PhotoShop Basics

PhotoShop Basics

What is Photoshop?

Photoshop

is a professional photo editing and graphic design pr ogr am which lets you wor k with a number of file

types that can be pr inted, exported f or  web, emailed, or  br ought into other programs. Her e I’m going to go over the

basics of editing images in photoshop.

Photoshop work space.

Application Bar

If you look at the top of the screen you will see the Menu bar which contains all the main functions of Photoshop,

such as File, Edit, Image, Layer, Select, Filter, View, Window, and Help.

Tools Panel

Most of the major tools are located in the Tool bar for easy access.

Image Window

The image will appear in its own window once you open a file.

Document Tab

The name of any image that you open will be at the top of the image window as shown above.

Palettes

Palettes contain functions that help you monitor and modify images. By default, palettes

are stacked together in groups. These are the palettes that are usually visible: Navigator, Color, Histogram,

Layer. If none of the palettes are visible, go to Window in the Menu bar and choose palettes you need to work

with.

Easy photo editing

Opening a photograph

Open the Photoshop application.

On the top menu bar go to  file>open>navigate to the place on your computer or hard drive that the photograph you want to

open is located in>select the photograph>click

open

at the button of the pop up menu.

On your Key board you can hit Apple (mac) Command (PC) letter O on the keyboard and that  brings up the open dialog box

Easy Photo adjustments

To easily make adjustments to photos changing the brightness of a photograph or the contrast go to: Image>Adjustments>

[choose which photo adjustment you would like to make i.e., levels, curves, exposure, vibrancy etc]

Blacks

Whites

Undoing Changes

If

you make a change you do not want to keep you can 1) hit key command

apple>Z

or 2) you can go on the top menu bar

edit>undo

or 3) you can go to History on the right hand side and drag the change you just made to the little garbage can in

the right hand corner of the history palette.  If you want to undue more than one change back you will have to use the history

palette and drag each layer to the trash from last change to first change.

Drag layer to trash

Levels Verses’ Curves

A common adjustment you will want to make to a photograph is levels or cures. These are similar but have different

strengths. They both adjust the lightness and darkness of tones.

Levels

is very good at setting a black point (left on

slider) and white point (right on slider) holding down

the option key as you move the sliders shows you

Cures

when clipping starts in an image. When you hold the

are good at making tonal separation in colors that are read

option key down your photo goes white. Only areas

as grey tones. While the levels can only adjust the mid tones

with pure blacks or pure whites show up. Move the

on a slider, curves can select as many points as you want

left black point up the bar, when color starts to show

and adjust specific areas to get better tonal contrast.

on the white screen that means you have started

loosing detail in your blacks. Set the black and white

points just to the edge of their clipping spectrum.

Black

Point

White

Point click to add points,

grab point and drag

to deleate point

Cropping Photos

File Types

There are many different types of files. For our purposes I’m not going to get into the heavy details but I’ll give you a light

over view of a few key types

JPG

(joint photographic group) a jpg is a lossy compression file system. This means every time a jpeg is saved the file throws out

pixel information resulting in a lower quality photograph. However for use like emailing photographs or putting them up on

the web jpg’s are perfect. Jpg’s have small file size’s, universal compatibility between computers and editing programs, and are

the most common digital photo file, however jpegs can not save multiple layers.

PSD

(Photoshop document) a psd is an adobe specific file format. psd’s are not supported by all photo editing programs. They are

larger than jpg’s, not a good choice for emilaing or putting on the web. But they do save multiple layers and are a lossless com-

pression system. This means when they are saved, no information is throw out in the process. When you open the file next your

file quality has not been degraded.

GIF

(Grafic Interchange Format) A giff is another type of losses file system, that can save layers and is pretty common for most

digital photo editing programs. Gif’s are often used to make animations for the web.

Saving files

Go to file>save as> select file type and destination you want it saved in. remember file/save writes over your original image

where file/save-as saves a new copy. Key command apple>s for file/save key command apple>shift>S for sale/save-as.

Saving for Web

If you post a photo on a website without reducing its size, download time on your page will be affected. Photos should al-

ways be resized if posting on a webpage or sharing via email. Understanding Resolutuion. Resolution consists of a number of

pixels or dots per inch (ppi/dpi). One pixel is a tiny little square. Photos are made up of many, many pixels, dependent on the

camera being used.