can just click once with this tool to open a menu that will allow you to specify the dimensions of the arc, whether or not it should be a closed “slice of pie” shape, and other options. To change the direction/orientation of the arc being drawn, especially when connecting it with another arc, simply press the F key whilst drawing the arc. While drawing an arc, one can press the up and down arrow keys in order to alter how concave the arc will be. This can make the arc look more like a rounded corner, or even start to change the direction that the arc goes in the other extremity. To change this back, go back to the main arc menu by clicking once anywhere with the tool selected, and changing the slope value back to its default 50.

Different concave levels of arcs drawn with the tool.

If you wish to connect two corners with an arc that can be freely transformed, connect the two points by drawing a regular arc. Deselect the arc, and then select it again with the White Arrow tool. This will make two “levers” appear coming off of the arc segment. These are Control Handles. These control the curvature of the path when you click and drag them about. This will allow you to freely transform this arc to allow the corners to connect perfectly together through the arc.

The levers that appear with the White Arrow Tool.

To permanently and properly fix these endpoints together, if two arcs are being connected to one another, unselect everything, and then “marquis-select” the points where the arc and corner meet with the White Arrow Tool. After this, press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+J to join it all together. Choose “Smooth” in the menu that pops up.

An arc intersecting, but not joined to a straight line.

An arc properly smooth-joined to a straight line.

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The Elipse Tool Widget After drawing an elipse with the Elipse Tool, there is a small widget/handle extending off of its right side. Clicking and dragging this will allow the designer to create a “pie” shape by cutting out a portion of the circle. When this happens, second widget will appear on the other end of the area where the circle has been cut off, which can also be clicked and dragged. If you click and drag one of these widgets far enough to where they cross over the other widget, you will end up with a “pie slice” wedge, rather than a circle with a pie slice cut out of it. This can be useful for creating a “pie graph” or other similar illustrative element. Copy the resulting circular pie shape with a slice cut out, paste it in place, and select the copy. Change its color, and select the “Shape” button in the top control panel (make sure “Essentials Classic” view is active), followed by the “Invert Pie” button.

Notice the “handle” on the right side of the selected elipse shape.

The result from dragging that handle 90 degrees.

Duplicating the elipse with a cutout, inverting, recoloring, and resizing.

The Star Tool Like the Polygon Tool, clicking and dragging to draw with the Star Tool while pressing the up or down arrow key will increase/decrease the number of sides/points. However, with this tool, you can change the “pointiness” of the star by holding the Ctrl key while drawing. Another thing to note about the Star and Polygon tools is the Transform menu (Window, Transform). It allows one to change the corner roundness, shape, number of sides, and other features of an existing shape. To create a perfectly equilateral polygon/star, hold down the Alt key while drawing the shape.

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Various different stars able to be created with the Star Tool, as well as the transform menu.

The Width Tool The Width Tool is used to change the width of certain areas of a stroke. An example of this could be a winding path becoming smaller in the distance. Find a “width point,” located along a stroke in the form of a white dot, and then click and drag to adjust width. Double clicking a point will bring up a menu, where these values can be adjusted more precisely.

The Join Tool The Join Tool can be used to combine lines. It is best if the lines cross/intersect with one another already. Otherwise, Illustrator will attempt to automatically finish this shape with straight lines where there is empty space. Make sure the objects desired are already selected, and then select the Join Tool. Click and drag the brush across the two areas you wish to join together. If they overlap, the extra lines will be removed and replaced with a sharp corner. And if they aren’t quite touching, simply dragging the brush across that particular platform should be enough for Illustrator to know to join them together. Ctrl+J is also an option, but doesn’t always produce optimal results.

The width point will appear in the form of a white dot, which can be clicked and dragged for various results.

An example of how three lines, both intersected and wide open, come together with the Join Tool.

The Pencil Tool Over the years, the Pencil Tool has improved significantly to the point where you can draw something and have the result turning out considerably smoother than what you have drawn. The smoothness can be altered by pressing enter with the tool selected, which will bring up a menu where “fidelity,” or smoothness, can be altered. Holding the Alt key will allow one to draw straight lines freely, while Shift will draw lines at perfect multiples of 45 degree angles. If you don’t like how a line is turning out, you can stop drawing it, and then start drawing from the point on the line where it went bad to redraw from that point on.

A no-fidelity pencil stroke drawn with a shaky hand versus one drawn with max-fidelity.

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The Shape Builder Tool The Shape Builder Tool is used to join two shapes together. Select the two desired shapes with the Black Arrow Tool. Click and drag with the Shape Builder tool until both tools are highlighted. Release. If you wish to make a cutout from a shape or element, or subtract space from it, create another shape in the form of the desired appearance of the cutout, and overlap it on top of the shape that will have a portion cut out from it. Have both items selected, and with the Shape Builder Tool, hold the Alt key while highlighting every part of the cutout shape. Do NOT select the remainder of the object that is having a portion cut out of it.

Notice how the whole apple turned green, since the green shape was on top of all of the others.

The Tool offers a way to cut a shape in half with a uniquely shaped cut. Draw your unique cut as a line, and then place it behind the desired object to be cut. Select both objects. Using the Shape Builder Tool, select both halves of the object to be cut just by clicking them. Then, deselect and then delete the cutting-shape behind the object. Your object will now be sliced in half in a unique form. Overlap the cutout shape over the original, and then highlight all pieces of the cutout, but not the original.

The Eraser Tool Something important to remember about the Eraser Tool is that elements can only have portions erased from them when the elements themselves are selected.

