adobe photoshop cc crash course

Adobe Photoshop Crash Course ~ 1 ~

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Table of Contents DESIGN BASICS .................................................................................................................................... 4

Essential Glossary of Designing ........................................................................................................ 5

How Colors Affect Us ......................................................................................................................... 6

Introduction to Typography .............................................................................................................. 7

Terminology of Typography .............................................................................................................. 7

HANDS ON PHOTOSHOP ................................................................................................................... 9

What to Expect ................................................................................................................................. 10

Eligibility for the Crash Course ....................................................................................................... 11

Initial Steps ...................................................................................................................................... 11

Workspace ....................................................................................................................................... 12

Options Bar ...................................................................................................................................... 13

Panels ............................................................................................................................................... 13

Workspace Selector ......................................................................................................................... 13

Tools ................................................................................................................................................. 14

Move Tool ................................................................................................................................... 14

Marquee Tools ........................................................................................................................... 14

Lasso Tools ................................................................................................................................. 16

Magic Selection Tools ................................................................................................................ 18

Cropping Tools ........................................................................................................................... 19

Eyedropper Tools ....................................................................................................................... 19

Healing Brushes ......................................................................................................................... 21

Brush Tools ................................................................................................................................. 23

Stamp Tools ................................................................................................................................ 24

History Brushes .......................................................................................................................... 25

Eraser Tools ................................................................................................................................ 26

Fill Tools....................................................................................................................................... 26

Refinement Tools ....................................................................................................................... 27




Color Editing Tools ..................................................................................................................... 28

Pen Tools ..................................................................................................................................... 29

Text Tools .................................................................................................................................... 30

Path Editing Tools ...................................................................................................................... 31

Shape Tools ................................................................................................................................ 31

Navigation Tools ........................................................................................................................ 32

Color Picking and Preview .............................................................................................................. 33

Quick Mask Mode (Preview Mode) ................................................................................................. 34

Screen View Modes ................................................................................................................... 35

Panels ............................................................................................................................................... 37

Colors and Swatches ................................................................................................................. 37

Adjustments ............................................................................................................................... 37

Layers .......................................................................................................................................... 38

Channels ..................................................................................................................................... 39

Opacity and Blend Modes ........................................................................................................ 39

History ......................................................................................................................................... 40

Paths ............................................................................................................................................ 42

Properties ................................................................................................................................... 43

Saving for Web ................................................................................................................................. 45

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP SHORTCUTS .................................................................................................. 49

Shortcuts of Tools ............................................................................................................................ 50

Online Resources ............................................................................................................................. 55

Ending Note ..................................................................................................................................... 58

Credits .............................................................................................................................................. 59




DESIGN BASICS




DESIGN BASICS

Every area of human activity has its basics, and design is no exception from this rule.

Needless to say, there are hundreds of terms, practices and pieces of information you need

to command, if you want to become a good designer.

We shall begin with rough and simple mentions of the most important terms and you'll be

constantly given outbound links for more detailed information.

Essential Glossary of Designing

Canvas: Even the digital images are painted on a digital canvas. So if you ever need to add

some vacant space at the edge of the picture, enhance the canvas size.

Color Palette: In almost every designing and publishing application, theres abar

containing colors. This is called the Color Palette.

DPI/PPI: DPI is Dots per Inch and PPI is Pixels per inch. Printing standard is DPI, while

PPI is for virtual publishing, such as websites.

Gamut: This is the range of colors that is available for a particular output device or a given

color space, for instance a laser printer. If the color range is too wide for that specific

device, you will receive an error out of gamut.

Hue: One of the three basic colors. A hue is actually a range of colors, such as, red, blue

green or yellow, and this works as a wheel. Using hue command, you can change the color

tilt of your image.

Kerning: The spacing between letters in a line of text.

Web-Safe Color: This is also a color table - but it contains 216 out of a possible 256 colors.

These 216 are the colors which are displayed alike in all web browsers.




WYSIWYG: What you see is what you get. This term is usually used in web designing.

When you are designing a site, you dont have to save the web page coding and open it in a

browser, rather the designing application provides you with a live preview.

Please visit the Designing Theorems and Terminology - The Prerequisities for a Designer for

further reference, you will also learn about the difference between:

Vector vs Bitmap graphics

RGB vs CMYK colors

Pixels and Resoultion

How Colors Affect Us

Colors and psychology coexist in a tight bond and every good designer should have

a decent understanding of the color psychology. Even the general public has

(maybe a bit limited) knowledge of this, e.g. you wear a black suit to the funeral, so

black represents death.

Several other examples might be:

- Red- attention, emotions, sex

- Green- healing, fertility, life

- Blue- optimism, sadness, men

- Cyan- wisdom, loyalty, team color

- Magenta- royal color, strength, governing

- Yellow- optimism, anger and frustration if overused

Also visit Infographic: How to Use Colors in Graphic and Web Designing.
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Introduction to Typography

It is vitally important to have at least a basic understanding of typography, i.e. the

difference between serif and sans-serif fonts and how to choose their proper

combination.

Several of the most basic typographic factors are:

use sans-serif for headlines and serif for body

one font type in the headlines and other in the body

choose exactly 2 fonts and stick with them through the whole article

look for design collisions

Terminology of Typography

There are of course many more categories of fonts, other than serif vs. sans-serif.

