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Not sure where to start in Photoshop? Here's a crash course on the basics
Photoshop is a powerful application that can be used for a variety of purposes, from editing photos or other images to graphic design and 3D art to light videography work. But Photoshop's power and versatility can also make it incredibly intimidating. The program’s main window is strewn with 20 different tools plus a ton of filter effects and image layers to top it all off. While Photoshop may be as understandable as Sanskrit to a novice, we’re going to show you how to get started with the basics.
Getting Started
There’s a lot going on when you first launch Photoshop, but it’s not as incomprehensible as you think. On the left side, you’ll find the program's tools. You'll use these to manipulate your work, such as resizing and flipping images, cloning pixels, and drawing shapes. The right side, meanwhile, holds a quick menu to access the image adjustments; directly below that is your layer palette.
Working in layers
One of the things that makes Photoshop such a powerful image editor is the ability to stack layers on top of each other. For example, you might want to insert a new graphic into one layer, while another darkens a small portion of the image, and yet another adds more color saturation. Additonally, you can set each layer’s opacity and blend them altogether with effects. But more importantly, working in layers means you can isolate any changes you make to pixels in a that particular layer without affecting the whole image. So, every image you edit could easily have 10 or more layers. Professional editors will often create an image with 25 or more layers.
The layers palette is located on the bottom-right of your screen; hit Control + J to create a new one. Think of your layers as a stack of paper. Make sure to organize each one accordingly, to avoid hidden elements. There are also plenty of ways to blend layers together, but we’ll come back to that later.
All the filters
Filters are the second, if not the most, instrumental part of Photoshop. Unlike those color-shading Instagram filters, these will let you do some truly cool things with your images such as distorting the whole frame, adding various blur effects, and turning the image into a pixelated jumble—on purpose!
There’s a lot to dig into here, so take yoru time and play around for awhile in the filters menu.
On the next page, we're going over pratically every tool in Photoshop
Tools the Trade
See that long tray on the left? (Pictured here to the right) That’s your tool set. It might look overwhelming, but it’s actually well organized into different sections. The top section has tools to select and move around parts of the images. One step down is holds brushes to add or remove elements of the image. Below that are tools to add text, shapes, and lines. Bringing up the bottom are navigation instruments and color swatches.
We’re not going over every little tool but here are most them. Each is important in its own right.
Transformative tools
Selection Tools
Selection tools are the key to creating a great image. But before we start delineating the various tools, there are a couple of keyboard commands you should know.
Now, with further ado, all of the selection tools.
Fixer-uppers
The next set of tools is a more focused on editing pixels and adding spot-on images. Like the Selection tools, there are a few nuances to these tools that it really helps to know. For example, a brush can have a soft head, which means its effect will gradually fade away on the edges rather than coming to a hard stop. Also, keep in mind you can change the overall size of your brush as well as its shape.
Image elements
Navigation tools
Shades of the rainbow
Picking colors adds a whole other subset of options. Once you hit your color swatches on the lower-left of a screen, a new popup window will show an entire color gamut for you to choose from. In the image above, you see a large box that displays red in a wide array of intensities, from washed-out white in the upper-left, plain old black in the bottom-left, and the brightest version in the upper-right.
Next to this, there’s also a bar showing all the different hues to chose from. Of course, you can also manually dial in exactly what color you want to work with.
History
The History palette is a magical time machine located in the upper-right of the Photoshop interface. Photoshop records every little move you make; navigating to this small menu allows you to you jump back in time and revert to any changes you made in the past.
Read on to see a few things you can do with Photoshop.
Now that we’ve gotten though the tools, we’re going to put everything we’ve learned to good use and start photoshopping some images.
A basic Photoshop
One of the most basic things you can do with Photoshop is joining together two images. Let's start with creating a selection around the object we want to shop into our main image.
Create a toy box image
One of the other cool things you can do simply in Photoshop is simulate the toy box effect typically created with a very expensive tilt-shift lens. This little trick lets you turn an image of the real world into a miniature toy set. Images shot from a tall building or some other elevation down onto a subject area work best. Once you've got your image, here's how to do it in a few simple steps.
These next few steps are for an extra bit of gloss, but they’ll make your images pop.
But wait there's more
We’ve barely scratched the surface of all the power behind Photoshop. There's much more that you can do with the program, such as generating vector art and adding selective color to your photos, for a few examples. But this was only a crash course to give you a starting point for all you great projects. Now, get photoshopping!
More...
Photoshop is a powerful application that can be used for a variety of purposes, from editing photos or other images to graphic design and 3D art to light videography work. But Photoshop's power and versatility can also make it incredibly intimidating. The program’s main window is strewn with 20 different tools plus a ton of filter effects and image layers to top it all off. While Photoshop may be as understandable as Sanskrit to a novice, we’re going to show you how to get started with the basics.