The Curvature Tool Selecting the Curvature Tool allows one to draw with points, like with the Pen Tool. But with this tool, you draw primarily with curves once a second, third, and so on points are established. Extra points can be added to the final shapeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s outline in order to manipulate the final shape. Alt clicking will create a sharp corner point instead of a curved point, even when itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s already drawn.

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With the unique cutout placed behind the shape, select all, and then click the two halves of the shape.

The Shaper Tool The Shaper Tool allows one to draw shapes in a pencil-tool-like fashion, and, as long as it roughly represents the shape you are attempting to make, the shape will turn out perfect. This will typically only work for shapes from 3-sided to 6-sided and spheres. To combine shapes you’ve drawn with the Shaper Tool, make sure they’re overlapping and deselected. Then, draw a zig-zag line throughout the desired shapes.

These shapes were drawn in a lousy and unprofessional manner with the Shaper Tool...

To subtract shapes overlapping in a similar fashion, start drawing the zig-zag from outside the shape, and then only have it enter the shape you wish to be cut out. The shape will disappear, as well as cut out the portion which overlapped into the other shape. To move combined elements throughout the combined shape AFTER they’ve been attached together, enter Construction Mode. Enter this mode by double-clicking anywhere inside of your combined shape.

The Blob Brush Tool

... But once you release the mouse, the shapes will come out perfectly!

Similar to the Pencil Tool, the Blob Brush Tool has become more sharp and smooth over the years in Illustrator, with its free drawing becoming all the more smooth. It has many similarities to the pencil tool, only having a bigger brush, and having closed paths, in contrast to the Pencil Tool. You can press the Enter key with the tool selected to open an option menu for said tool. Here, you can adjust the Fidelity, the brush shape and angle, and other options.

The Smoother Tool

Make sure that the line you draw is in a zig-zag, and stays inside all of the shapes you want to combine!

The Smoother Tool can be used to smooth out areas of a free pencil sketch you may have messed up. Its “Fidelity” can be altered to change how smooth the result will be.

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The Pen Tool: To add and move anchor points, click on a selected existing line with the Pen Tool to add a new anchor point. Then, use the White Arrow Tool to click and drag that point in order to alter the shape/line it’s attached to (Ctrl+Drag is a faster way to do this). To delete existing anchor points, select an object with such existing points. Click on the points with the Pen Tool to delete them. Sometimes, if you desire to delete a portion of a shape, it is handy to add an anchor point to serve as the beginning of the deleted portion, and then Shift-clicking to the point you desire the shape to be deleted to. Press Backspace to complete the deletion. When creating curves, take note of the two “control handles” coming off of each end of the curve, serving as smoothing points. These are shown as the guidelines that extend outward from the two corners of each curve, each tipped with a dot that can be clicked and dragged to edit the curvature. When creating a curve ANYWHERE, it is IMPORTANT to make sure that each curve has two of these control handles. In other words, when clicking and dragging with the pen tool to create a curve, make sure you click and drag AGAIN when ending that curve.

A curve, followed by the same curve with more points added, followed by that curve’s points being dragged.

Correct

Incorrect

While both are generally similar, the left shape has control handles on both sides of its curve.

When clicking and dragging to make a curve, you can hold down the Ctrl key to allow the ongoing control handle to shorten and lengthen at your will, with the half of the handle bringing up the rear remaining the same length. A good formula for creating a perfect curve between two control handles is to drag each handle out at an equal distance so that, combined, they measure out to about 2/3 of the entire curve.

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The right curve shows that holding down the Ctrl key can adjust the length of the outgoing control handle.

When clicking and dragging to make a curve, you can hold down the Spacebar key in order to lock the location of the curve’s first point while continuing to click and drag the rest of the curve in a desired form/direction. When clicking and dragging to make a curve, you can hold down the Shift key to make the control handle of the current point you’re drawing maintain an straight angle of multiples of 45 degrees. When drawing with the Pen tool, you may want to draw a shape or line coming off an existing shape. This may result in the program mistakenly assuming that you want to continue drawing off of that shape’s line, indicated by a / mark appearing next to your cursor. You may not want this. So, instead, begin drawing slightly away from that starting point, and continue drawing your shape until it’s finished. Then, when it’s done, use the White Arrow Tool to drag that first point onto the area you originally wanted it to begin. When clicking and dragging to make a curve, once you click to make the second point, hold that click down, and then hold down the Alt key in order to change the angle of the end of the control handle that will emerge from the end of the curve.

Once finished drawing the extra shape, use the White Arrow tool to attach the point to the original shape.

Begin drawing the line outside of the shape you want to attach it to. Not on it.

Holding down the Alt key will lock the curve in place and allow you to adjust the angle of the handle.

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Section Section 22

Adobe Photoshop How would you like to make an ordinary someone in an ordinary photograph look like a celebrity? How about fix up those old photos from that camping trip that just don’t look right? You have Adobe Photoshop, so you’re already able to! Much like Illustrator, Photoshop can be a bit imposing even when you’re somewhat familiar with it. Just like the previous chapter though, this chapter aims to show that the most powerful image-editing software isn’t as difficult as it seems. You will learn some basic essentials of photo-doctoring, file formats, color modes, and much more. You will be on your way to editing images with the professionalism seen in most media!

Useful Tips/Shortcuts Fit on Screen When working in Photoshop, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+0 to fit the Photoshop canvas at 100% size on your screen. Also works with Illustrator!

Switching Between Project Windows To switch between different images/projects you have open at once, use the Tab key. Press Ctrl+Tab to move down to the next window, and press Ctrl+Shift+Tab to move up to the previous window. Using the ~ key in place of the Tab key also works!

Moving Images/Layers Between Documents Have both documents open. Open the desired image/layer and then, using the Move Tool, click and drag it to the desired documentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tab. Wait for the document to appear while still holding the mouse clicker down, and then drag the content to the desired area in the document, finally releasing the mouse. It will automatically be given its own layer.