Those are:

Blackletter

Calligraphic

Inscriptional

Non-alphanumeric

Ornamented

Script

In case you are interested in the other kinds of fonts, feel free visit Typedia -they

have covered this issue very well.

Tip:For avoiding widespread mistakes in font selection, you can visit Ann Davlins

article on common typography mistakes and font selection.
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At times, designers might get confused by the terms "typeface" and "font", so let's

describe both right away to avoid any misunderstanding.

Typeface - a group of fonts, it unites a family of a particular font, like Lucida

Sans, Lucida Typewriter, etc.

Font - a subset of a typeface, it is a particular style and set of characters

Examples of a Serif font:

Baskerville

Century

Sans Examples of a Sans-Serif font

Lucida Sans Unicode

Verdana




HANDS ON PHOTOSHOP




HANDS ON PHOTOSHOP

We are going to teach you Adobe Photoshop CC in just 30 minutes by guiding you

through every tool and basic commands. This is Photoshop learning on steroids. It's

safe to say that it will be far from being a complete instruction manual, but with our

help, you will be able to perform rudimental tasks with Photoshop.

The basic purpose of this eBook is not to make you a Photoshop legend, rather it is

only supposed to give you enough knowledge that you can easily be able to follow

online tutorials and take help from the official Help website.

What to Expect

In case you need more information, you will easily obtain it in the user

guide(provided by Adobe with every copy of Photoshop and also available

forDownload Online).

You can see a [page #] written in brackets after every command. Thatindicates the

page number in that PDF help Adobe provides. Assuming thatyou already know

that what Photoshop is and what it does, lets just start thepractical part right away.

Bonus: The terminology and tools are almost identical in Adobe Photoshopand

Adobe Illustrator, so you are also learning a great deal about AdobeIllustrator at the

same time. The difference between these two programs isthat Photoshop is for

Bitmap Graphics and Illustrator is for Vector Graphics.
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Eligibility for the Crash Course

You know the difference between vector and bitmap graphics and how they

work.

You know the basic terminology used in graphic designing.

You know the basic image editing functions, for example contrast and

brightness enhancement or how to crop an image. These functions are

available in all famous picture viewers such as Picasa, ACDSee or IrfanView.

You have Photoshop installed in your computer.

Note:If you're not sure whether you meet these criteria, please read Graphic DesignMethods and Terms for further reference.

Initial Steps

Install Adobe Photoshop in your computer and immediately test everytool or

command you are learning here. I think thats the best way tomemorize a

command.

One more thing I would like to clarify is that many questions might pop-up inyour

head while reading this chapter, like how can we do this and that?

Should that be the case, just keep on reading please. If I had to explaineverything at

once, we would waste a lot of pages. All of your questions willbe answered in due

time.

This book is not written in reference style mode, so it may not be a good idea to

study it from the middle. We already have F1 help for quick reference; so it wouldnt

make sense to create an alternative F1 help. This book is designed to be read start
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to end, and to be studied it in one go (thats why it is kept so brief). You can

however, skip the first chapter if you are already familiar with those articles.

Workspace

Undoubtedly, the most important set of elements in Photoshop is Toolbox. We'll

cover each tool individually, but a little later. Right now, lets take a look at the

Options Bar.

Note:The same bar is called Control Panel in Adobe Illustrator. Therefore,

Adobes online help center uses both terms alternatively, so dont get confused ;)




Options Bar

Options Bar shows advanced properties for the currently selected tool. So its

options change as you switch between tools.

This is one of the elements which is not covered explicitly, because most of

itscommands are self explanatory. However, we will be describing essential and

important functions along the way, so no need to worry though.

Panels

These options are used frequently, but their functions cant be filled up to a single

tool (such as a color bar), take place on the right side of the workspace in

Photoshop.

The most important panel is of course the Layers Panel, and we will be covering it in

just a moment. But before we can do that, we need to have a little knowhow of all

the tools in the toolbox. So lets check out the most magical feature of Photoshop,

i.e. the tools!

Workspace Selector

The workspace is the whole general area where you are working. Collectively, the

term workspace refers to the way the tools, panels and menus are arranged. There

are multiple workspaces in Photoshop. Professional 3D and CAD users make use of

a different workspace while digital artists and painters use another.

You can select the workspace according to your needs. However, this book is

featuring the default workspace called Essential which contains all the important

tools and panels.




Tools

When you move your mouse pointer upon any tool, a yellow message pops out,

that message is called Tooltip. Theres occasionally a letter written in a parenthesis,

thats the hotkey (shortcut key) for that particular tool. We have also covered these,

and many more shortcut keys in the last chapter of this book, but first, lets check

out the tools one by one.

Move Tool

You can see Move Tool selected and its options bar.

The tool to perform basic actions on a selected area, such as move, resize, rotate

etc. This works in the same way as any Arrow Tool in graphic designing applications.

Marquee Tools

This is a set of tools. Click and hold for a second to view all the tools.

Marquee Selection ToolsOptions Bar

Rectangular Marquee Tool




This tool is for selecting a rectangular area of the photo you are working on.

Selection method is simple, click and drag over the area you want to select and

then perform actions with Move Tool.

Elliptical Marquee Tool

Same as the previous tool, except the fact it selects area of an oval type shape.