Getting Started
There’s a lot going on when you first launch Photoshop, but it’s not as incomprehensible as you think. On the left side, you’ll find the program's tools. You'll use these to manipulate your work, such as resizing and flipping images, cloning pixels, and drawing shapes. The right side, meanwhile, holds a quick menu to access the image adjustments; directly below that is your layer palette.
Working in layers
One of the things that makes Photoshop such a powerful image editor is the ability to stack layers on top of each other. For example, you might want to insert a new graphic into one layer, while another darkens a small portion of the image, and yet another adds more color saturation. Additonally, you can set each layer’s opacity and blend them altogether with effects. But more importantly, working in layers means you can isolate any changes you make to pixels in a that particular layer without affecting the whole image. So, every image you edit could easily have 10 or more layers. Professional editors will often create an image with 25 or more layers.The layers palette is located on the bottom-right of your screen; hit Control + J to create a new one. Think of your layers as a stack of paper. Make sure to organize each one accordingly, to avoid hidden elements. There are also plenty of ways to blend layers together, but we’ll come back to that later.
All the filters
Filters are the second, if not the most, instrumental part of Photoshop. Unlike those color-shading Instagram filters, these will let you do some truly cool things with your images such as distorting the whole frame, adding various blur effects, and turning the image into a pixelated jumble—on purpose!
There’s a lot to dig into here, so take yoru time and play around for awhile in the filters menu.
On the next page, we're going over pratically every tool in Photoshop
Tools the Trade
See that long tray on the left? (Pictured here to the right) That’s your tool set. It might look overwhelming, but it’s actually well organized into different sections. The top section has tools to select and move around parts of the images. One step down is holds brushes to add or remove elements of the image. Below that are tools to add text, shapes, and lines. Bringing up the bottom are navigation instruments and color swatches.We’re not going over every little tool but here are most them. Each is important in its own right.
Transformative tools
- Move Tool (V): This essentially allows you to move around objects with a simple click-and-drag. To move something, it has to be in an unlocked layer that’s also not the background layer.
- Transform (T): Though this isn’t featured as part of Photoshop’s main menu, it’s an indispensable tool that lets you change the size of your image and rotate it.
Selection Tools
Selection tools are the key to creating a great image. But before we start delineating the various tools, there are a couple of keyboard commands you should know.
- Shift + Left Click: Add to your current selection.
- Alt + Left Click: Conversely, this shortcut will subtract from your current selection.
- Control + D: one of the most important key combinations you should use to deselect Control + Shift + D: refocus on your last selection.
- Shift + Control + I: Inverse selection. A neat trick is to isolate an object from its flat background by selecting every pixel around it and then hitting Control + I, so you have a perfect outline around your subject.
- Control + D: Deselect everything.
Now, with further ado, all of the selection tools.
- Marquee tool (M): This tool lets you highlight rectangular and circular parts of your canvas. Hitting the shift key while you’re moving the cursor will also cause this selection tool to morph into a perfectly square or round shape.
- Lasso (L): The Lasso tool is a free-form selection tool that lets you draw lines over the image. When using the regular lasso option, you can create curved lines as long as you’re holding down the mouse button. Once you let go, it completes the shape with a straight line that connects with your starting point. Alternatively, there’s also the Polygonal Tasso Tool, which sketches out only straight lines. Lastly, the Magnetic Lasso will automatically latch on to edges.
- Magic Wand (W): One of the easiest selection tools to use because it will select the area you click on as well as any similar pixels around that spot. It can be further fine-tuned by decreasing the tolerance, or if you want to select more of the area, increasing the tolerance.
- Crop Tool (C): As the name suggests, this will crop your images. You can either click and drag the exact framing you want or click on the image to create a box over it, which you further adjust by shrinking the sides. Holding down shift while using either method will also preserve the image’s original aspect ratio.
- Eye Dropper (I): Want to re-create the same color from part of the image? You can! Move the tip of this tool to the exact pixel you want to copy.
Fixer-uppers
The next set of tools is a more focused on editing pixels and adding spot-on images. Like the Selection tools, there are a few nuances to these tools that it really helps to know. For example, a brush can have a soft head, which means its effect will gradually fade away on the edges rather than coming to a hard stop. Also, keep in mind you can change the overall size of your brush as well as its shape.
- Healing Brush (J): This brush lets you fix small imperfections in your images such as acne or wrinkles, spots of dust, and other small fixes.
- Clone Stamp Tool (S): Similar to the healing brush, this tool effectively clones an area. This could be useful for removing a cloud in an otherwise clear blue sky. To use the tool, you'll first have to press the Alt key and click on the area of pixels you want to replicate. After that you can just dab the clone tool on the part of the image you want to fix.
- History Brush (Y): Made a mistake? No sweat, this brush lets you paint back in time. For example, if you made the entire picture darker, you could use this brush to selectively peel back your last edit in certain spots.