An image at about 30% screen size, followed by an image taking up 100% of the screen.

To select something that is on its own layer, hold the Ctrl key and click the layer thumbnail.

Layer Mask: Delete All Outside of Selection A quick way to do this is the layer mask button. Make a selection inside of a layer, whether through marquis, lasso, magic wand, or etc. Then, click the Add Layer Mask button in the layer window. Everything in the layer outside of the selection will be deleted. The Layer Mask symbol located on the bottom of your layers window.

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Adding to a Selection When making a selection with any of the selection tools, one can hold the Shift key to add to the selection with an appropriate tool, or the Alt key to subtract from the selection. These options can also be found in the top panel once most of these selection tools are in use. One also has access to an intersection selection, in which crossing over two selections will create a selection based on where the selection shapes intersected.

Turning Snapping On and Off Sometimes, you may or may not want objects to snap into alignment. To adjust this, go to View, Snap (or Shift+Ctrl+;).

Notice the â&#x20AC;&#x153;marching antsâ&#x20AC;? outline which defines a selection. One corner is added, the other is subtracted.

Photo Experimenting When attempting to touch up a photo by experimenting with Photoshop effects, it is a good idea to duplicate the original layer several times, so that one may experiment harmlessly on each layer while retaining the original image, even if they accidentally save. Each layer can then be used to experiment with different effects. While experimenting, you can press the eye symbol next to each layer to turn off that layer, so that you can swap between which layer you want to view. The topmost layer with the eye symbol on will always be viewed over everything else.

Moving a Selection Outline When making a marquis selection, whether with the Rectangular Marquis Tool, Crop Tool, or what have you, you can press and hold the Spacebar key in order to move your selection boundary around the canvas.

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Duplicated layers containing the same image, but with different effects on each one from experimentation.

Adjusting Layer Thumbnail Size To adjust the preview windows of your layer panels, click the “hamburger” dropdown menu in the upper-right hand corner of your layers panel. Choose Panel Options, and then choose between small, medium, large, or no thumbnails before clicking OK.

Zooming Continuous Zooming: When using the Zoom Tool, you can click and hold the tool in an area to get a continuous, gradual zoom inward (or outward by holding the Alt key) until the zoom reaches a point that you find optimal. Scrubby Zoom: Another way to zoom in and out more precisely. Click and hold, and then drag the cursor to the right to zoom in, and to the left to zoom out.

The smaller, default layer thumbnail size in Photoshop.

Marquis Zoom: To do this, first uncheck the “Scrubby Zoom” box on the top panel of your Photoshop screen (with the Zoom Tool selected). Then, click and drag to perform a marquis selection on your canvas. Release the mouse to zoom in on the selected area. Pressing and holding the Z key alone gives temporary access to the Zoom Tool until the Z key is released.

Larger layer thumbnails after adjusting the size.

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Navigation and Info Opening Files If you open a photoshop file with custom fonts on it that you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have installed, you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to resolve the issue, so long as you do not need to edit what the text says any further. Photoshop automatically saves a pixelated form of all text forms. TIFF Files: Automatically associated with Photoshop. Can be opened by double-clicking the file without complications. JPEG Files: Open with Photoshop.

Click-and-Drag View When zoomed in, hold down the spacebar to temporarily switch to a to click and drag your view around the canvas.

Hand Tool that can be used

Size and Resolution Image size is defined by the total pixel count that makes up the image in question. (ex: 972 x 670 = 651,240 pixels) Resolution is defined by the number of pixels packed into a linear inch or millimeter. Applies to print only, completely meaningless on screen, web, digital display.

Since this image measures 2616 x 1960 pixels, it has a total size for screen size that measures 5,127,360 pixels.

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Saving and Printing Properly Changing Print Resolution Turn off resample box, linking all the values together. Change resolution to desired value.

Image Sizing and Resolution Image Size (Ctrl+Alt+I): Accessed by clicking Image, Image Size. You can change the units by clicking the down-arrow next to Dimensions. The dimensions are linked together by default with the chain button, which can be clicked to unlink them. Resample is turned on by default, which changes the amount of pixels in the image with each adjustment. It forces Photoshop to rewrite every pixel in the image without exception. Turn this off in order to prevent the image from being resized when resolution is adjusted. Resolution only affects a PRINTED image. It will not affect how the image appears on screen. Unless resample is on, resolution will automatically reduce the image dimensions when increased, and vice versa when resolution is decreased. Changing the dimensions manually will also affect the resolution. Clicking â&#x20AC;&#x153;auto-resolutionâ&#x20AC;? under Fit To will automatically adjust the image to a good resolution for print based on your quality choices in the resulting menu.

The chain linking Width and Height can be turned off.

Choose Auto Resolution in order to find optimal print settings.

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Unchecking Resample will link the Resolution to the Width and Height.

Adobe Photoshop

Common Print Resolutions: Medium-resolution laserprint: 1.5 x line screen (133.3 to 150 LPI) ≈ 200 PPI to 225 PPI Professional-quality commercial reproduction: 2 x line screen (133.3 to 150 LPI) ≈ 267 PPI to 300 PPI High-quality inkjet: 25% lower maximum print resolution (Epson stylus photo: 5760 x 1440 DPI) ≈ 360 PPI

Downsampling (Downsizing) an Image This focuses on reducing the file size for nonprint-related purposes. Have the resample box checked. Change the units of width and height to “percent.” Then, you can change the values from 100% to something lower, reducing the size and file size of the image. Resolution does not need to be adjusted or worried about, since it is useless unless the image is being used for print. Rules for Downsampling: If you like crunchy detail, stick with the Automatic setting. If the image is noisy, try Bicubic Smoother. If the results look jagged, try Bilinear. If you’re aiming to use professional settings, use Bicubic (smooth gradients).