Single Row/Column Marquee Tools

The two Line Tools select one pixel in a row or a column, in other words it selects a

horizontal or vertical line in the image.

Options Bar

It stays almost the same in all of the tools of this set. When the first button is

selected, every time you start to make a selection, it creates a new and discards the

old one. But if the second one is selected, it adds the new selected area to the

previous selection.

The other two buttons perform similar functions, like subtracting or creating an

intersection. Give it a try, youll figure these tools out in your first attempt.

Style

Surprisingly, it is a selection for styles. Normal means freeform style, with Fixed

Ratio you can create an aspect ratio for your selection. Fixed Size is self

explanatory, it creates a selection of the defined size.




Feather

Creates a gradient type effect at the edges, see the example below to view what it

does. Anti-alias is a light feather, quite useful when cutting something out of an

image. See the example below.

Image courtesy of: University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Refine Edges

This dialog box contributes with the advanced options for your current selection.

Make a selection and toggle with commands, they explain themselves very quickly

in the preview box.

Tip:to remove selection, i.e. to unselect everything, just hit D.

Lasso Tools

Magnetic Lasso Tools Options Bar
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Only the Magnetic Lasso Tool has new commands in the options bar, rest of

everything stays the same with Marquee Tools Options Bar.

So lets go through options for Magnetic Lasso Tool.

Width refers to the margin from the edge of the object you are selecting.

Contrast value should be high, if the object has similar color value to the

background, but usually, default value of 10 works best with almost everything.

[Page 266]

Lasso Tool

Same as the last tool set, except that you can create a custom shape selection with

this tool, rather than just rectangular or elliptical. Hold your click and draw the

desired shape to make a selection.

Polygonal Lasso Tool

This tool also helps you to create a custom shape selection, but here, click and

release the mouse button, then click at another place - it draws a straight line

between the two points (called anchor points). Then click on another point, it

draws another line, now click back at the first anchor point, this will close your

selection and you have your selection.

Magnetic Lasso Tool

This is a newbies best friend. An intelligent tool that can distinguish between the

contrast ratios, so if you try to select an object from an image, this tool magnetically

sticks the selection to the edges of the object so you can easily cut it and place it on

another background.




Magic Selection Tools

Magic SelectionTools Options Bar

Contiguous means to select only the colors that are connected to each other. If its

not selected, then the color will be selected in the entire image.

Tolerance helps you to select a greater range of colors. If its ratio is set high and

you click over a green color (say from light green to dark green), all colors will be

selected. This will not be the case if Tolerance value is low. Sample All Layers

command will be described later on. [Page 277]

Quick Selection Tool

A relatively new tool, it selects one color that you click on from the whole image. It

works great for removing backgrounds.

Magic Wand Tool

This tool has been in Photoshop since the old times. It works in similar fashion to

the Quick Selection Tool, you click an area and that color is selected. This tool gives

you more control over your selection compared to Quick Selection Tool.




Cropping Tools

Crop Tools Options Bar

It works as any other crop tool in other picture viewing programs (such as Picasa).

Slice Tools will be covered later, with the option Save for Web & Devices.

Height and Width set the aspect ratio. [Page 426]

Eyedropper Tools

Eyedropper Tools Options Bar

Eyedropper Tool

Same old story, this also works in the same way as any eyedropper tool works in

other programs (such as Microsoft Paint). It reads the color value from wherever

you click so that you can fill that color to any other place. [Page 175]
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3D Material Eyedropper Tool

This tool selects the material surface (concrete, metal etc.). You can take example as

if it is a pattern selecting tool, not just a color selecting tool but it is designed

specifically when you are working with 3D modeling and CAD software.

Color Sampler Tool

This is the same as normal eyedropper tool except that it lets you check color

values of four different points simultaneously.

Ruler Tool

It measures the distance between two points. Just click and drag.

Note Tool

It allows you to add notes to your file. They are like comments so if multiple people

are working on the same file, you can leave notes/comments for the next person

who will be working.

123 Count Tool

This tool counts the total number of objects in an image. It is one of the least used

tools in Photoshop, along with Art History Brush.




Healing Brushes

Healing Brush Tools Options Bar

We shall cover Mode in just a bit.

Source options are for selecting a color pattern from the opened image you want

to paint with Healing Brush using a predefined patter.

Aligned means after you select a color pattern from the image and then move your

pointer up or down (vertically), the target source location also moves and stays at

the same distance. [Page 410]

Spot Healing Brush Tool

This is a great tool for making finishing touches. This tool copies the color pattern

specifications from its surroundings and pastes it in the center of the brush.

Example: You have a portrait and theres a mole in the face, you want to remove it,

just move your brush (mouse pointer) over that mole and click it. Voila, its

removed. The skin is copied from the surroundings and pasted over the mole. You

dont even have to make a selection.




Healing Brush Tool

Great Tool, works in a similar manner to the previous one, except here, you can

copy the color pattern from anywhere, even other images.

Hold your Alt key and click to select the color pattern, and then draw it wherever

you want, this tool will draw the pattern and as soon as you release it, the pattern

automatically merges with the surroundings.

The only difference between this tool and Spot Healing Brush is that this tool gives

you more control because it lets you select the source pattern. So bottom-line is

that Spot Healing Brush is good for making minor edits, because thats quick.

Healing Brush requires more effort but it gives you control so you can make major

edits.

Patch Tool

You can make a freeform lasso like selection, and this selection can be patched

anywhere you like. This tool is really helpful if you are renewing old, torn photos.

Content Aware Move Tool

This is a new tool, earlier this option used to be buried up in a dialog box.

This is a very intelligent tool. It recreates the background if you remove an object

from an image. We covered this option in a tutorial when it was introduced in

Photoshop CS5.
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Red Eye Tool

This should not be a new tool. Picasa and all other picture viewers contain this

option. Sometimes, when you take a photo in night, the flash turns the eyeballs into

blazing red dots. This tool fixes such photos.

It creates a rectangle when clicked and dragged. Just click and drag over the

reddened eyeball.

Brush Tools

Brush Tools Options Bar

Mode changes the method your brush stroke is applied to the image in the

background.

The difference between Opacity and Flow is that if opacity is low, you can paint

over a point many times. The opacity will stay the same, while Flow works the same

way as if you were painting over a canvas. Blending Modes and Opacity options are

covered in the layers section below. [Page 474]




Brush Tool

For digital paintings and web designing, this is one the most used tools in

Photoshop. It works as if you have a paint brush in your hand. Click it and drag it

around. Press "]" enlarge the size of the brush and "[" to shrink it.

Pencil Tool

A solid stroke of color, click and drag, it will create a line of that color, thats it.

Color Replacement Tool

It adds a color filter to any place of the image you brush it with. It works great when

you want to convert one object (or area) of an image to Black and White (grayscale)

colors. To do this, just pick black color and paint over anything. You can pick colors

using eyedropper tool or selecting colors from Colors Panel. Well talk more about

picking colors, later.

Mixer Brush Tool

This tool creates quite dramatic effects in digital paintings, but to be honest, this is

not much useful in portrait or image editing. Just click and drag around in different

Modes, youll understand what it does.

Stamp Tools

Clone Stamp Tools Options Bar




The commands of the options bar will be cleared at Layers section below. [Page

(Cloning) 407 (Pattern) 523]

Clone Stamp Tool

Congeneric to the Healing Brush Tool, the difference is that it doesnt merge the

painted image with its surroundings. You can select the sample pattern using the

same Alt + Click as it is with Healing Brush.

Pattern Stamp Tool

Same as Brush Tool, except it paints a predefined pattern, rather than a color.

History Brushes

History brush will be explained in the History and Undo panel. [Page 66]

History Brushes Options Bar

Theres relatively no new command on the options bar for these tools, so well be

jumping over options bar until we reach Vector tools. We are doing this to save

time.

Art History Brush

This has to be the least used tool in Photoshop. Were not even going to define

what it does. Just open any image, click and drag over it and youll know what it

does. Mind you, it does not do anything else, it does just what youll be seeing

there.




Eraser Tools

Eraser Tool

It does what its name suggests. It removes the foreground and reveals the

background color below. This is the same is as Microsoft Paint.

Background Eraser Tool

It removes the background color and makes that part of the image transparent.

Magic Eraser Tool

Click anywhere and that color will be deleted from the entire image.

Fill Tools

Paint Bucket Tool

It fills the selected color or area with your chosen color. Again, this tool is same with

MS Paint.

Gradient Tool

Rather than solid colors, as in Paint Bucket Tool, this tool fills gradients. The

working is exactly the same as Paint Bucket Tool. [Page 503]




3D Material Drop Tool

The 3D Material Drop tool works much like the traditional Paint Bucket tool, letting

you sample and apply materials directly on 3D objects. [Page 795]

Refinement Tools

Blur Tool

Absorbs the sharpness and makes that portion of the image seem blurry. This tool

is often used in image editing.

Sharpen Tool

An absolute opposite to the Blur Tool.

Smudge Tool

Creates the effect of finger painting, i.e. smudge painting. Some newcomers use

this tool for portrait editing, such as I mentioned earlier, removing a mole from a

face - but that is the wrong way to do it. Proper method is to use Clone Tool and

Healing Brush Tool.




Color Editing Tools

Dodge Tool

It exposes the colors in range of Shadows, Midtones or Highlights of the image.

You can switch the range from Options Bar.

Burn Tool

Opposite to Dodge Tool, it does not expose colors; rather burns them.

Sponge Tool

Painting with this tool helps you to saturate (or desaturate) a part of image.

You can change the setting from Options Bar.

The next four toolsets are for designing Vector Graphics.




Pen Tools

Pen Tools Options Bar

Options Bar will be defined later in the section of Layers and Paths. [Page 494]

Pen Tools

Creates a Vector shape in the same way you make with a Polygonal Lasso Tool and

also an anchor points with every click.

Freeform Pen Tool

Creates a shape according to the method of Lasso Tool, click hold drag.

Add Anchor Point

Does it need any explanation?

Delete Anchor Point

No, it does not need any explanation!

Convert Point Tool

Click on an anchor point of any vector in Photoshop and drag it. It gives thevector

boundary line a swirl.




Text Tools

Type ToolsOptions Bar

The Options Bar of these tools contains only the options which are present in

common word processor. So we dont need to look deeply in it. [Page 546]

Horizontal Type Tool

Click anywhere and start typing. If you want to make a text box, click and drag to

make a rectangular text box.

Vertical Type Tool

Does the same thing, but in vertical order.

Horizontal Type Mask Tool

This tool is covered below, in the Masks section.

Vertical Type Mask Tool

Again, covered in the Masks section.




Path Editing Tools

Path Selection Tool

This tool selects and moves parts (fragments) of a path.

Direct Selection Tool

This tool can select, move a path as well as select an anchor point and change its

specifications. [Page 483]

Shape Tools

Almost all of these tools work the same way, so lets just jump to the last one.

Custom Shape Tool

This tool can create various predefined custom shapes such as arrows, pop-outs

etc. Working method is still the same, click and draw. [Page 471]




Navigation Tools

Hand Tool

This works exactly in the same manner as any Hand Tool in other applications.

When are viewing an image from a zoomed-in viewpoint, and you want to navigate

to your right/left or up/down, just select this tool to navigate through. You

temporarily enable this tool while using any other tool by pressing and holding the

Spacebar. When you let go your spacebar, you are automatically reverted back to

the tool you were using prior to pressing spacebar.

Rotate View Tool

This rotates the canvas. It is a helpful tool if you are a digital artist.

Zoom Tool

This tool isnt a hard guess, is it? It zooms in and out of an image. This tool is hardly

ever used because zoom functions are performed via shortcut keys. We have

covered important shortcut keys in next chapter.




Color Picking and Preview

You see two colors, the top one is the foreground color and the bottom one is

background color. When you erase something out of the image, the background

color takes its place. And foreground color is the main color which will be painted if

you use Brush Tool or some other painting tool. [Page 174]

The bent arrow button alters the colors. It turns the background color into

foreground color and vice-versa.

The little preview-like button on the top left loads the default colors in the color

preview box. The default colors are Black in the foreground and White in the

background.

The color preview box works in coordination with the Colors Panel. So lets start our

panels section with Colors Panel.




Quick Mask Mode (Preview Mode)

You can enable quick mask mode using the button above.

Before we can understand this preview mode, well have to understand the concept of masking.

There are many definitions for mask. In my words, it is a way of hiding a part of an image, without editing or removing it. They are applied on layers so you can hide a particular area without removing, changing or altering it. [Page 218]

Quick Mask Preview mode works in the same fashion. Since it is not being applied on layers, it applies on selections. The area inside the image remains clearly visible while rest if the image gets hidden by the Quick Mask so you dont get distracted.

Heres an example:

Simple marquee selection




Same selection in Quick Mask Mode

Screen View Modes

These are pretty straightforward tools. You actually never have to use the tools, you

just have to press F to alter between screen view modes. Here are all three modes

in action.




Panels

The first panel is a set of three panels, Colors and Swatches.

You have seen the default Colors panel already (in the workspace preview image),

lets give you a preview of swatches.

Colors and Swatches

Its a pretty straightforward panel. Whichever color you choose, that becomes your

foreground color. You can choose your color using the color mixer in Colors Panel

or you can select a color from the Swatches Panel.

These panels work in coordination with the color preview box (in the Toolbox).

Adjustments

Enable you to change the values of brightness, contrast, colors, saturation, levels

and similar functions. [Page 309]

Styles

Has a list of styles that can be applied to Vector Graphics/Paths, can be painted using Pattern Stamp Tool, or they can be applied as a fill on a Layer. [Page 237]




Layers

A blank layer works exactly as if you have aa sheet of transparent paper (tracing

paper). If you place that transparent paper over a printed photo, and then draw or

write something on the transparent paper, will it affect the image underneath? Of

course not.

Layers perform the exact same function in Photoshop. At its core, the layers are

suppose to help you perform edits on images, without disturbing the image

underneath. Your layer can contain vector objects, such as a text (your name

maybe), raster objects, such as other images so you can merge two different

images, you can also make an Adjustment Layer which only brightens/darkens and

perform similar adjustments to the image underneath.

Mind you, the image underneath is also a layer.

A common web design can contain 100 to 500 layers (yes, 500 is not at all a big

number for Photoshoppers). Why are there so many layers? Because there are so

many objects. Now lets take a couple of more examples.

Imagine a regular table with many pieces of paper on it. You can move them

around, put one on top of another, or even cut a small chunk of the paper off.

The basic idea is that you cansplit your image into multiple parts and work with

each of themindependently.

Think of it as your work desk, where you have a large number of papers. You can

move each of the papers independently, write on them, throw them away, cut

them, glue them together and much more. The same principle applies to layers in

Photoshop. Here are but a few examples:




Move a layer disregarding the others

Copy/cut/paste from one layer to another

Blend layers together with one of many blend modes

Change opacity of the layers

Apply styles to each layer, e.g. stroke, drop shadow and many more

Crazy Fact! its difficult to imagine Photoshop without layers, but actually layers

were not included in it until Photoshop 3.0

Channels

As you know, digital images are constructed from pixels which contain primary

colors. By manipulating their ratio, the computer generates all the colors.

So basically these are the color modes, RGB, CMYK. RGB is used for displaying

colors on monitor screens and CMYK is used for printing colored graphics. If you

are designing a graphic that is going to be printed, it will have four channels, Cyan,

Magenta, Yellow and Black. If your graphic is a grayscale one, it will only have one

channel. You can change channel values from panel. [Page 282]

Opacity and Blend Modes

Each layer can have its own opacity setting which determines how opaque or

transparent the layer is. This is very useful when you want to do more complex

compositions, where you may want a little transparent background.

As you get more advanced with Photoshop, opacity will become your best friend,

because it allows you to dial down the effects of some filters or adjustments.




Opacity is often used to adjust the effect of a modification you made, be it a blend

mode or any filter. You can select a value from 0 to 100%, where 0 is completely

transparent and 100% is completely opaque.

To quickly set opacity value, just press the number representing the percentage on

your keyboard. For 50% press 5, for 70% press 7, for 56% press 5 and 6 in quick

succession. That's how you set opacity!

You might have noticed that there is another value similar to opacity called Flow.

Simply put, Flow is just same as the Opacity until you start using Layer Styles, as

Flow doesn't apply to any styles, only to the layer itself. When you get more

advanced, you will find out that Flow affects some blend modes differently than

Opacity does, but that is not important right now. [Page 181]

History

Photoshop has only one undo. Dont worry though, because it also has something

much better - History. When you press Ctrl + Z it performs an Undo, if you press it

again, Photoshop performs a Redo. To perform several Undos Press Ctrl + Alt + Z.

You can view all your performed actions from History panel and perform several

Undos by just clicking at a position.

Here, you can see the history of actions performed on a photo of a cute little Koala.

1. Opened the image.

2. Cropped unnecessary parts of the image.

3. Typed a word: Koala




4. Moved the text to its proper place.

5. Changed the color of the text.

History Brush Tool

We promised well be defining this tool here, so here it is. This tool works as the

usual Brush Tool, but it does not paint a color, it rather re-emerges a previous state

of things from History.

Example: Desaturate an image > create a blank layer > Select History Brush Tool >

Select the pre-desaturation state from History panel > Paint over the blank layer,

where you are painting, the image is retrieving colors again.




Paths

Every vector object in Photoshop is a Path. It is called a path for the line that forms

the vector. In the screenshot above, you can see a vector polygon drawn with the

help of Custom Shape Tool. You can also see same polygon displayed in the Paths

Panel.[Page 482]




Properties

This is a new feature in Photoshop. Basically, this panel shows properties of the

object and also it performs some edits. Heres the example using same polygon

that we drew for Paths Panel.




After changed some properties

Basically this panel is still evolving and it may change in the next version. At the

moment however, it shows properties of vectors, adjustment layers, and linked

objects.

Note:linked objects are the objects that are located externally. For instance, if you are working on a map of a building which is saved externally and only linked in the Photoshop document, all the changes made in the external file will be immediately updated in the Photoshop document as well. This feature is helpful when teams collaborating on the same project and one person is supposed to edit the file outside and another person is working in Photoshop at the same time.




Saving for Web

Earlier, this command was called Save for Web & Devices. The basic idea for this

whole set of commands is to optimize images for web. As youve already studied

that web browsers cannot display all 256K colors, and you would also know that it is

never a good idea to put large volume images on web, so this command takes care

of all those things.

Lets refer back to that Koala image and see how that looks opened in this

command.




The top left side contains simple preview options for some tools such as the Quick

Hand Tool, Zoom Tool etc. and some Preview Styles from which you can choose to

only view the optimized view, comparative view etc.

At the top right hand side, you can choose the format of the optimized image(s) e.g.

PNG, JPG, GIF and so on; and also their quality levels. Web Designers frequently

toggle with quality levels to find the middle ground between image quality and

image volume. If you reduce quality, the volume of the image is also reduced so its

loading speed increases. However, it loses some details so its always a tough

decision when choosing between quality and loading speed.

You might be wondering what is color index. Its a table/index of all the colors used

in the image. It doesnt work in JPGs but it works in GIFs. So lets move forward and

see a live example.

Slice Tool

This is another tool which we promised well clear later. So here it is.

Basically, a slice is a cropped image, but you can create multiple slices (hence,

multiple cropped images) by using this tool. This tool enables you to divide your

design into segments, and each segment can be saved as an independent image.

This tool works as a partner with Save for Web.[Page 725]

You can create a segment in any image by just selecting Slice Tool and clicking &

dragging over the area you want to make a separate picture. It becomes very useful

when you create a design of a website (or its element), such as a navigation bar in

Adobe Photoshop, and now you need to divide that design into separate segments.




This tool is used for creating web designs. When you create a web design and it is

ready to be live, you have to make distribute the design into each independent

segment. After all, you cannot just upload one big image as a whole website. So

heres how it works.

Lets assume we have designed a web layout for Designzzz.com and now it is ready

to be converted into HTML. So here it is sliced.

You can see that all social media icons, search button, logo and navigation bar icons

are sliced out. All these slices will turn out as independent images and they can be

incorporated in the HTML. Now lets save these slices.




You can save only images, images and HTML or even HTML only (not used much).

You can also select whether you want to save only one slice or all the slices

simultaneously.




ADOBE PHOTOSHOP SHORTCUTS




ADOBE PHOTOSHOP SHORTCUTS

Adobe Photoshop is a huge program with a large number of commands, butits a

quite time consuming experience to perform a task when we dont knowthe

shortcuts (short keys). Let's go through some frequently used shortcuts andtips

that will surely increase the speed of your work.