- Blur/Sharpen/Smudge: This is one of Photoshop’s three-part editing tools. Blur rubs out details, making them fuzzier, and soften textures. Conversely, the sharpening tool accentuates the details, making them crisper. Smudge is a interesting tool because it melds pixels together, which makes it almost completey useless for real-life photos. However, the smudge tool might be more applicable for blending colors in art, or perhaps creating wisps of smoke.
- Gradient Tool (G): Use the Gradient Tool to create (you guessed it) gradients of color. Once the tool is selected, click and drag the resulting line in the direction you want the color shift to go in. But if you want to mix in more than one color, use the drop-down menu bar toward the top of the screen. This lets you set up complex gradients that span multiple colors; you can also set the gradient pattern.
- Burn/Dodge/Sponge Tools (O): Another trifecta of editing tools. Burn and dodge will affect the lighting in your image, adding more shadows or more light, respectively. The sponge tool, on the other hand, can be used to change the saturation in your image, making colors richer or grayer.
- Eraser: Last but not least, the eraser lets you clean up any nasty edges or mistakes in your images. If you’re working with layers, a sure-fire tip is to use this tool with a soft brush to smooth out the edges between each element of the image.
Image elements
- Pen Tool (P): Usually more useful for artists sketching up vector graphics and other art, the pen allows the users to draw freeform and straight lines.
- Text Tool (T): Who says Photoshop is only about images? Add some words to the picture.
- Shapes tool (U): Add in an assortment of shapes, including rectangles with rounded or sharp sides, circles of all proportions, polygons, lines again, and other custom shapes.
Navigation tools
- Hand Tool (H): Giving you a hand getting around the frame, just click and drag to explore the canvas if you’re viewing the image at a high magnification.
- Zoom Tool (Z): Speaking of magnification, this is an indispensable part of working in Photoshop. A regular click will zoom into the image, whereas holding Alt while hitting the mouse button will zoom out. With either option you can also hold down the mouse button for a smoother pull and push zoom.
Shades of the rainbow
Picking colors adds a whole other subset of options. Once you hit your color swatches on the lower-left of a screen, a new popup window will show an entire color gamut for you to choose from. In the image above, you see a large box that displays red in a wide array of intensities, from washed-out white in the upper-left, plain old black in the bottom-left, and the brightest version in the upper-right.
Next to this, there’s also a bar showing all the different hues to chose from. Of course, you can also manually dial in exactly what color you want to work with.
History
The History palette is a magical time machine located in the upper-right of the Photoshop interface. Photoshop records every little move you make; navigating to this small menu allows you to you jump back in time and revert to any changes you made in the past.
Read on to see a few things you can do with Photoshop.
Now that we’ve gotten though the tools, we’re going to put everything we’ve learned to good use and start photoshopping some images.
A basic Photoshop
One of the most basic things you can do with Photoshop is joining together two images. Let's start with creating a selection around the object we want to shop into our main image.
- Instead of using any old Marquee Tool, we’re going to use the Pen Tool (P), which we'll use to draw a path around the object.
- After the shape is complete, press the A key to bring up the Direct Selection Tool. Click on the image and select Make Selection in the contextual menu.
- This will create the selection; now, hit the copy shortcut (Control + C).
- Next up, lets bring up our main image, then paste (Control + V) the object into it.
- Because it’s been added in as a new layer, we can easily move it around.
- Lastly, we’re going to clean up any harsh edges using a soft-brushed eraser.
Create a toy box image
One of the other cool things you can do simply in Photoshop is simulate the toy box effect typically created with a very expensive tilt-shift lens. This little trick lets you turn an image of the real world into a miniature toy set. Images shot from a tall building or some other elevation down onto a subject area work best. Once you've got your image, here's how to do it in a few simple steps.
- After you’ve opened your image, go to Filter > Blur Gallery > Tilt-Shift
- This brings up a new overlay of three bars, as well as a round center point on your image.
- This center point should be position over the subject you want to keep in focus. You can also tweak the miniature distortion and blur levels with the settings on the side. To orient the effect, you can rotate the bars or adjust the spacing between them. Once you’ve picked a pleasing effect, go ahead and click OK.
These next few steps are for an extra bit of gloss, but they’ll make your images pop.
- For a bit of vignetting fakery, you could add a new fill layer (found under the Layer menu). Make sure to pick a solid color, preferably black.
- This will in turn cover your image with a completely opaque layer of black paint, but don’t fret. Simply hover over to the layer’s opacity and bring it down.
- Next, use the eraser tool with a large soft brush and erase any spots you want to be bright in the final image.
- Lastly, go to the adjustments menu and shake up some of the brightness and saturation to really make the image pop.
- Voilà! You have a great-looking (but fake) miniature photo
But wait there's more
We’ve barely scratched the surface of all the power behind Photoshop. There's much more that you can do with the program, such as generating vector art and adding selective color to your photos, for a few examples. But this was only a crash course to give you a starting point for all you great projects. Now, get photoshopping!
More...