Changing the units to Percent is a handy way to downsize image files that will be shared digitally.

Upsampling (Upsizing) an Image Focuses on increasing an image’s size. Under Resample, choose Preserve Details 2.0 for the best results.

Undoing a Save Go to Window, and then History to open the History window. Find the point in your history where your current project is at a desired previous state, and then save again.

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The many different modes of resampling available to you depending on your image preferences.

Brightening an Image for Print Most of the time when you’re printing, what you see on screen will turn out darker once on paper. A good solution for this is to make a separate file or layer or the document with increased brightness and lowered contrast. In the Brightness/Contrast menu, increase brightness by 40, and lower contrast by 40. This is a good standard to accommodate for a darkened image on paper, but the values may need to be adjusted.

A good standard to follow when printing an image, which will always turn out darker than what’s on screen.

Saving formats PSD: The native Photoshop file format, meant for opening only with Photoshop and a handful of other Adobe programs depending on compatibility settings set when saving a document of this type. Unless you plan on sharing the document as a PSD file though, uncheck the Maximize Compatibility checkbox that appears in the window after saving the file. Checking this box can increase, almost double the file size.

For JPEG, pixel-based images, zooming in makes the image look lousy and grainy...

TIFF: Tag Image File Format. Can be saved with layers. But this generates larger files than just a PSD document with layers. JPEG: Does not support layers, and results in a lossy file format. But JPEGs result in small file sizes and are ideal for sharing images digitally. That’s because these images are meant to be viewed at 100% size. It may look pixely when one zooms in, but the image looks just fine when viewed at 100%, while maintaining a small file size. ... However, when zooming out to 100% size, the image looks crisp and high in detail, even as a JPEG.

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Expanding/Contracting a Selection Sometimes, a selection made by a tool such as the Magic Wand may select too much or too little of what you desire, making the edges of what you are attempting to alter all pixelated. To mend this, go to Select, Modify, and then Expand (or Contract). After that, you will be presented with a window to be used to expand or contract your selection. It is recommended to only expand/contract by 1 pixel or only a few more.

Assigning Copyright Info Found under File, File Info. This will bring up a window that will allow you to assign properties and notes to a file that you will be saving. This is less about protecting an image as your own work, and more about someone finding the work, liking it, and looking further into it to see who made it. The Basic panel has most of the basics you’ll want to focus on labeling. Copyright Status can change the image to be Copyrighted. Follow this up in the following Copyright Notice box with the copyright symbol © and information about who the image belongs to. Name, Company, Address, Etc.

A standard wand-selection versus that same selection expanded by 1 pixel.

Once you have all of your info typed, you can choose to save all of the information you’ve typed as a template that can be uploaded to other documents as well. Click the dropdown menu near Preferences as the bottom of the window, and click Export to save it to an area that you will remember. Clicking the dropdown menu in the future will reveal the copyright info file you’ve saved, to be clicked on and loaded automatically. If it does not show up, one can use the Import option to retrieve the info each time from the area that it was saved to. When choosing to import this data through either method though, you are presented with Import Options. Never choose the first option in the Import Options window, for it can result in loss of metadata in the file. The second option might not be a good idea either, because this can change the creation date to an incorrect value. The third option is always the best to upload all of the info, while retaining the creation date and metadata.

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The copyright window, containing all that you need to assign, save, and upload copyright info.

Color Color Cast Many times in a photograph you have captured, the picture may turn out different than how the subject appeared in reality. This is because the image is affected by something called a Color Cast. This is a sheet of color draped across the image that changes its appearance overall. In order to fix the image, first you need to identify what kind of color cast it has. This can be done by locating either a white or a grey tone in the image, using the Eyedropper Tool to sample that color, and then examining your HSB Color window in order to see what color spectrum it falls under. H stands for hue (the color), S for saturation (intensity of the color), and B for brightness.

An old, grainy photograph with a harsh yellow cast from the roomâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lighting.

Ideally, the H value should be at 5% or lower in your photo. Using Auto Tone, Auto Contrast, or Auto Color under the Image tab can help mend this value. Otherwise, if the image still looks off or has its H value at an inappropriate percentage, you may have to manually adjust color. This can be done under Image, Adjustments, Color Balance. Depending on what hue you originally found the color cast to be with your Eyedropper tool, you want to move the appropriate color gauge AWAY from that color until the image looks acceptable. This may adjust other colors in the image as well though, making It look too red, green, etc. In this case, lower drag the value away from these colors as well to experiment with how the image will ultimately appear. This may result in a lot of bouncing back and forth between the color gauges. Checking the Preserve Luminosity box makes the image brighter, while unchecking it makes it darker.

A slightly-improved version of the photo with some of that harsh yellow cast reduced.

Since the cast turned out to be yellow, moving the cursor AWAY from yellow helped improve the photo.

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Hue/Saturation Used to adjust the color and color intensity of a photo, as well as the lightness (which shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be adjusted most of the time). If you click the Colorize checkbox in the Hue/ Saturation window, this will change the entire image to a single hue of your choice by way of adjusting the hue gauge. This is a handy way to make a manual sepia tone effect in a photo. There is also a Reset button at the bottom of the window, which will revert all original hue, saturation, and lightness of the original photo. Another tool in the window is the Targeted Adjustment Tool. Clicking this tool gives one an eyedropper to sample a color in the photo. It will take that color and all values near it, and allow you to edit the saturation of those colors by clicking and dragging left or right with the eyedropper inside of the image. The saturation values of these colors alone will change, while the rest of the photoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s colors will remain the same saturation. Alternatively, clicking and dragging with this tool with the Ctrl key held down adjusts the hue of the selected color alone.

