A guide to Photoshop

| A beginners guide to Adobe Photoshop Suitable for most versions, created using CS2

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Created for Penketh High School by Bunneh Digital Designs Š 2011

|Contents page 0 |Important terms ........................................................................................................................... 5 Common terms used within the programme ................................................................................... 5

1 |The Basics ...................................................................................................................................... 6 Workspace..........................................................................................................................................6 Menus and options ............................................................................................................................ 7 Opening a File.....................................................................................................................................8 Creating a New File ............................................................................................................................8 Importing from a scanner..................................................................................................................9 Saving for web ...................................................................................................................................9 Saving a File ........................................................................................................................................9 Saving an image .................................................................................................................................9

2 |Working with layers ....................................................................................................................10 Understanding layers....................................................................................................................... 10 Layers pane ...................................................................................................................................... 10 Adding new layers ............................................................................................................................ 11 Selecting/viewing layers ................................................................................................................... 11 Arranging and deleting layers ..........................................................................................................12 Merging and Rasterizing layers........................................................................................................12 Opacity and fill ................................................................................................................................. 13

3 |The tool bar ..................................................................................................................................14 4 |Basic tools .................................................................................................................................... 15 Move tool ......................................................................................................................................... 15 Paintbrush tool ................................................................................................................................ 15 Pencil tool ......................................................................................................................................... 15 Eraser tool ........................................................................................................................................ 15 Paint bucket tool.............................................................................................................................. 16 Zoom tool ......................................................................................................................................... 16 Hand tool .......................................................................................................................................... 16 Colour picker tool ............................................................................................................................ 16

5|Using colours ................................................................................................................................ 17 Stroke & Fill ...................................................................................................................................... 17 Gradient tool .................................................................................................................................... 18 Gradient Tool Option Bar ................................................................................................................ 18

6|Selctions........................................................................................................................................19 Marquee Selection tools ................................................................................................................. 19 Lasso tools........................................................................................................................................ 19 Magic Wand Tool ............................................................................................................................. 20

7|Adjusting, resizing and transforming ......................................................................................... 21 8|Text and Blending options ......................................................................................................... 22 9|Cloning and healing .................................................................................................................... 23 10|Keyboard shortcuts ................................................................................................................... 24

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0 |Important terms Photoshop on a Mac should work in the same way as a PC apart from the keyboard functions and shortcuts. The most common change is to replace ctrl with the apple key.

Common terms used within the programme .psd (PSD): A .psd file is the file format in which Photoshop saves documents by default. It is a multi-layer document that retains its full editing options when saved. In many cases you will export web-graphics from a .psd document.

Layers: Photoshop documents are composed of layers, which can basically be described as single transparent sheets which hold particular pieces of an image. These layers can contain images, text, and vector graphics, and can be rearranged and grouped according to user needs. Layers are controlled with the use of the Layers pane. Often times, when you find yourself frustrated with Photoshop, it is because you are trying to perform operations on a layer that is not currently selected. Simply click on the name of a layer in order to select it as the current layer. Whenever you add text to an image in Photoshop, the text appears on a new layer. You can "merge down" selected layers to combine them or "flatten image" to force the entire contents of the PSD onto one layer.

Selections: Selections are areas of an image that will be affected by the various tools. A selection in Photoshop is similar to a selection that you highlight in Word for example. Once you have selected an area, you can apply a tool to it or perform an operation such as copy or crop.

Selections can be any shape and size; the shape depends on which selection tool you are working with. Your selection will apply only to the current layer. If that layer is empty in the region selected, you will get an error message. When this happens, go to the layers pane and select the correct layer.

Resolution: Resolution refers to the number of pixels in a full size image. An image with hiresolution contains more information than an image with lo resolution, and therefore, one can always convert a hi-res image to a lo-res image. However, because information is lost in the conversion, the reverse is not true. If you were to increase the resolution of a lo-res image, the result would be fuzzy.

When creating something to be viewed on a computer, you should set a resolution of 72 pixels as this is what most monitors run. If you are creating a print based product then you need a resolution of 300 pixels to achieve high quality.

