ADOBE PHOTOSHOP
The Adobe Photoshop work area includes menus, toolbars, and panels that give
you quick access to a variety of tools and options for editing and adding elements
to your image. You can also add commands and filters to the menus by installing
third-party software known as plug-ins.
Photoshop works with bitmapped, digitized images (that is, continuous-tone
images that have been converted into a series of small squares, or picture elements,
called pixels). You can also work with vector graphics, which are drawings made
of smooth lines that retain their crispness when scaled. You can create original
artwork in Photoshop, or you can import images from many sources, such as:
Photographs from a digital camera
Commercial CDs of digital images
Scans of photographs, transparencies, negatives, graphics, or other documents
Captured video images
Artwork created in drawing programs
Starting Photoshop and opening a file
To begin, you’ll start Adobe Photoshop and reset the default preferences.
1 On the desktop, double-click the Adobe Photoshop icon to start Adobe
Photoshop, and then immediately hold down Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows)
or Command+Option+Shift (Mac OS) to reset the default settings.
If you don’t see the Photoshop icon on your desktop, choose Start >
All Programs > Adobe Photoshop CS5 (Windows) or look in either the
Applications folder or the Dock (Mac OS).
2 When prompted, click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the Adobe
Photoshop Settings file.
The default workspace in Photoshop consists of the Application bar, menu bar,
and options bar at the top of the screen, the Tools panel on the left, and several
open panels in the panel dock on the right. When you have documents open, one
or more image windows also appear, and you can display them at the same time
using the tabbed interface. The Photoshop user interface is very similar to the one
in Adobe Illustrator®, Adobe InDesign®, and Adobe Flash®—so learning how to use
the tools and panels in one application means that you’ll know how to use them in
the others.
There are a few differences between the Photoshop work area on Windows and that
on Mac OS:
On Windows, the menu bar is combined with the Application bar, if your
screen resolution makes it possible to fit them on the same line.
Using the tools
Photoshop provides an integrated set of tools for producing sophisticated graphics
for print, web, and mobile viewing. We could easily fill the entire book with details
on the wealth of Photoshop tools and tool configurations. While that would certainly
be a useful reference, it’s not the goal of this book. Instead, you’ll start gaining
experience by configuring and using a few tools on a sample project. Every lesson
will introduce you to more tools and ways to use them. By the time you finish all the
lessons in this book, you’ll have a solid foundation for further explorations of the
Photoshop toolset.
Selecting and using a tool from the Tools panel
The Tools panel—the long, narrow panel on the far left side of the work area—
contains selection tools, painting and editing tools, foreground- and backgroundcolor
selection boxes, and viewing tools. In Photoshop Extended, it also includes
3D tools.
You’ll start by using the Zoom tool, which also appears in many other Adobe applications,
including Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat.
1 Click the double arrows just above the Tools panel to toggle to a double-column
view. Click the arrow again to return to a single-column Tools panel and use
your screen space more efficiently.
2 Examine the status bar at the bottom of the work area (Windows) or image
window (Mac OS), and notice the percentage listed on the far left. This
represents the current enlargement view of the image, or zoom level.
3 Move the pointer over the Tools panel, and hover it over the magnifying-glass
icon until a tool tip appears. The tool tip displays the tool’s name (Zoom tool)
and keyboard shortcut (Z).
4 Click the Zoom tool ( ) in the Tools panel, or press Z to select it.
5 Move the pointer over the image window. The pointer now looks like a tiny
magnifying glass with a plus sign (+) in the center of the glass.
6 Click anywhere in the image window.
The image enlarges to a preset percentage level, which replaces the previous value
in the status bar. The location you clicked when you used the Zoom tool is centered
in the enlarged view. If you click again, the zoom advances to the next preset level,
up to a maximum of 3200%.
7 Hold down the Alt key (Windows) or Option key (Mac OS) so that the Zoom
tool pointer appears with a minus sign (-) in the center of the magnifying glass,
and then click anywhere in the image. Then release the Alt or Option key.
Now the view zooms out to a lower preset magnification, so that you can see more
of the image, but in less detail.
8 If Scrubby Zoom is selected in the options bar, click anywhere on the image and
drag the Zoom tool to the right. The image enlarges. Drag the Zoom tool to the
left to zoom out. When Scrubby Zoom is selected in the options bar, you can
drag the Zoom tool across the image to zoom in and out.
Selecting and using a hidden tool
Photoshop has many tools you can use to edit image files, but you will probably
work with only a few of them at a time. The Tools panel arranges some of the tools
in groups, with only one tool shown for each group. The other tools in the group
are hidden behind that tool.
A small triangle in the lower-right corner of a button is your clue that other tools
are available but hidden under that tool.
1 Position the pointer over the second tool from the top in the Tools panel until
the tool tip appears. The tool tip identifies the Rectangular Marquee tool ( )
with the keyboard shortcut M. Select that tool.
2 Select the Elliptical Marquee tool ( ), which is hidden behind the Rectangular
Marquee tool, using one of the following methods:
Press and hold the mouse button
over the Rectangular Marquee
tool to open the pop-up list
of hidden tools, and select the
Elliptical Marquee tool.
Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) the tool button in the
Tools panel to cycle through the hidden marquee tools until the Elliptical
Marquee tool is selected.
Press Shift+M, which switches between the Rectangular and Elliptical
Marquee tools.
3 Move the pointer over the image window, to the upper-left side of the head-light.
When the Elliptical Marquee tool is selected, the pointer becomes
cross-hairs (+).
4 Drag the pointer down and to the right to
draw an ellipse around the headlight, and
then release the mouse button.
An animated dashed line indicates that the area
inside it is selected. When you select an area,
it becomes the only editable area of the image.
The area outside the selection is protected.
5 Move the pointer inside your elliptical selection so that the pointer appears
as an arrow with a small rectangle
6 Drag the selection so that it is accurately centered over the headlight.
When you drag the selection, only the selection
border moves, not pixels in the image. When
you want to move the pixels in the image, you’ll
need to use a different technique. You’ll learn
more about making different kinds of selections
and moving the selection contents in Lesson 3,
“Working with Selections
Using keyboard combinations with tool actions
Many tools can operate under certain constraints. You usually activate these modes
by holding down specific keys as you move the tool with the mouse. Some tools
have modes that you choose in the options bar.
The next task is to make a fresh start at selecting the headlight. This time, you’ll use
a keyboard combination that constrains the elliptical selection to a circle that you’ll
draw from the center outward instead of from the outside inward.
1 Make sure that the Elliptical Marquee tool ( ) is still selected in the Tools
panel, and then deactivate the current selection by doing one of the following:
In the image window, click anywhere outside the selected area.
Choose Select > Deselect.
Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D (Windows) or Command+D (Mac OS).
2 Position the pointer in the center of the
headlight.
3 Press Alt+Shift (Windows) or Option+Shift
(Mac OS) and drag outward from the
center of the headlight until the circle
completely encloses the headlight. The Shift
key constrains the ellipse to a perfect circle.
4 Carefully release first the mouse button and
then the keyboard keys.
If you aren’t satisfied with the selection circle, you can move it: Place the pointer
inside the circle and drag, or click outside the selection circle to deselect it, and then
try again.
5 In the Tools panel, double-click the Zoom tool ( ) to switch to 100% view. If the
entire image doesn’t fit in the image window, click the Fit Screen button in the
options bar.
Notice that the selection remains active even after you use the Zoom tool.
Applying a change to a selected area
In most cases, you’d change the area within the selection.
But in order to spotlight the headlight, you’ll want
to darken the rest of the image, not the area inside the
current selection. To protect that area, you’ll invert the
selection, so that everything but the headlight is selected
in the image.