Another old photograph, where one may argue that the background greens are a bit too noisy.

The saturation of the forest greens alone are turned down with the Hue/Saturation window.

Color Overlay Sometimes, you may be attempting to give a layer or photo an overlay of a specific color. This can be done by clicking the layer in question, going to the fx button in the bottom of the layers window, and clicking Color Overlay. Change the blend mode to Color or Hue, and then you can either choose a color from the color wheel, or pick one outside of the window with an eyedropper tool, which will automatically be active.

Vibrance Found under Image, Adjustments, and then Vibrance. This command allows one to draw out more color from an image that looks dull or almost completely black and white in color.

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The photo is assigned a single color overlay with the Colorize option in the Hue/Saturation window.

Photoshop Commands and Tools The Crop Tool (C) The Crop Tool is used for cropping the image to a desired area. Can be done by clicking and dragging the corners and side handles that appear around the image upon selecting the tool. Rather than click and drag the handles, one can just make a marquis selection inside of the picture to manually adjust the crop marks to the selection. The image can be clicked and dragged behind the cropped frame as well. Press the check mark button in the top panel OR the Enter key to confirm the cropping of the image. To cancel the cropping, press the slashed-circle button in the top panel OR the Esc key. Cropping nondestructively is important for maintaining image quality and maximizing editability. When cropping, there is a checkbox at the top panel of Photoshop labeled Delete Cropped Pixels. This is automatically active by default. By unchecking this, the cropped portion of the image is not permanently gone upon cropping, and can be revealed by clicking and dragging the image around inside of the cropped canvas. It is possible to crop precisely with measurements. Select the Crop Tool, and change the first dropdown option in the top panel from Ratio to W x H x Resolution. With each value established, what ever you capture inside of the frame you establish will follow the values you have entered, and be precisely cropped and measured down or up to those values.

The tool in action. Click and drag either the corners OR the image.

The image is cropped based on the settings that you choose.

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Cropping nondestructively reveals more by clicking and dragging.

Adobe Photoshop

When using the Crop Tool, move the cursor just outside of the canvas frame until you see the symbol for rotating the canvas. Clicking and dragging with this symbol active allows you to rotate the crop selection while maintaining the a strict frame. Holding down the Ctrl key while doing this allows more freedom and maintains the original crop size. However, this can result in negative space around some corners where there is no further image inside of the crop marks.

Rotating the crop will always keep everything restricted inside the frame.

Holding down the Ctrl key allows the rotation to go outside of the frame.

Sometimes, when cropping an image, one may notice the tiniest trace of background space on one of the imageâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sides. In order to eliminate this, go to Image, and then Canvas Size. In the resulting menu, click the Relative checkbox to on, and then change the unit of measurement to pixels. The width and height values should automatically change to zero when you open this menu again. From there, depending on what side the background sliver is on your canvas, enter -2 (or even further down depending on how much crop you need), to the width or height. Click OK and your canvas should no longer have the sliver of background space. This is called Content-Aware Cropping. When working with cropped corners or edges, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s possible to fill in negative space that may result. It is the imageâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s picture and content that heavily determine how big or small one is able to stretch these invisible crop marks to create imaginary canvas material. This will auto-fill the empty corners or edges with detail borrowed from the nearby areas of the photo in question. In order to create such imaginary space, before finalizing your crop, check the Content-Aware box and uncheck the Delete Cropped Pixels box in the top panel.

A rotation with negative space in the corner as a result of Ctrl-rotating.

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That negative space is filled in by Photoshop with the Content-Aware on.

Straightening a Crop With the Crop Tool selected, one may notice the Straighten button on the top panel that can be selected. This can be used to change an imageâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rotation to follow a line drawn with this tool as a horizon line of sorts. The user chooses a horizon line to follow, and then clicks and drags with this tool from one end of the image to the other. When the mouse is released, the picture will automatically rotate to follow the drawn horizon line.

Using the straighten tool to draw a line along the sidewalk as a horizon line.

The final photo, with edges cropped, rotated by Straighten, and empty corner filled with Content-Aware.

The Clone Stamp Tool The Clone Stamp Tool is used for painting a clone-like effect of the selected area with a method similar to the Brush Tool. One can establish a â&#x20AC;&#x153;brushâ&#x20AC;? size, and then press Alt+click in order to select an area inside of the brush to clone. From then on, one can paint the cloned material anywhere they want. Right clicking with this tool selected (a feature shared with many other tools) brings up a menu that allows one to adjust the settings of this tool. One can adjust the size, but also the hardness, making for more crisp edges of a clone stamp rather than the faded, pixely ones. Both options could be handy, depending on what will look more natural in your photograph.

Attempting to remove the camera flash with of a photo with both hard and soft clone-stamping.

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Clone Sourcing When working with the Clone Stamp, Spot Healing Brush, or other image-repairing tool, you may want to copy one detail and clone it into a different part of the photo. But in order for the image to look natural, you may need to change the angle, orientation, or what have you of that cloned portion. To do this, declare what you are attempting to clone with your appropriate tool, and then click Window, Clone Source. This will bring up a window that will give you options to alter when you begin cloning next. Remember to change your settings back when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re finished with this custom cloning!

The base photograph without cloned material.

After cloning several, rotated fish with help of the Clone Sourcing window

Auto-Selecting Auto-selecting allows one to automatically switch to the layer of an item selected in a project by clicking on an element associated with such a layer with the Move Tool. Auto-selecting is on by default. With auto-selecting off, one will only be able to select material on the current layer selected. Auto-selecting can be turned on or off by way of a check-box labeled Auto-Select in the top panel with the Move Tool selected. Auto-selecting can be temporarily turned on/off as long as one holds down the Ctrl key with the Move Tool selected.

Free Transform (Ctrl+T) Allows one to freely size, stretch, distort, or otherwise transform a selected layer/element. Accessed by Edit, and then Free Transform, or Ctrl+T.

Brightness/Contrast Another window for touching up photos. This window can be found under Image, Adjustments, Brightness/Contrast.

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The Spot Healing Brush Tool The Spot healing Brush tool can be used to repair imperfections in a photograph. By clicking an area of imperfection with this toolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brush-like cursor, the tool takes nearby pixels of the photo and incorporates them into the pixels of the painted area, in order to paint over that imperfection and make it look more like its nearby pixels, effectively erasing the imperfection. When using this tool to touch up photographs of people, as is done with celebrities regularly, it is important to NOT heal over laugh lines, dimples and the like, because they add character to a person. Erasing these marks can make the subject look too fake and artificial. When working with a person as the subject in a photo to be touched up, try changing the blending mode to Lighten or Screen in order to clean up dark blemishes on light skin, and Darken or Multiply to clean up light on dark skin. The normal blend mode can be used too, an option that may turn out to work better depending on the photo. Playing around with the blend modes can help one determine what will produce the best results. Other options for refining areas with the tool is to change the Source or healing Type, depending on the heal Mode you currently are working in. Under Lighten, for example, it is set on Content-Aware by default. But sometimes, it may work better to change the type to Proximity Match.

A base photograph that has potential for Spot Healing in order to clean it up.

Attempting the Darken mode with a Create Texture type of blend obviously doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work well with this photo.

The tool can also be used to repair imperfect portions that may have resulted from the Content-Aware option under the Crop Tool. Clicking areas in small dots is more favorable than clicking and dragging like you would with a normal Brush Tool. Dot-clicking in various areas around the imperfection can make things look more balanced rather than just abruptly cut off and appearing out of nowhere.

Using a Lighten mode with a Content-Aware type of blend works well! Blemishes and excess hair removed.

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The Dodge Tool The Dodge Tool is another image-repairing tool in the form of a brush. Adjusting the brush size and Exposure percentage changes results, but clicking and dragging the imperfect area up and down with the tool can help make things look more natural. Can be used to alter the shades of midtones, shadows, and highlights in an image. This tool can help certain areas of a photo to stand out a bit more, such as a personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes. Altering the Exposure percentage changes how drastic a change will occur as you brush over the intended area with the tool. Brightening the Highlights will increase the contrast of an intended area in a photo, depending on the amount of Exposure percentage you settle on. This is an effective method for making a face stand out, and it is appropriate to increase the brush size to cover the entire face and click just once.

After using the Dodge tool, the subjectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s whole face is brighter, and she is giving stunning, stand-out eyes.

On a new layer, paint areas to be darkened with black and areas to be brightened with white.

The Burn Tool Similar to the Dodge Tool, the Burn Tool is used to alter the shades of midtones, shadows, and highlights in an image. However, this one is more so used for darkening areas of a photo, instead of lightening them.

Non-Destructive Dodging and Burning A more clean way to brighten and darken parts of a photo. Create a new, empty layer on top of the photograph, and then, with the Brush Tool, paint over areas to be lightened with white, and darkened with black. After, change the blend mode in the layers panel to either Soft Light or Overlay. Adjust the opacity accordingly afterward. This can be useful for creating new shading in the face as well! It is recommended that you paint with low hardness with your brush though. Otherwise, the change in shading across the face will appear abrupt and not at all natural.

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If you use a brush with high hardness, the new shading will look completely unnatural.

A slightly more natural-looking shading due to the brush hardness being low.

The Sponge Tool The Sponge Tool is another tool for touchups like the Burn and Dodge Tools, used for saturating and desaturating parts of an image. This is handy for whitening teeth in a photo of a person. Once the teeth are less yellowed by way of this tool, one can switch back to the [Midtones] Dodge Tool, if desired, to brighten the teeth more.

The subject in the photo after having her teeth whitened by sponging, and brightened by dodging.

Liquifying Photos Useful for shaping one’s face in a photograph where a person is the subject. Found under Filter, Liquify, this will open up a new window that will allow one to reshape the structure of many auto-detected objects in a photo, including the shape of a person’s head. This is the Face Tool, which is automatically selected the first time opening the Liquify menu. Clicking and dragging the points of the shape surrounding said person’s head and facial features will reshape said features.

The Face Tool auto-detects face and head shapes to be clicked and dragged for reshaping.

The Forward Warp Tool The Forward Warp Tool is found under the Liquify menu. Using a brush-like cursor, this tool will warp a photo’s features in the direction that you click and drag them. Using a large brush and painting in VERY SMALL brush strokes can ever-so-slightly, and precisely, reshape a person’s face. It’s important to make sure that you don’t accidentally warp surrounding material, such as hair, to make it look unnatural! This mistake can fixed with either Ctrl+Z, or by clicking and dragging the warped area back to how it used to be with a smaller brush.

An appropriate brush size for the Forward Warp, but the stroke was too long, resulting in a crater-like alteration.

After using the Liquify menu. Thinner, shorter face with smaller nose, thinner lips, and bigger eyes.