Image Size: Resolution should not be confused with image size, which is also in pixels. Image size deals with the actual number of pixels (or cm’s etc) tall and wide an image is.

Colour mode: Colour mode refers to the types of colours you will be using in your image. CMYK and RGB are the most important of these modes to be familiar with. § CMYK is the setting for images that will be printed to paper. The letters refer to the four

channels of colour used to create every colour available: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. § RGB refers to the three channel colour mode suitable for images to be viewed on the web: red

, green, and blue.

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1 |The Basics Workspace

If you find that your window does not look like this when you open Photoshop, you can restore it by going to window > workspace > default workspace.

This is the default layout of your Photoshop workspace in the CS2 edition.

One of the key elements of Photoshop is the toolbar.

Any buttons with a small black triangle displayed in the bottom right hand corner have additional tools ‘underneath’ them.

It contains many icons that represent the different tools Photoshop offers to alter and create images.

These include tools for selecting specific areas of images, changing the colours of the image, stretching, transforming, and erasing parts of an image, and many more.

To access these tools, hold down the left click mouse button until they are displayed

You can mouse over any of the icons to reveal a tooltip displaying the name. The names of the tools are a good give away to what the tools are capable of.

You can change your workspace layout to whichever way suits your style of working by dragging any box.

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Panes are also important features of the Photoshop interface. All sorts of information is displayed in these panes, and therefore they can get a little confusing. They display location information, tool options, and history, among other things. If you ever lose track of a specific pane; go to the windows menu and select that pane to view it.

Menus and options Menus are probably the most familiar function in any programme. Whilst at first glance they may look like standard menus, they contain really important functions in Photoshop and should not be ignored.

§ File contains all the usual functions, with a few extras including Import, which deals with

scanning, and Save for Web, which allows you to export a web-ready image such as GIF or PNG, from your Photoshop file. § Edit is another familiar menu. In Photoshop, edit contains expected options as well as

transform and rotate among a few other functions. To undo and redo in Photoshop, you must use the edit>step backwards and edit>step forwards options § Items on the Image menu affect a whole image, for the most part. Here you’ll find colour

adjustments, size adjustments, and any other changes you need to make globally when working with a Photoshop file. § The layer menu is similar to the image menu, but it contains options that effect only

current or selected layers. § The select menu deals with selections you make. This gives you some options regarding

selections, including the ability to save selections, reverse them, or add to them. Learning the options on the selection menu can save you lots of time. § The filter menu is probably what most people think about when they think about

Photoshop. The filter menu allows you to apply filters to any part of your image. The best way to learn about filters is to try them out. § The view menu is where you change the view settings. You can use this to show and

display guidelines on the image, and to zoom in and out etc. § The window menu allows you to toggle back and forth between hide and show for each

panel. This is the first place you should go if you lose track of a particular window while you’re working. You can arrange your workspace using this menu to whichever way you prefer to work. § Last is the help menu. This menu contains a few handy tips if you ever become stuck.

The options bar, which is located directly underneath the menus, is a useful tool when working with the different Photoshop tools. As you can in the example above, when the selection tool is in use, the options bar reflects the changes that can be made to how that specific tool operates.

When you switch tools, to the paintbrush tool for instance, these options change. When a tool in Photoshop isn't behaving as you expect it to, the options bar should be the first place you look to fix it.

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Opening a File

Default measurements are displayed in pixels. This can be changed to your preferred measurement using the drop down boxes. It is best to leave the resolution settings to pixels/inch

If you already have an image that you would like to use or edit, you can open it from the Photoshop file menu. It will be opened in the format it was saved in, so in order to work with it in Photoshop you'll need to save it as a .psd file. Alternatively you can copy and paste images into an existing Photoshop document in the same way you would with any other programme.

Creating a New File

P lease note some important image sizes are: A4 Landscape Width: 297mm Height 210mm

A4 Portrait Width: 210mm Height 297mm

The CD cover Width: 120mm Height 120mm

"New File" dialog box If you would like to start from scratch with a new PSD file then select new from the file menu. A ‘new file’ dialog will appear asking you to name the file, choose the size, resolution, colour mode, and background.

