Introduction of Photoshop for Beginners

No one can limit the use of Photoshop. Photoshop is a software developed by Adobe which allows users to edit Images. It is used by Graphic artists, Designers, Photographers and others who want to manipulate the images to enhance its appearance or change it for any purpose. This article will be helpful for the beginners who are trying to know this software and learn it for future use.

Adobe Photoshop is world’s best versatile, powerful, popular, industry-standard image editing software. You can use Photoshop to create customized graphics, edit photos, make flyers and images for print as well as for the web.

Today I will tell you how to use Photoshop. Creating a New Project & Basic Tools will be discussed here.

Creating a New Project :

1.

– Go to ‘File > New’ or Press Ctrl/Cmd + N

A window will now open which will have:

Name – This is the name of your document

Preset – From the drop-down list, you can select from a number of different sizes.

Size – You can select a preset size from a long drop-down list. This is optional because you can change the file attributes from other text boxes and drop-down menus.

Width/ Height – This is the width of your document. Values in the Width and Height text boxes can be edited without affecting the other. Adjacent to the values in the Width and Height text boxes, you find drop-down menus that offer many different options for units of measure.

Resolution – The resolution i.e. used for your document – 72 PPI is used for Web and 300 PPI is for Print. PPI stands for ‘Pixels Per Inch’

Color Mode – This is the colour type for your document.Your choices are Bitmap, Grayscale, and RGB Color. It is suggested you leave it as RGB Color for now and keep it as 8 Bit.

Background Contents – You have three choices: White, Background Color, and Transparent.

Advance Settings – This is for advanced users. You can just leave it as it is.

Once you have selected the setting you want, click ‘OK’.

Here are some common document sizes :

720p – 1280×720 @ 72 PPI

1080p – 1920×1080 @ 72 PPI

A4 – 595×842 @ 72 PPI OR 2480×3508 @ 300 PPI

A3 – 842×1191 @ 72 PPI OR 3508×4962 @ 300 PPI

Photoshop Basic Tools :

Shape Tools : These tools can be used to create shapes. There are six different types of shapes in this Tool, like:

Rectangle Rounded Rectangle Ellipse Polygon Line Custom Shape

Move Tool: This is a very important tool, because until now, all you have been able to do is to select pixels, and not actually moving them. The move tool not only allows you to move areas you have selected, but also to move entire layers without making a selection first. If you hold the option (or alt) key while clicking and dragging with the move tool, you can copy the selection.

3. Zoom tool :

The zoom tool magnifies and reduces the view of an image.

4. Hand tool :

The hand tool moves an image within its window.

5. Magic tool :

The magic wand tool selects similarly colored areas.

6. Crop tools :

The Crop tool trims images.

Slice tool: The Slice tool creates slices. (Slices are what that allow you to actually split up a larger image in Photoshop so it loads faster on the internet.)

8. Pen Tools:

This tool can be used to create smooth-edged paths. You can use the Freeform Pen to create paths free-handed.

Lasso – This can make a free hand selection Polygonal Lasso – This will make a selection with lines Magnetic Lasso – This will make a selection by shaping onto objects.

10. Brush tool:

The spot healing brush tool removes blemishes and other imperfections in your photos by sampling pixels from around the retouched area.

11. Sharpen tool:

The sharpen tool sharpens soft edges in an image.

Smudge tool: The smudge tool smudges data in an image.

13. Dodge tool:

The dodge tool lightens areas in an image.

Burn tool: The burn tool darkens areas in an image.

Sponge tool: The sponge tool changes the color saturation of an area.

16. Type Tool :

This tools creates a text box which can be used to type text into.

17.Eraser tools:

The eraser tool erases pixels and restores parts of an image to a previously saved state. The background eraser tool erases areas to transparency. The magic eraser tool erases solid-colored areas to transparency with a single click.

Gradient tools :

The gradient tools create straight-line, radial, angle, reflected, and diamond blends between colors.

2. The paint bucket tool fills similarly colored areas with the foreground color.

Blur tools : The blur tool blurs hard edges of an image. The sharpen tool sharpens soft edges of an image.

The smudge tool smudges data of an image.

Eyedropper tool: 1. The eyedropper tool samples any color in an image and sets the foreground (drawing) color to it.

2. The color sampler tool samples colors in an image and records them for reference.

3. The measure tool measures distances, locations, and angles.

21. Clone Tools :

1.The clone stamp tool paints with a sample of an image.

2.The pattern stamp tool paints using part of an image as a pattern. Clon .

Brush tool 1. The brush tool paints brush strokes.

2. The pencil tool paints hard-edged strokes.

3. Color replacement tool replaces specific colors in your image. You can paint over a targeted color with corrective color.

Though there are many articles in search engine regarding this, I hope this detailed but easy article will surely help you to cross the hurdle of this new software. Study this well and practice at the same time. This will make this new software interesting and you will love to work on it.

9.This tool can also be used to make selections. There are three different types which are: