Photoshop Basics: Creating and Editing Images, Study Guides, Projects, Research of Photoshop

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Photoshop Tutorial

Getting Started

File > New… Select the size of the blank document that you want to create. Pay special attention to your choice of resolution. If you’re creating an image for the web, 72 pixels per inch will suffice. If you’re creating a detailed art project, you want at least 300 pixels per inch, but obviously the more the bettter.

A Few Words About Color

2) CMYK color - lists a percentage of

each of the colors {Cyan, Maroon,

Yellow, blacK}. CMYK can best be

thought of as the “color printer cartridge

colors.” Some graphics designers

choose to convert their work (after it has

been done in RGB) to CMYK so that

they have a better sense of how it’s

going to look after it is printed.

A Few Words About Color

3) Grayscale - this is exactly what it

sounds like. It’s a color mode that

operates entirely in black and white.

Usually in order to convert an image to

grayscale, you will first need to flatten it.

(More about this later)

Don’t Forget To… Save Your File File > Save As… The default format for Photoshop files is aptly named “Photoshop Format.” Keeping your document in Photoshop format is a good idea if you’re planning to go back and edit it later. However, if you want to e-mail it or put it on a website, you will want to change the format to something more universal.

Popular Format Choices, Explained

1. Photoshop PDF - PDFs have gotten a bad reputation here in the Mac Lab, mostly because we don’t print them. However, PDF was developed by Adobe for file-sharing purposes, which makes it an excellent choice for e-mailing a document to someone else (particularly someone who doesn’t have the same version of Adobe Photoshop that you do).

Web Formatting

File > Save For Web

Photoshop has a special Save For Web

feature that allows you to choose

between GIF, JPEG, PNG and WBMP

formats. It also allows you to choose

between “High,” “Medium” and “Low”

quality resolution.

Size Issues

Even the steadiest hands make small

mistakes with a mouse. The best way to

minimize the visibility of these mistakes

is to zoom in sufficiently far on your

project so that any mistakes that you

make are not apparent once the project

is restored to normal size.

Simple Photo Re-touching

Maybe we don’t like the brown spot on

LimeCat’s lime. We want to find a way

to fill in an appropriate texture and color

to match the rest of the lime. Using the

rubber stamp tool, we can do just that.

Using the Rubber Stamp Tool

To use the rubber stamp tool, first select a

“brush” size that looks appropriate for

the error that you’re correcting. The

rubber stamp is a cloning tool, and you

don’t want your cloning area to be too

large.

Look at the Difference!

The one on the right has been re-touched. I

also removed some unwanted whiskers.

Cutting Out An Image

Suppose that we want to (precisely) cut

out a picture of Homer Simpson.

Cutting Out An Image

Click on the button that looks like a grey box with a white circle inside of it on the tool bar.This will enable you to enter the mask mode. Once you are in the mask mode, you will notice that the area that doesn’t show up in red is the area that you have selected (the red highlighted part is the “throwaway area”). By using the eraser and the paintbrush tools, you can add or subtract from this red area with amazing precision.

Cutting Out An Image

Once the selected (white) area on your image is to your liking, exit from the mask mode. Edit > Copy will copy your image and allow you to paste it into a new document. Tip: In Photoshop, it is always a good idea to paste an image onto a different layer from its background. This will make it easier to move your image around the canvas.