Adobe offer many preset sizes in the drop box, however further guidance on standard sizes for different products can be easily found on the internet.

The image size (in pixels) will automatically be set to the size of any image copied to the clipboard.

Choose CMYK if this graphic is to be used in print, or RGB for the web. For background, choose transparent (this can always be changed later).

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Importing from a scanner To import an image from a scanner straight into Photoshop all you have to do is go to file > import > then look for the name of your scanner. This automatically imports your scanned image as a psd file.

Saving a File Saving a file is much the same as in any other programme.

To save a file, go to file > save as if it’s a first time save or file > save if you have already saved. With Photoshop, the main thing to remember is check your file extensions!

When saving your Photoshop file, make sure you have .psd at the end of the name. Also make sure that Photoshop file psd is selected in the drop down box below the name.

Saving an image Saving your psd as an image is pretty much the same as saving a psd except for the file extensions. To save an image, go to file > save as.

When saving your Photoshop file as an image the most common file type is a JPEG. To save as a jpeg make sure you have .jpg at the end of the name. Also make sure that JPEG is selected in the drop down box below the name.

Saving for web Saving for web is the best option for graphics that will be viewed on websites or similar platforms. This is the best option for graphics such as icons etc.

In the file menu, you can select Save for Web. When you select it, a new window will open allowing you to make choices about how you want to save your image. You can select transparency options, matte colours, and file types to apply. This way, you don't need to flatten your .psd just to get a jpg or gif image.

When you save your images as a jpg or tiff etc you will notice that if your psd file has had a transparent background, it changes to white; saving for web as a png of gif will also solve this.

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2 |Working with layers TIP The layer you are working on will always be highlighted (usually in blue) Before doing any work always glance at your layer pane to make sure you are working on the right layer or you can waste hours of work!

If your background layer is locked it will always be the bottom layer.

You can lock and unlock any layer to stop yourself accidentally editing something you don’t want to edit. The “lock” near the top of the layers panel gives you different locking options - Lock transparent pixels - Lock image pixels - Lock position - Lock all Just make sure the layer selected is they layer you want to lock/unlock.

Understanding layers One of the most difficult aspects of working in Photoshop is to master the art of layers.

Without a doubt, they are the single most important aspect of Photoshop. Nothing worth doing in Photoshop can or should be done without layers.

Layers make your Photoshop file act almost like a collage and allow you to edit individual parts of your image.

There are a million different options you can do to a layer; you can add layers, delete layers, name layers, rename layers, move layers, adjust layers, mask layers, show and hide layers, blend layers, lock and unlock layers, add effects to layers, group and ungroup layers, and even change the opacity of layers.

Layers are easy to understand, once you wrap your mind around them and you are confident enough to explore but it is vital to understand and stick to the basics first.

Layers pane The layers pane is one of the panes that it's best to keep visible at all times. If you don't see it when you open Photoshop, go to window> show layers and it will be restored.

When thinking about layers as a collage or a clear sheet of paper, the layers pane provides a good visualisation of this concept as the layers appear in the layers pane as they are organised in the document. The small window next to the name gives a preview to what is on that specific layer.

The Layers Pane

Sometimes when you create a new psd file, you'll notice that there is only one layer called "background" and will have a padlock icon showing that it is locked. To unlock it, double click on the layer name in the layer pane and change the name. The layer is now unlocked.

If you have opened and image; depending on how you plan to alter it, you may want to leave the locked background layer alone and just add new layers on top.

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Adding new layers When you add a new layer to work on, it will always appear with a transparent background. You will see that you have a new layer in the layers pane, but you will not notice anything different to your image until you work on that layer.

To add a new layer, click on the new layer icon located at the bottom of the layers pane.

To make a project easier, it is always a good idea to name your layers. You can do this by double clicking the text that says “Layer #� and typing in what you want to call that specific layer. Once done either press the enter key or click away from the layers pane.

It is also important to note that when adding text, it automatically creates a new layer for itself and automatically names itself depending on what you type.