1 Choose Select > Inverse.
Although the animated selection border around the
headlight looks the same, notice that a similar border
appears all around the edges of the image. Now the rest
of the image is selected and can be edited, while the
area within the circle is not selected. The unselected
area (the headlight) cannot be changed while the selection
is active.
2 In the Adjustments panel, click the Curves icon to add a Curves adjustment
layer. The Curves options appear in the Adjustments panel.
3 In the Curves panel, drag the control point in the upper-right corner of the
graph straight across to the left until the Input value is approximately 204.
The Output value should remain 255.
As you drag, highlights are brightened in the selected area of the image.
4 Adjust the Input value up or down until you are satisfied with the results.
5 In the Layers panel, examine the Curves
adjustment layer. (If the Layers panel isn’t
open, click its tab or choose Window > Layers.)
Adjustment layers let you make changes to your
image, such as adjusting the brightness of the
highlights in this car, without affecting the actual
pixels. Because you’ve used an adjustment layer,
you can always return to the original image by hiding or deleting the adjustment
layer—and you can edit the adjustment layer at any time.
6 Do one of the following:
To save your changes, choose File > Save, and then choose File > Close.
To revert to the unaltered version of the file, choose File > Close, and click
No or Don’t Save when you’re asked if you want to save your changes.
To save your changes without affecting the original file, choose File > Save
As, and then either rename the file or save it to a different folder on your
computer, and click OK. Then choose File > Close.
You don’t have to deselect, because closing the file cancels the selection.
Congratulations! You’ve just finished your first Photoshop project. Although a
Curves adjustment layer is actually one of the more sophisticated methods of
altering an image, it isn’t difficult to use, as you have seen. You’ll learn more about
making adjustments to images in many other lessons in this book. Lessons 2, 6,
and 10, in particular, address techniques like those used in classic darkroom work,
such as adjusting for exposure, retouching, and correcting colors.
Adobe® Photoshop® CS5, the benchmark for digital imaging excellence, provides
strong performance, powerful image-editing features, and an intuitive
interface.
Adobe Camera Raw, included with Photoshop CS5, offers flexibility
and control as you work with raw images, as well as TIFF and JPEG images.
Photoshop CS5 pushes the boundaries of digital image editing and helps you
turn your dreams into designs more easily than ever before.
Starting to work in Adobe Photoshop
you quick access to a variety of tools and options for editing and adding elements
to your image. You can also add commands and filters to the menus by installing
third-party software known as plug-ins.
Photoshop works with bitmapped, digitized images (that is, continuous-tone
images that have been converted into a series of small squares, or picture elements,
called pixels). You can also work with vector graphics, which are drawings made
of smooth lines that retain their crispness when scaled. You can create original
artwork in Photoshop, or you can import images from many sources, such as:
Photographs from a digital camera
Commercial CDs of digital images
Scans of photographs, transparencies, negatives, graphics, or other documents
Captured video images
Artwork created in drawing programs
Starting Photoshop and opening a file
To begin, you’ll start Adobe Photoshop and reset the default preferences.
1 On the desktop, double-click the Adobe Photoshop icon to start Adobe
Photoshop, and then immediately hold down Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows)
or Command+Option+Shift (Mac OS) to reset the default settings.
If you don’t see the Photoshop icon on your desktop, choose Start >
All Programs > Adobe Photoshop CS5 (Windows) or look in either the
Applications folder or the Dock (Mac OS).
2 When prompted, click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the Adobe
Photoshop Settings file.
The default workspace in Photoshop consists of the Application bar, menu bar,
and options bar at the top of the screen, the Tools panel on the left, and several
open panels in the panel dock on the right. When you have documents open, one
or more image windows also appear, and you can display them at the same time
using the tabbed interface. The Photoshop user interface is very similar to the one
in Adobe Illustrator®, Adobe InDesign®, and Adobe Flash®—so learning how to use
the tools and panels in one application means that you’ll know how to use them in
the others.
There are a few differences between the Photoshop work area on Windows and that
on Mac OS:
On Windows, the menu bar is combined with the Application bar, if your
screen resolution makes it possible to fit them on the same line.
Using the tools
Photoshop provides an integrated set of tools for producing sophisticated graphics
for print, web, and mobile viewing. We could easily fill the entire book with details
on the wealth of Photoshop tools and tool configurations. While that would certainly
be a useful reference, it’s not the goal of this book. Instead, you’ll start gaining
experience by configuring and using a few tools on a sample project. Every lesson
will introduce you to more tools and ways to use them. By the time you finish all the
lessons in this book, you’ll have a solid foundation for further explorations of the
Photoshop toolset.
Selecting and using a tool from the Tools panel
The Tools panel—the long, narrow panel on the far left side of the work area—
contains selection tools, painting and editing tools, foreground- and backgroundcolor
selection boxes, and viewing tools. In Photoshop Extended, it also includes
3D tools.
You’ll start by using the Zoom tool, which also appears in many other Adobe applications,
including Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat.
1 Click the double arrows just above the Tools panel to toggle to a double-column
view. Click the arrow again to return to a single-column Tools panel and use
your screen space more efficiently.
2 Examine the status bar at the bottom of the work area (Windows) or image
window (Mac OS), and notice the percentage listed on the far left. This
represents the current enlargement view of the image, or zoom level.
3 Move the pointer over the Tools panel, and hover it over the magnifying-glass
icon until a tool tip appears. The tool tip displays the tool’s name (Zoom tool)
and keyboard shortcut (Z).
4 Click the Zoom tool ( ) in the Tools panel, or press Z to select it.
5 Move the pointer over the image window. The pointer now looks like a tiny
magnifying glass with a plus sign (+) in the center of the glass.
6 Click anywhere in the image window.
The image enlarges to a preset percentage level, which replaces the previous value
in the status bar. The location you clicked when you used the Zoom tool is centered
in the enlarged view. If you click again, the zoom advances to the next preset level,
up to a maximum of 3200%.
7 Hold down the Alt key (Windows) or Option key (Mac OS) so that the Zoom
tool pointer appears with a minus sign (-) in the center of the magnifying glass,
and then click anywhere in the image. Then release the Alt or Option key.
Now the view zooms out to a lower preset magnification, so that you can see more
of the image, but in less detail.
8 If Scrubby Zoom is selected in the options bar, click anywhere on the image and
drag the Zoom tool to the right. The image enlarges. Drag the Zoom tool to the
left to zoom out. When Scrubby Zoom is selected in the options bar, you can
drag the Zoom tool across the image to zoom in and out.
Selecting and using a hidden tool
Photoshop has many tools you can use to edit image files, but you will probably
work with only a few of them at a time. The Tools panel arranges some of the tools
in groups, with only one tool shown for each group. The other tools in the group
are hidden behind that tool.
A small triangle in the lower-right corner of a button is your clue that other tools
are available but hidden under that tool.
1 Position the pointer over the second tool from the top in the Tools panel until
the tool tip appears. The tool tip identifies the Rectangular Marquee tool ( )
with the keyboard shortcut M. Select that tool.
2 Select the Elliptical Marquee tool ( ), which is hidden behind the Rectangular
Marquee tool, using one of the following methods:
Press and hold the mouse button
over the Rectangular Marquee
tool to open the pop-up list
of hidden tools, and select the
Elliptical Marquee tool.
Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) the tool button in the
Tools panel to cycle through the hidden marquee tools until the Elliptical
Marquee tool is selected.
Press Shift+M, which switches between the Rectangular and Elliptical
Marquee tools.
3 Move the pointer over the image window, to the upper-left side of the head-light.
When the Elliptical Marquee tool is selected, the pointer becomes
cross-hairs (+).
4 Drag the pointer down and to the right to
draw an ellipse around the headlight, and
then release the mouse button.
An animated dashed line indicates that the area
inside it is selected. When you select an area,
it becomes the only editable area of the image.
The area outside the selection is protected.
5 Move the pointer inside your elliptical selection so that the pointer appears
as an arrow with a small rectangle
6 Drag the selection so that it is accurately centered over the headlight.
When you drag the selection, only the selection
border moves, not pixels in the image. When
you want to move the pixels in the image, you’ll
need to use a different technique. You’ll learn
more about making different kinds of selections
and moving the selection contents in Lesson 3,
“Working with Selections
Using keyboard combinations with tool actions
Many tools can operate under certain constraints. You usually activate these modes
by holding down specific keys as you move the tool with the mouse. Some tools
have modes that you choose in the options bar.
The next task is to make a fresh start at selecting the headlight. This time, you’ll use
a keyboard combination that constrains the elliptical selection to a circle that you’ll
draw from the center outward instead of from the outside inward.
1 Make sure that the Elliptical Marquee tool ( ) is still selected in the Tools
panel, and then deactivate the current selection by doing one of the following:
In the image window, click anywhere outside the selected area.
Choose Select > Deselect.
Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D (Windows) or Command+D (Mac OS).
2 Position the pointer in the center of the
headlight.
3 Press Alt+Shift (Windows) or Option+Shift
(Mac OS) and drag outward from the
center of the headlight until the circle
completely encloses the headlight. The Shift
key constrains the ellipse to a perfect circle.
4 Carefully release first the mouse button and
then the keyboard keys.
If you aren’t satisfied with the selection circle, you can move it: Place the pointer
inside the circle and drag, or click outside the selection circle to deselect it, and then
try again.
5 In the Tools panel, double-click the Zoom tool ( ) to switch to 100% view. If the
entire image doesn’t fit in the image window, click the Fit Screen button in the
options bar.
Notice that the selection remains active even after you use the Zoom tool.
Applying a change to a selected area
In most cases, you’d change the area within the selection.
But in order to spotlight the headlight, you’ll want
to darken the rest of the image, not the area inside the
current selection. To protect that area, you’ll invert the
selection, so that everything but the headlight is selected
in the image.
1 Choose Select > Inverse.
Although the animated selection border around the
headlight looks the same, notice that a similar border
appears all around the edges of the image. Now the rest
of the image is selected and can be edited, while the
area within the circle is not selected. The unselected
area (the headlight) cannot be changed while the selection
is active.
2 In the Adjustments panel, click the Curves icon to add a Curves adjustment
layer. The Curves options appear in the Adjustments panel.
3 In the Curves panel, drag the control point in the upper-right corner of the
graph straight across to the left until the Input value is approximately 204.
The Output value should remain 255.
As you drag, highlights are brightened in the selected area of the image.
4 Adjust the Input value up or down until you are satisfied with the results.
5 In the Layers panel, examine the Curves
adjustment layer. (If the Layers panel isn’t
open, click its tab or choose Window > Layers.)
Adjustment layers let you make changes to your
image, such as adjusting the brightness of the
highlights in this car, without affecting the actual
pixels. Because you’ve used an adjustment layer,
you can always return to the original image by hiding or deleting the adjustment
layer—and you can edit the adjustment layer at any time.
6 Do one of the following:
To save your changes, choose File > Save, and then choose File > Close.
To revert to the unaltered version of the file, choose File > Close, and click
No or Don’t Save when you’re asked if you want to save your changes.
To save your changes without affecting the original file, choose File > Save
As, and then either rename the file or save it to a different folder on your
computer, and click OK. Then choose File > Close.
You don’t have to deselect, because closing the file cancels the selection.
Congratulations! You’ve just finished your first Photoshop project. Although a
Curves adjustment layer is actually one of the more sophisticated methods of
altering an image, it isn’t difficult to use, as you have seen. You’ll learn more about
making adjustments to images in many other lessons in this book. Lessons 2, 6,
and 10, in particular, address techniques like those used in classic darkroom work,
such as adjusting for exposure, retouching, and correcting colors.
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