We have tested all these shortcuts on Adobe Photoshop CC Extended.

Tip:Open Photoshop and test these shortcuts right away. That's the best way

to memorize them.

Shortcuts of Tools

Image, courtesy of our friend Tom Cao
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1. Caps Lock switches your cursor to Plus sign for precision, while working with

painting or editing tools.

2. To draw a straight line, click at the point from where you want the line to start,

then go to the point where you want the line to end, hold Shift and Click.

3. Holding Ctrl will temporarily change you current tool to Move Tool.

4. Holding Spacebar will temporarily change you current tool to Hand Tool.

5. Holding Alt will temporarily change you current tool to Eyedropper Tool, if you

are working with a painting tool.

6. Ctrl + Alt + Click and drag the image, it will create a duplication of the current

image or selection and make an overlay on the top.

7. If you hold down Alt while using Burn or Dodge Tool, it switches the tool

functions between them.

8. When you are done typing with any text tool, press Ctrl+Enter, Photoshop will

understand you are done. You can also press the Enter key on numbering pad if

you want a single key solution for that purpose.

9. Alt + Mouse Scroll changes the zoom level

10. While using Magnetic Lasso Tool, pressing Delete button will remove the

previous anchor point.

11. While working with Zoom Tool, Ctrl + Spacebar zooms in the image and Alt +

Spacebar zooms out.




12. Eyedropper Tool - captures foreground color. Hold Alt and click to capture the

color for background.

13. When drawing a line with the Measure Tool, if you hold Alt and drawanother

line from the end of the first line, it will also measure the angle.

14. When using Marquee Tools, hold down Alt and it will make the click pointas

the center point of the selection.

15.When using Brush Tool, or any other Paint Tool, pressing the numbers on the

numbering pad will alter the transparency. (3=30%, 4=40% and so on.Pressing 4

then 5 will get45%)

16. Hold Shift and press "+" or "-" it will change the layer and painting modes:

N = Normal

I = Dissolve

M = Multiply

S = Screen

O = Overlay

F = Soft Light

H = Hard Light

D = Color Dodge

B = Color Burn

K = Darken

G = Lighten

E = Difference

X = Exclusion

U = Hue




T = Saturation

C = Color

Y = Luminosity

Q = Behind 1

L = Threshold 2

R = Clear 3

W = Shadow 4

V = Midtones 4

Z = Highlights 4

Note: Some of these shortcuts require relevant tools to be selected. For instance

the last three shortcuts require an Image Adjustment Tool to be selected.

Shortcuts for Workspace

17. When you double click the gray background area, the Open command will

run. (Works when no file is opened)

18. Double clicking on the title of any panel will minimize or maximize it.

19. All "Cancel" buttons in every Photoshop windows and tables, will be

transformed into a "Reset" button by just holding Alt.

20. Pressing Tab will hide toolbar and panels, while Shift + Tab will only hide

panels. This is one the most used trick in Photoshop.

21.Wanna have some fun? Change the gray background color outside the opened

file? Select Paint Bucket tool, hold shift and click. Voila! (Works only when a file is

opened)




22. Ctrl + Backspace and Alt + Backspace will fill in the whole image area with

foreground color or background colors.

23. Pressing Shift + Backspace will pop-up the option window, Alt + Shift +

Backspace and Ctrl + Shift + Backspace, will fill the image with foreground or

background color but will not change the values in of the areas of alpha.

24. Ctrl+Jmakes a duplicate layer.

25. Ctrl + D to deselect all, and Ctrl+Shift+D to reselect what you deselected.

26. You can show or hide a path by pressing Ctrl+Shift+H.

27. Pressing Ctrl+Tab allows you to toggles between opened image files.

28. Alt drag a step from a serial action can copy it to another action.

29. If you want to import an object from Illustrator to Photoshop, just Copy and

Paste. Photoshop will ask you whether to import it as a vector or bitmap.

30. Double clicking the Hand Tool provides you the largest full image preview.

31. Double clicking the Zoom Tool sets the zoom level to 100%.

32. Pressing X will swap the foreground and background colors.

33. Pressing D will resets the foreground and background colors to default

34. Ctrl+Shift+Nopens the new layer with a dialog box, Ctrl+Shift+Alt+N creates a

new layer, no questions asked.

35. Press F to alter between the Screen View Modes.

Tip: Visit Photoshop Shortcuts for Professionals for more free shortcuts.
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Online Resources

Naturally, there are many more issues worth your attention. We couldn't possibly

make our material as long as we would like to, because it would cover hundreds of

pages.

As a result, we're providing a special chapter for bonus resources that you should

check out yourself. You can obviously ignore it, but you will greatly enhance the

utility of this material simply by checking out the links below.

There are just two categories:

Tutorials are meant to help you with a particular topic that either hasn't been

covered that much here or it extends the information provided by us.

Free Resources will provide an excellent collection of free Photoshop Pluginsand

Extensions, because good tools are almost necessary for creating a nicepiece of art.




PHOTOSHOP TUTORIALS

Photo Manipulations

Cool Break Dancer

Pirate House

Paint Dispersion Effect

Typography

Groovy Typography

Neon Text

Shattered Stone Effect

Web Design

Jewelry Business

Web Gallery

Portfolio
http://www.designzzz.com/creating-break-dancer-photo-manipulation-photoshop/http://www.designzzz.com/how-to-create-pirate-house-photo-manipulation/http://www.designzzz.com/create-paint-dispersion-photo-manipulation-photoshop/http://www.designzzz.com/how-to-create-splatter-typography-photoshop/http://www.designzzz.com/electric-text-effect-design-wallpaper-photoshop/http://www.designzzz.com/create-stunning-shattered-stone-effect-typography-photoshop/http://www.designzzz.com/designing-jewelers-website-photoshop/http://www.designzzz.com/how-to-make-web-template-photoshop/http://www.designzzz.com/how-to-easily-design-an-attractive-portfolio-web-template/http://facebook.com/Designzzzhttp://twitter.com/Designzzz




Photo Effects

Dead Wood

Zombie

Digital Make Up

Advanced Functions

Creating a Brush

Content Aware Fill

Simple Equalizer Animation

Photoshop Resources

These are all links to downloadable resources

Mega Collection of Photoshop Actions

31 Free Photoshop Layer Styles

Photoshop Cheatsheets

60+ Free PSD Poster and Flyer Templates

Photoshop Custom Shapes Download

Free Photoshop Patterns

Top 10 Free Photoshop Plugins

Photoshop Brushes

Photoshop Category on Designzzz.com
http://www.designzzz.com/photoshop-tutorial-wood-effect/http://www.designzzz.com/scary-zombie-photo-effect-photoshop/http://www.designzzz.com/how-to-make-up-yourself-digital-retouching-photoshop/http://www.designzzz.com/how-to-easily-create-a-brush-in-photoshop/http://www.designzzz.com/how-to-use-content-aware-fill-photoshop-cs5/http://www.designzzz.com/howto-create-simple-animation-photoshop/http://www.designzzz.com/photoshop-actions/http://www.designzzz.com/free-photoshop-layer-styles-designers/http://www.designzzz.com/cheatsheets-boost-photoshop-experience/http://www.designzzz.com/psd-flyer-templates-download/http://www.designzzz.com/free-custom-shapes-photoshop-cs5/http://www.designzzz.com/photoshop-patterns-designers-download/http://www.designzzz.com/useful-photoshop-addons-photographers-designers/http://www.designzzz.com/category/photoshop-brushes-download/http://www.designzzz.com/tag/photoshop/http://facebook.com/Designzzzhttp://twitter.com/Designzzz




Ending Note

First of all, thank you for downloading and studying this book. Hopefully, by this time you should have grasped the Photoshops concepts and you cannot wait to start making your own Photoshopped graphics. We wish you all the luck in the world.

We also encourage you to visit Designzzz.com and visit this eBooks homepage, share your thoughts, interact with fellow readers of this book and us.

One more thing, we are craving to talk to you. If you have any questions, need any further help or even if you want to criticize our effort, just come to the site, were waiting.

Once again, thank you for reading, see you on Designzzz!
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Credits

Although this book was prepared by the Designzzz Editorial team, it would not have

been completed without valuable help OndrejDyrka and Jakub Arnold from Czech

Republic and Eric Shafer of USA.

Designzzz.coms editorial team consisted of Tayyub Ibrahim, WaseemAmjad and

the webmaster, publisher of this eBook, Ayaz Malik.

But the biggest contributors in this book are of course, you guys, the readers of

Designzzz.com. Your help, your feedback and your support has enabled us to

present this eBook. Thank you for trusting us!

A little bit about Designzzz.com

Designzzz.com is a frequently updated site in the area of design and other related

branches. The categories are:

Design

Free Resources

Photography

WordPress

Reviews, Tips and Miscellaneous

We are trying to educate our crowd in the most coherent and comprehensible way

possible. Each and every of our posts is thoroughly checked and consulted by most

of our staff before it's launched.

We welcome all your suggestions and feedback. In fact, anyone can contact us and

write a Guest Post for Designzzz.com, one of the top design related sites out there.




All you have to do is to be an expert in your field, we will help you with your English

if needed.

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Copyright Notice

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Note: you are welcomed to share the download link of this eBook.
http://facebook.com/Designzzzhttp://twitter.com/DesignzzzDESIGN BASICSEssential Glossary of DesigningHow Colors Affect UsIntroduction to TypographyTerminology of TypographyHANDS ON PHOTOSHOPWhat to ExpectEligibility for the Crash CourseInitial StepsWorkspaceOptions BarPanelsWorkspace SelectorToolsMove ToolMarquee ToolsLasso ToolsMagic Selection ToolsCropping ToolsEyedropper ToolsHealing BrushesBrush ToolsStamp ToolsHistory BrushesEraser ToolsFill ToolsRefinement ToolsColor Editing ToolsPen ToolsText ToolsPath Editing ToolsShape ToolsNavigation ToolsColor Picking and PreviewQuick Mask Mode (Preview Mode)Screen View ModesPanelsColors and SwatchesAdjustmentsLayersChannelsOpacity and Blend ModesHistoryPathsPropertiesSaving for WebADOBE PHOTOSHOP SHORTCUTSShortcuts of ToolsOnline ResourcesEnding NoteCredits

adobe photoshop cc crash course

Documents

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facebook http

comdesignzzz http

marquee tools

lasso tools

cropping tools

eyedropper tools

magic selection tools