Selecting/viewing layers The layer you are working on will always be highlighted (usually in blue) and it is important that whenever you are working in Photoshop, glance over and make sure you are working on the right layer!

You can also hide and view individual layers with the eye icon. This is particularly useful for seeing if you like something you have made by hiding and un-hiding the layer for comparison. It is also useful for if you are not sure what is on that particular layer.

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Arranging and deleting layers Photoshop automatically adds a new layer above the one you are working on. However you can manually arrange the layers yourself. To do this, click and drag your chosen lay either up or down the ‘list’. This will not only change the order on the layers pallet; but also change the order on your psd file too.

If you want to delete a layer, you can either drag it to the bin icon at the bottom of the layers pane or select the layer and click the bin icon.

Merging and Rasterizing layers Sometimes you'll want to combine the contents of two layers onto one layer. Select the layer you want to be on top of the new merged layer, make sure the other layer you'd like to merger is directly beneath it, and select “Merge Down” from the Layer menu or right click and “Merge Down”. The two layers are now one. If you want to merge down an entire file of layers, select "Flatten image" from the layers menu and then all layers will be squashed into one.

“Rasterize” is where you convert a vector object on layer to an image and lose the ability to edit some aspects of it. One of the most common vector files you will use is text. All text in Photoshop is a vector. If you want to merge layers or add certain effects, it may ask you if you want to “rasterize”. This is perfectly fine to do but you do need to remember that if you rasterize text, you will not be able to retype the text on that layer.

It is a good idea to copy any layers and hide them before you rasterize and merge. It saves you the work of completely recreating layers if you decide to change text or other vector objects.

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Opacity and fill Opacity is very straight forward. This option is found in the upper-right-hand corner of the Layers palette.

Opacity is how translucent (see-through) a layer is. It ranges from 0 - 100% opacity, 0 being invisible and 100 being solid. It is very useful when working with adjusting colour, sharpness, blending images or pretty much any work in Photoshop.

Opacity will affect the entire layer and any effects, filters etc. The fill option works in the exact same way as opacity except it will only affect the layer content and not the effects etc.

You should always try to combine the two to get the best result possible.

Blending options In Photoshop the layer blend modes can be changed in the layers palette. In these options, changing the layer blend mode affects the entire layer, even if you have a selection. You can find the different blend modes in the drop down box at the top of the layers pallet.

Normal is the default option for all layers. With this mode selected, the layers interact with each other as if they were both solid colour objects, at 100% opacity. When one is over the other, what is covered you can't see.

The rest of the modes interact with each other in different ways.

To use layer blend modes you have to have two or more layers. The blend mode will react with the layer below it. If you have only a background, the blend mode popup will be greyed out, as these modes cannot be applied to backgrounds.

The best way to learn about the different blend modes is to explore them to see which suits your needs the most.

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|The tool bar

Tools with little black arrows in their bottom right corner indicate a tool group.

Alternate tools can be selected by clicking and holding down the “top tool.”

Marquee Tools Move Tool Lasso Tools Magic Wand Tool Crop Tool Slice Tools

Don’t forget to hold down left click to reveal the hidden tools!

Healing Tools Drawing Tools Stamp Tools History Brush Tools Eraser Tools Fill Tools

All tool options are displayed underneath the file menu once you have selected a tool.

Advanced Drawing Tools Advanced Selection Tools Text Tools Shape Tools Pen Tools Colour Picking and Measuring Tools Hand Tool Zoom Tool

Foreground Colour Background Colour

Screen Layout and Transport to Image Ready Tools

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4 TIP The layer you are working on will always be highlighted (usually in blue)

|Basic tools

Move tool

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

Before doing any work always glance at your layer pane to make sure you are working on the right layer or you can waste hours of work!

Paintbrush tool

If your background layer is locked it will always be the bottom layer.

The primary function of this tool is to act as a paint brush. Once you have selected your options you paint onto you layer using the mouse with the left click down. You can change the size and style of the brush in the options bar, as well as the behaviours of the paint. There are many different shape brushes to choose from so you should try scrolling through the whole drop own box to give yourself an idea of what is available.

You can lock and unlock any layer to stop yourself accidentally editing something you don’t want to edit. The “lock” near the top of the layers panel gives you different locking options - Lock transparent pixels - Lock image pixels - Lock position - Lock all Just make sure the layer selected is they layer you want to lock/unlock.

The paintbrush tool can be used in many different ways which you will discover mostly when you are using Photoshop.

Brush type

| Brush style & size | Brush blending mode

The best way to learn what all these options do is to experiment.

Pencil tool

The Pencil tool works much like the Paintbrush, but draws a distinct line rather than a soft painted one. Click and hold the paintbrush icon to reveal the pencil.

Eraser tool

The eraser tool works much like the Paintbrush and Pencil, but rather than fill the selected region with a colour, it actually removes whatever is in the selection and reveals the background. This is a very useful tool for cleaning up images with rough edges.

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Paint bucket tool

If the paint bucket tool is not visible, hold down left click on the gradient tool until it appears.

The paint bucket tool is the same as in many other software programs. It will fill an area or a selection with your foreground colour. Colours and the gradient tool will be discussed in more detail in the next section

Zoom tool

The zoom tool is also the same as in many other programmes. There are a number of different ways to zoom in and out in Photoshop. You can use the zoom tool by changing the options bar to toggle between different zoom levels.

Other ways are to press ctrl and +/- or you can use the slide bar on the navigator pane (default location: top right hand pane)

Hand tool

The hand tool is used to ‘drag’ about the view of your file. This is especially useful for when you are zoomed on a section. It is more precise than using the scroll bars to navigate around your file.

When you ‘drag’ the view of the image using the hand tool it does not affect your file or layers, only your view.

An alternative to the hand tool is the navigator pane.

Colour picker tool

The colour picker tool dos exactly what it says; it picks a colour. To use any colour from any file you have open in Photoshop, just point and click. You will notice that your foreground colour square will change to the colour you have clicked on.

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The top square is always the foreground colour.

To switch between foreground and background colours, click the small double sided arrow next to the tool.

|Using colours

The foreground colour, which will be applied by tools like the paintbrush, is represented by the top square in the middle of the toolbar.

Foreground/Background colours

To change this colour, double click the square. This reveals the colour picker, where you can pick a colour with several different methods, including RGB values, hexadecimal codes, and by simply selection. If you are making an image for the web, it is best to check the "only web colours" box to ensure that no reductions in colour quality will take place.

TIP Use the colour picker tool if you see a colour in any psd file that you would like to you. One click and it will choose that as your foreground colour!

The Colour Picker .

Once you have picked your colour, click ok, and you are ready to go.

Stroke & Fill The most basic ways to apply colours to an image are to use Fill and Stroke, both available on the edit menu. These can usually only be applied to selections.

To fill a selection go to edit > fill. A dialog will appear asking you to make some decisions about colours and transparency. Make your selections, and press OK to fill the selection with the chosen colour.

To stroke (outline) a selection, go to edit > stroke. It works in the same way as fill and you are given the chance to determine the weight of the lines you create.

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Gradient tool

A gradient is where different colours blend together in different manners. If the gradient tool is not visible, hold down left click on the paint bucket tool until it appears.

The gradient tool with its many options proves to be a very useful tool especially for the web and graphics. Using the tool is straight forward but understanding the behaviour of the tool can take some getting used to. You can fill an area or selection by clicking and dragging the mouse across the canvas or selection. The larger the drag the more gradual the gradient will be. All of the control of the tool lies in the dragging of the pointer. Pressing and holding the shift key will create perfectly aligned gradients.

Gradient Tool Option Bar The option bar for this tool has many features to allow you to customise your gradients. Many features such as presets and opacity of the fill can be found along the top of the screen.

Gradient tool bar

Be sure to remember to save gradient tools as presets if you find a combination of features you enjoy.

Gradient Tool Editor To bring up the gradient editor, double click on the gradient preview on the toolbar. The editor brings up a listing of each of Photoshop's built-in presets and lists more specific details about each preset. These details are customisable You can select from different preset gradients or create your own using the slide bar at the bottom of the editor box.

Practise and experimentation are the best way to learn how to use the gradient tool.

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TIPS About 90% of the time, if something ‘isn’t working’ in Photoshop, it is because you have a selection somewhere on your file.

To ‘deselect’ you can either go to select>deselect on the main menu; or press ctrl +D

If you go wrong when selecting with the lasso tools then just press the delete key!

|Selctions

One of the key elements of Photoshop is selections. All the following tools allow you to select regions in your image to alter, copy, move, and apply filters and many more.

Knowing how to make good selections is as important as understanding layers.

Marquee Selection tools

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

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

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

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

Marquee selection modes There are many more selection options in the selection menu that you should try to explore. Some of them can be timesavers depending on what you are doing.

You can find the marquee selection modes in the options bar when you select a marquee tool. Normal mode allows you to drag the cursor to create the selection size you want.

Constrained aspect ratio allows you to choose a scalable rectangle, say with a width to height ratio of 1 to 2. The selection will grow when you drag, but will remain the same shape.

Fixed Size/Fixed Aspect Ratio allows you to predetermine the size, in pixels or a ratio, of the selection you will make. This is a particularly helpful tool when cropping images to a certain size or drawing identical boxes.

Lasso tools

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

Lasso tool: This tool allows you to draw a selection by dragging the cursor freehand. The selection will close itself when you double click or you meet back at the point you started at. It is advised not to use this tool unless you have an incredibly steady hand.

Polygon Lasso tool: This tool creates a selection composed of straight lines that can be as short as one pixel. The selection grows with each additional click. This tool is especially useful for cutting out objects in an image to place on new backgrounds. The more clicks you make, the smoother your cut-out.

Magnetic Polygon Lasso tool: This tool works a little like a combination of the other two lasso tool. As you drag, the selection maps to natural borders in the image. It can be difficult at first but this is a useful tool when dealing with well-defined and high-contrast images. Increase the frequency in the options bar to create more ‘points’ and a smoother image.

Lasso tool options: When extracting part of an image from its background, the result may be choppy and rough around the edges. If so, you can adjust the feather value in the options bar.

This fades the edges you create and can sometimes smooth the region into its new background.

Magic Wand Tool

The magic wand tool is similar to the magnetic polygon lasso tool except that rather than dragging to make a selection, you click in a region and a selection appears around similar coloured pixels. You can control how similar pixels must be to be included in the selection by altering the tolerance value. The lower the tolerance value, the less ‘variants’ of a colour will be selected.

This tool is useful for selecting monochromatic (1 colour) regions or pieces of high-contrast images.

All selection options When making selections using any of the tools in this section, including the lasso tools and magic wand, you can choose to combine or subtract from other selections.

The default setting for this is new selection which means that every time you go to make a new selection, the old one will disappear. The next box along is for add to selection which means every time you make a new selection it will be added to the new one. This option is interchangeable between selections tools and is particularly useful when selecting a large or complicated object.

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TIP TIPS Keeping hold of the shift to Remember key will around play with the various settings to really discover what they can do.

|Adjusting, resizing and transforming

Adjusting You can find the adjust menu by going to image>adjust. This section gives you a lot of different tools for adjusting your image. The most basic types of adjustments you can make with Photoshop involve colours and brightness.

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

Hue/Saturation is another commonly used function. It works in the same way as contrast/brightness but allows you to change the colour tons of any image.

Remember to press enter when you have finished any transforming!

The other adjustments that you can make with the options on the adjustments menu are a little more complex, and the best way to learn about them is just to experiment.

Because Photoshop allows you to preview your adjustments, you can get a good feel for the adjustments without hurting your image and remember, you can always ‘step backwards’ on any changes that you make.

Transforming When using free transform, press the shift key to keep your image in proportion.

In Photoshop, resizing falls into the transforming category. The quickest way to transform an image is to press ctrl+T or go to edit>free transform. You can find the entire transform menu by going to edit>transform. This section gives you a lot of different options for manipulating the structure of your image.

Again, the best way to discover what each option does is to try it out. The names are pretty self explanatory and you will probably have come across a few of them before.