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Gaussian Blur This is another tool that can be used to help mend facial details, creating a perfect skin texture. Create a copy/duplicate of the layer holding the photo you wish to touch up, and then, with that copied layer selected, go to Filter, Blur, and then Gaussian Blur. This will open up a menu that will allow you to blur the whole photo slightly. Choose an appropriate blur amount. Click OK, and then, with the duplicated, blurred layer selected, add a layer mask by Alt-clicking the layer mask icon, so that you get a black mask. Select the mask in the layers window, then select the Brush Tool. Then, from there on, painting over the areas of the skin with white will reveal the Gaussian Blur gradually, and allow the skin to seem more perfect. Painting with black will restore areas that you may have accidentally blurred over, such as lips, nostrils, and dimples.With all areas are painted, reduce the opacity of the mask in the layers panel accordingly to make the blur look more natural.

The original photograph with no alterations or touch-ups applied whatsoever.

The final photograph after the use of all previouslymentioned touch-up tools, including a Gaussian Blur.

The Brush Tool By default, the Brush tool will always have a soft or blurred edge wherever you drag a mark. Clicking Window and then Brush Settings will bring up a menu where you can adjust many settings of the brush you will be using. This includes the crispness and sharpness of this edge, under a feature called Hardness. Dragging it higher will result in more sharp edges. The brush tool also, by default, does not paint in one stroke as you click and drag, but rather, continuous â&#x20AC;&#x153;globsâ&#x20AC;? of paint. This is shown under Spacing in the Brush Settings menu. Increasing the spacing will result in the dots or globs of paint to be more spaced out and less frequent. Minimizing this value to zero, however, will give off the illusion of a consistent, single stroke when using the brush tool.

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Standard brush spacing, versus 100%, versus 0%, all under maximum hardness.

Auto Commands Auto Tone, Auto Contrast, and Auto Color have the potential to produce optimal results for refining an image, and are all available under the Image tab.

The Perspective Crop Tool The Perspective Crop Tool can be handy in some cases where one may wish to focus on a certain element of an image that is skewed and distorted based on the angle that the photo was taken. An example of this is an information board that was taken at an angle rather than straight on. This is where this tool comes in handy. With this tool selected, one only has to click in order to define the four corners that will be used to frame the area of interest. Once all four corners are selected, click the check mark in the top panel, or the Enter key, in order to finalize the selection. The resulting image will be skewed and resized accordingly in order to focus on the selection made. In the case of the information board example, we will now be looking at the board as if we were facing it straight on!

What does that sign back there say? Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll use the Perspective Crop Tool to find out!

With our four points established, confirming them crops and skews the sign to give us a straight, clear view.

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Creating a Black and White Silhouette Picture To get this handy effect, have an image with a lot of contrast between lights and darks, so that the subject can be easily distinguishable. Choose Layer, New Adjustment Layer, and then Channel Mixer. Name the new layer, press OK. In the new channel mixer window, check the Monochrome box. After that, adjust your reds, greens, and blues accordingly. Generally, reds and greens should be low, or close to zero, and the blues should be close to or at 100 percent. Just so the subject looks mostly like a black silhouette on white. After this, again, choose Layer, New Adjustment Layer, and then choose Brightness and Contrast. Name the new layer, and then check the “Use Legacy” box for the best results. Turn the contrast all the way up, and then adjust brightness accordingly so that the desired subject of the image appears completely black over a white background. Even if it is a bit pixelated, it can be touched up with the Brush Tool and other options. Once finished with touching up the black silhouette, flatten the layers into one image. The black silhouette or the white background can then be masked: To set this black and white image as a transparent PNG file, go to the Channels window, select all of the channels, click the Load Channel as Selection button at the bottom of the window. This will select all white in the image, which can then be deleted. If you’d prefer to delete all black in the image instead, go to Select, Inverse. This will select all of the black in the image, which can then be deleted. Delete any further background layers, then save as a PNG file.

(1) The original image. (2) The image after receiving the first Channel Mixer adjustment layer. (3) The image after receiving its Brightness and Contrast layer. (4) The cleaned up, saved PNG silhouette placed on another image.

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Blending Modes Apply a variety of effects to an image or project. If working with an image of only solid blacks and whites, Multiply gets rid of all the blacks, Screen gets rid of all the whites.

The Histogram A window tool that shows one a graph indicating the relation between black and white in a photograph that they have open. It details how much shadows, midtones, and highlights are present, and whether there is too much of any of that in a photograph. The best way to read the histogram is to change the channel of the histogram menu to Luminosity. The left side of the graph indicates shadows, the middle midtones, and the right highlights.

The Histogram window with its default Colors channel active. This histogram is properly attuned.

If one sees a sharp peak at the very beginning of the graph, there is too much black in the photo, and too much white if the end of the graph has a sharp peak. While this will not prevent you from saving/sharing the image, correcting this can help to optimize the appearance of your photo. One can adjust the appearance of the histogram by making various adjustments to the photo through brightness, contrast, etc. Going to Image, Adjustments, Shadows/Highlights allows one to experimentally fix the issue of sharp peaks on either end of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s histogram. The Radius options will help make things look more natural! If one sees a warning icon on their graph, it means that the histogram isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t accurate. Clicking the icon will update the histogram to make it more accurate. The histogram of any image should, ideally, have a few peaks throughout it. It should begin at the bottom, and gradually move up, and, by the end of the graph, should decline back down again. This will show that there is an appropriate balance of shadows, midtones, and highlights in the photo.

The proper channel of Luminosity. Left = Shadows. Middle = Midtones. Right = Highlights.

