FAMILIARISING YOURSELF WITH THE PHOTOSHOP INTERFACE There are plenty of similarities between all Adobe programs, but there’s also a lot of aspects to each that are all their own. Photoshop is no different. In today’s workshop, we will go over some of the most findamental aspects of the program: the layout of the interface, where to find tools and palettes, what layers are all about and simple tasks like creating a canvas, placing images, opening files, saving files, understanding colour modes and images sizes, and what the different file types mean.
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WORKSHOP 1
VIEW A LIST OR THUMBNAILS OF YOUR RECENT DOCS.
CREATE A NEW DOC OR OPEN A RECENT ONE HERE. QUICK ACCESS TO TUTORIALS.
ACCOUNT SETTINGS, SIGN IN & HELP.
VPA104 WORKSHOP 1: PHOTOSHOP FUNDAMENTALS
LET’S BREAK IT DOWN...
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THIS IS THE WELCOME SCREEN OF ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CC2017.
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THIS IS THE DIALOGUE BOX THAT WILL OPEN WHEN YOU CLICK ON THE ‘NEW’ OPTION ON YOUR WELCOME SCREEN.
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NOTICED HERE THAT THE SETTINGS HAVE BEEN ADDED. CAN YOU SEE WHERE?
VPA104 WORKSHOP 1: PHOTOSHOP FUNDAMENTALS
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SEE IF YOU HAD THEM ALL!
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This is the Photoshop CC 2017 interface. To the left, you have the tools, to the right, the panels. On the top, you have the drop down menu, and below this, the option bar. At the bottom of the screen, you will see that the image in the canvas is zoomed at 100%, and the size of the document to the right of that.
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YOU CAN CHOOSE DIFFERENT WORKSPACE LAYOUTS, OR, WHEN YOU DECIDE UPON ONE THAT WORKS FOR YOU, CREATE A NEW WORKSPACE OF YOUR OWN. WE CAN TEL BY THE TICK NEXT TO “ESSENTIALS” THAT THIS IS THE ESSENTIALS WORKSPACE.
VPA104 WORKSHOP 1: PHOTOSHOP FUNDAMENTALS
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LEARN YOUR SHORTCUTS!
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VPA104 WORKSHOP 1: PHOTOSHOP FUNDAMENTALS
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The MOVE TOOLS
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Some of the most important tools you’ll need to familiarise yourself with are:
The PEN TOOL The VARIOUS SELECTION TOOLS The TEXT TOOL The CROP TOOL The MARQUEE TOOL (AMONG OTHERS, BUT LET’S START THERE) See if you can find these now.
VPA104 WORKSHOP 1: PHOTOSHOP FUNDAMENTALS
The DIRECT & PATH SELECTION TOOLS
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Some of the most important panels you’ll need to familiarise yourself with are:
The ADJUSTMENT LAYERS PANEL The HISTORY PANEL The COLOUR PANEL The SWATCHES PANEL The STYLES PANEL The CHANNELS PANEL The PATH PANEL See if you can find these now.
VPA104 WORKSHOP 1: PHOTOSHOP FUNDAMENTALS
The LAYERS PANEL
VPA104 WORKSHOP 1: PHOTOSHOP FUNDAMENTALS
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It’s also important to familiarise yourself with the drop down menus (this is an example of the Adobe CC2015 interface). For example, in the IMAGE drop down menu you can...
Check image size
Make image adjustments, but beware! These will be destructive edits. More on that later.
So have an explore through your drop down menus now and see what’s there.
VPA104 WORKSHOP 1: PHOTOSHOP FUNDAMENTALS
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You can also...
1. Download and open the image “Crossroads.jpg” from the VPA104 Interact 2 site, in the folder for this week.
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This is a very basic map of the Photoshop interface. Now, you will have to use these to do the following:
• Colour mode • Image resolution and size • Canvas size 3. Now create a new canvas (go to file > new) 4. Make sure that you set the image to “International Paper > A4 > CMYK > 300 ppi 5. With that image selected, place in the crossroads image (File > place embedded) 6. Save the document.
VPA104 WORKSHOP 1: PHOTOSHOP FUNDAMENTALS
2. Check the image’s:
Open the layers panel.
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Now follow these steps...
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Press the button indicated in the yellow circle to add a new layer, then go to file > place embedded and choose any image you like.
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Making sure you new layer is selected, click on the adjustments layer (circled).
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Have a play around with any of these - have some fun and see what they do. This one is the curves adjustment layer.
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When you’ve finished, go back to your layers panel and see what happened.
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At the top of the layers panel you will see two options - one for opacity, and one for blending. Have an explore of the different blending modes. Just make sure you have the correct layer selected!
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Here are my two images with a linear burn. You can see that, while it’s not the best it’s fun to experiment.
WORKSHOP QUESTION:
Find an image on the internet, and save it under a new name in a location that you can keep a good record of. Open the image in Photoshop and check its resolution, size and colour mode. Find one more image and do the same. Now combine the two images using the layers and blending modes we’ve looked at. What did you come up with? Share it with your peers and have a chat about what you discovered.
VPA104 WORKSHOP 1: PHOTOSHOP FUNDAMENTALS
WORKSHOP TASK.
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WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DESTRUCTIVE AND NON-DESTRUCTIVE IMAGE EDITING?