Important: When you finish any kind of transformation in Photoshop you must press the enter key. You will notice that when you are transforming, your image looks really poor quality, pressing enter will allow Photoshop to ‘rework’ the pixels to give you the sharpest image possible. More importantly, if you do not press enter; Photoshop will not allow you to carry on with anything else. If you don’t like a transformation, just use edit>step backwards.

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|Text and Blending options

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Text TIP Double click the T to easily edit the text.

The tools that Photoshop provides for manipulating text are probably its most straightforward features.

You just select the text tool, click, and drag, and you are ready to type. Use the options bar to change the style of highlighted text.

Text styles in the options bar

When you use the type tool, what you type automatically becomes its own layer and is given what is typed as a layer name. This is a very helpful feature when dealing with multiple text layers.

If you want to merge a text layer with an image layer, the text layer must be rasterized, or converted to an image first. Once this is done, you can no longer edit the text.

Unless you are using text in an illustration or altering letters, this may not even be necessary.

Remember opacity and fill?

If you decrease the fill after applying blending options, the original image will fade but the options will still be visible.

Sometimes this can create some interesting effects.

Blending options Blending options are most commonly used with text but can be used on any type of layer. They can be found by double clicking the layer or righclick layer > blending options.

The names of each blending option gives a good indication of what they do. Once again, the best way to discover what they do is to test them out.

When you select a blending option, it has its own options screen. Having a tick in the box doesn’t mean hat you are looking at the settings of that option, make sure the option is highlighted (usually in blue)

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|Cloning and healing

These options are most commonly used in photograph retouching but are very useful to know.

These tools aren’t hard to use but require a bit of patients and zooming to achieve good results

Clone stamp tool

The clone stamp literally clones (copies) an area of a layer that you select. The options are similar to that of a paintbrush and once you have selected your area, you can ‘paint’ it anywhere you like onto your image.

To select an area, first you must choose your brush size and style as you would with the paintbrush. You then put the brush over the area you would like to clone. Left click whilst holding the alt key. Now you can ‘paint’ your copied area.

Healing brush tool

The healing brush tool works in exactly the same way as the clone stamp tool. The only difference is the finish. Whilst the clone stamp will give you an exact copy of your selected area, the heal brush will give you a more blended finish.

It is a good idea to use these two tools together to achieve the best result when retouching.

Spot healing brush tool

This tool can be found underneath the healing brush tool. The spot healing tool works almost the same as the other two, except you don’t have to press alt. This tool works by blending over an area using the pixel information around it. It is very good for removing blemishes in all types of photographs and works especially well when combined with the heal brush tool on more difficult areas.

Red eye tool

The red eye tool can be found on the same menu as the healing brushes. This is a simple and useful tool in Photoshop as all you have to do is select the tool then draw a square around the red eyes and it will automatically remove the red tones.

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|Keyboard shortcuts

10

Shortcut

Command

How useful

TIP Select

There are many, many other shortcuts for Photoshop.

All the shortcuts can be easily found next to the tools you want to use and also on the internet.

Ctrl+A

All

+–

Ctrl+D

Deselect

+–

Shft+Ctrl+D

Reselect

+–

Edit Ctrl+Z

Undo/Redo

+–

Shft+Ctrl+Z

Step Forward

+–

Alt+Ctrl+Z

Step Backward

+–

Shft+Ctrl+F

Fade...

+–

Ctrl+XF2

Cut

+–

Ctrl+CF3

Copy

+–

Shft+Ctrl+C

Copy Merged

+–

Ctrl+VF4

Paste

+–

Shft+Ctrl+V

Paste Into

+–

Ctrl T

Free Transform (in Photoshop)

+–

Ctrl+U

Hue/Saturation...

+–

Ctrl+J

Layer via Copy

+–

Shft+Ctrl+J

Layer via Cut

+–

Ctrl+G

Group Layers

+–

Shft+Ctrl+G

Ungroup Layers

+–

Shft+Ctrl+]

Bring to Front

+–

Ctrl E

Merge Layers in Photoshop

+–

Image Adjustments

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