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The Quick Selection Tool The Quick Selection Tool is another selection tool among those like Lasso and Magic Wand. This allows one to make selections with a brush-like tool that will select the clicked area and anything similar nearby, auto-detecting similar to Magic Wand. Only, with this tool, one can also erase portions of a selection to downsize what is being selected. With this tool selected, three options appear in the top panel of one’s Photoshop window, in the form of New Selection, Add to Selection, and Subtract from Selection. New Selection is always selected first by default, where you make your initial selection with the tool. The Add and Subtract buttons can be selected to either add to or erase from a current selection. Clicking the Auto-Enhance checkbox in the top panel will allow the selection to be more clean and sharp, as opposed to a raggedy edge.

The skin of the three subjects has been highlighted with the Quick Selection Tool, with the eyes Subtracted.

Saving & Loading Selections To save a selection that you currently have that needs to be deselected for the moment, go to Select, Save Selection. Then, this selection can be loaded at a later time by going to Select, Load Selection.

After masking the face selections and resting them on a black background, we can see that they’re sloppy.

Refining Selections Sometimes, a selection may not look that great around its borders, which may appear pixely, uneven, or jagged. In this case, keep your selection selected, and then create a layer mask in your Layers window. After this, create a contrasting, solid-color layer to place behind the masked layer. Then, select the masked layer and open a menu under Select, Select and Mask. This will open up a new working window. To see the outlines better, put the transparency all the way up so that you can see your background color clearly. This window has many options and tools to help refine your edges, depending on the result you’re looking for. Click OK to apply final changes.

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With help from the Select and Mask window, we’re able to make the selection outlines look a bit more neat.

Brightening Shadows/Highlights In some photos, the shadows or other areas may appear darker than desired. In this case, go to Image, Adjustments, Shadows/Highlights. This will open a window that allows one to fix this issue.

A base photograph from many years ago that turned out so dark, we can hardly see anything!

The photo could still use some touch-ups, but this is an example of how Shadows/Highlights can mend a photo!

Adding a Gradient Overlay This is an effect that can be put on an image to give an illusion of lighting. Select the desired layer, and then click the fx button, followed by Gradient Overlay. This will open a window to customize such an overlay over your desired subject. Foreground to Transparent is a color scheme to follow.

Another old Halloween photo with odd lighting in the left person’s face due to the camera’s flash.

Adding a gradient overlay in order to make the flash’s light instead look like the room’s overall lighting.

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Camera Raw A handy program of its own that can be accessed at Photoshop’s home screen before any documents are opened. This provides many options to touch up photos with, all while making non-destructive changes. Choose File, and then Browse in Bridge when you have a photo open in Photoshop. From there, you’re able to upload photos in the new window. Once the photos are uploaded into the Content section, you can right click on a photo (or multiple photos after selecting them) and choose Open in Camera Raw. In Camera Raw, one will have access to many photo filters and adjustments that can be applied before opening the photos to edit and save in Photoshop. After you’ve applied all of your desired settings in Camera Raw, click Open Image near the bottom of the page to bring up the image in Photoshop. If you choose to open multiple images in Camera Raw, they may be similar in such a way that you wish to apply the changes you’ve made to one to all of them. In this case, once you have a photo edited with all of the desired changes, select all of the photos you have open, and then to go the hamburger dropdown menu in your filmstrip, and click Sync Settings. Assuming everything that you modified has its corresponding checkbox enabled, click OK.

Camera Raw’s powerful control panel.

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A base set of photos followed by the photos after having their settings synced.

Closing Photoshop. Illustrator. They are but two programs, but at the same time so much more. They are the building blocks that shape the futures of so many designersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; careers. Sure, there are alternatives programs to use. But in the future that we are entering, it is essential that we master the programs universally accepted by those that we will be working with. I sit here writing this closing statement full of pride and confidence with all that I have learned. I can only hope that you feel the same after picking up on these essentials of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to make a whole textbook as I have, but I encourage all readers of this text to reach out ever further for new techniques surrounding these powerful programs. Learning what they are all capable of and how to execute said capabilities, you will be able to wield the programs with confidence, and enter a project knowing exactly what you are doing. This concludes the first edition of Adobe Essentials. The future may bring more editions, but until that time, continue research and expand your Adobe power. Remember, without us, the world would be a very bland place. We are the future. We are designers.

Credits Instructional McClelland, Deke. “Illustrator CC 2018 One-on-One Fundamentals.” Lydna. March 2018. https://www.lynda.com/Illustrator-tutorials/Illustrator-CC-2018-One-One-Fundamentals/633853-2.html McClelland, Deke. “Photoshop CC 2019 One-on-One: Fundamentals.” Lynda. Dec. 2018. https://www.lynda.com/Photoshop-tutorials/Photoshop-CC-2019-One-One-Fundamentals/784290-2.html

Stock Photos Pixabay (Photography). June 2013, White and Gray Bird on the Bag of Brown and Black Pig Swimming on the Beach during Daytime [Photograph]. Retrieved Jan 07, 2019, from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-and-gray-bird-on-thebag-of-brown-and-black-pig-swimming-on-the-beach-during-daytime-66258/ Pixabay (Photography). Blue Body Water [Photograph]. Retrieved Jan 07, 2019, from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/ beach-foam-landscape-nature-533923/ Pixabay (Photography). Black and White Eagle [Photograph]. Retrieved Jan 07, 2019, from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-and-white-eagle-73825/ Cowley, Nathan (Photographer). Sept. 2013, Green Grass on Sand Overlooking Body of Water [Photograph]. Retrieved Jan 07, 2019, from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/green-grass-on-sand-overlooking-body-of-water-1300510/ Maeder, Mali (Photographer). Dec. 2012, Close Up Photo of White Rope on Brown Wood [Photograph]. Retrieved Jan 07, 2019, from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/beach-summer-rope-tracks-105294/

Adobe Essentials A Guide to Basics & Essentials of Adobe Illustrator & Adobe Photoshop

Andrew M. Bauer