NOTE: While creating or editing graphics in Photoshop, it is important to remain aware of the issues surrounding Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Fair Use Resources.
Adobe Photoshop is an image manipulation/production software, and is designed particularly for working with photo-based images. While you can certainly generate images from scratch, the Photoshop software is particularly useful for altering pre-existing digital images or scanned photo images. Today's introductory workshop will focus on pre-existing images.
Getting Started
In order to begin to familiarize ourselves with some of the basic operations of Photoshop we are going to open a practice image from the Samples,(that come with the software). First, open Adobe Photoshop under the Start menu in the lower left corner of the screen.
Under the pull-down File menu in Photoshop, choose Open.
In the dialogue box that pops up, the Samples folder should already be open with a list of available images.
Select an image to experiment with from those listed. Choose one that has a .psd or a .tif file extension.
In order to ready yourself to do some basic work with Photoshop you should make sure that the Tools and the Layers dialogue boxes, (pictured left), are visible.
In order to ready yourself to do some basic work with Photoshop you should make sure that the Tools and the Layers dialogue boxes, (pictured left), are visible.
If they are not visible, go to the pulldown Window menu at the top of the screen. Select Show Tools and Show Layers in that list. Click on them to make those tools available on screen.
In the Tool bar, (pictured above and to the left), the icon at the upper left that looks like a box made out of dashes, is the Linear Marquee tool. It is used to select portions of the image for cropping or copying. If you click once on the Linear Marquee icon box, it will pop out a row of other selection tools.
Click once on that tool, then position your mouse in the upper left corner of the image. Hold the mouse button down and use the cross that appears to draw a box around the area that you want to keep. Do this by holding the mouse button and dragging the mouse down and to the right. When you have finished selecting the area that you want to save, you will notice that if you point to the selection and hold the mouse button down you can reposition the selection by moving it around. You can also change its dimensions by placing the cursor, (or arrow), over any of the square handles on the box, holding the mouse button down, and dragging.
Try using the rectangular selection tool, (pictured below),
or the circular selection tool to select a portion of the image. Once it is selected, click Copy, and then Paste, under the pull-down Edit menu.
At first, you will not see the selection because it will be pasted directly over the portion of the image that you just copied.
To save your image
To save your image go to File, then Save As. Next, name your image and save it in the My Documents folder, (which should be visible in the pull-down Look in menu, in the Save As dialogue box). The default file extension will be .psd. This is what you want for now because it will preserve all the layers separately.
Layers Palette
Look at the Layers palette.
All of the layers are listed in hierarchical order. The one at the top is the foreground image, and those below are closest to the foreground in descending order. You can change the order of the layers, (i.e. what is in front and what is behind), by clicking on any layer + holding the mouse down + and dragging that layer up or down in the hierarchy.
You should see a background layer and any additional layers you have added when you were selecting and copying portions of your image. Those new layers will have generic names like Layer 1, and Layer 2.
NOTE: Remember that the selected layer will always be highlighted in dark blue. Any editing or changes you make on your images will only be applied to the layer that is selected at the time that you add those changes.
Naming the existing layers:
First let's name the existing layers:
Double click on Layer 1 to open a dialogue box:
Change the name from Layer 1 to something descriptive.
This is useful as your image grows so you can quickly identify each layer by just looking at the name.
Editing Layers
1. Or you can adjust the opacity of the layer by clicking on the arrow at the right of the opacity box in the Layers palette and sliding the fulcrum from right to left (and vice versa) to increase or decrease transparency.
2. You can move a layer closer to the foreground or the background of an image by clicking on it and dragging it up or down in the palette hierarchy.
3. You can delete a layer by dragging it into the trash can at the bottom of the palette. Wish you hadn't? Click Undo delete under the pulldown Edit menu
4. You can temporarily hide a layer by clicking on the eyeball to the left of the layer name in the palette.
Adding Text
Then click once on the image you are editing and this will open a dialogue box.
Click on the color box in the dialogue box in order to select a Text Color that will contrast with your image and be visible.
Type your text in the box.
Highlight the text so that when you choose different fonts or font sizes, those changes will be reflected.
Select a font, a font size and a type style (bold, italic etc.)
Select orientation for the text (center, left justified, right justified--these are selected using the icons that look like pages with lines of text on them). Also insert any line breaks in the text as you want them to appear on your image. Once you are satisfied with your font and size, click OK.
You can then use the move tool to reposition your text on your image.
Note that adding the text to your image has created a new layer and that the name of that layer is the contents of your text. If later you want to change that text, double click on the text in the text layer in the layers palette.
A Few Things about Colour
In your tool box you will notice at the bottom two color blocks. These are the foreground color (the one in front) and the background color.
The foreground color is the one that will be used when you use any of the painting or drawing tools in the toolbox or when you add text.
The background color will be picked up if you create a new image from scratch and you select Background Color as the color for your new image. (If you want to see this click on New under the pulldown File menu and note that, in the dialogue box, in addition to asking you for size info for the new image, the program will also allow you to choose whether the new image has a transparent background, a white background or whether it uses the background color from the toolbar).
To change the foreground (or the background) color in the toolbar you can double click on the foreground (or background) color box in the toolbar. This will open a color picker dialogue box in which you can select a shade by clicking anywhere in the color palette. Note that the hexadecimal # for that shade (which is what web pages use to specify colors) is shown at the bottom of the color picker dialogue box. It will look something like this: #FFOOOO
Once you have selected your colors you can switch them back and forth (swapping background for foreground and vice versa) by clicking on the little arrow in the upper right corner of the color selection box (pictured above).
You can also change the foreground or the background color using the eyedropper tool.
With this tool you can select a color from an image you have opened by clicking on any area in this image. That color you click on will become the foreground color in the toolbox (or the background color if you have selected to change the background--same process).
Once you have selected your colors you can switch them back and forth (swapping background for foreground and vice versa) by clicking on the little arrow in the upper right corner of the color selection box (pictured above).
You can also change the foreground or the background color using the eyedropper tool.
With this tool you can select a color from an image you have opened by clicking on any area in this image. That color you click on will become the foreground color in the toolbox (or the background color if you have selected to change the background--same process).
Drawing Tools & Brushes
In your toolbar you will notice some tools that look like paint brushes, pencils, etc. These can be used for creating new images or for editing existing images. Because it is somewhat difficult to draw freehand with a mouse, these tools are often best used as editing tools.
Under the pull-down Window menu select Show Brushes. This is the palette that will help you select the thickness and the strike style for the drawing and painting tools.
Pencil tool
Change the foreground color to black.
Select a small brush size from the Brushes palette.
Select the background layer in your image.
Use the Pencil tool to draw a black mark on your draw.
Magnifying glass
Click on the black mark with the Magnifying glass to zoom in on it.
Now select the eyedropper tool from the tool box:
Colour Picker
Click on the colored pixels adjacent to the black mark to select that color as the foreground color in the tool box.
Select the pencil tool again and this time write over the black mark with the adjacent color.
Eraser tool
If you like you can experiment now with some of the other brushes and with the eraser tool which will remove pixels from the image (like an eraser):
Image Size
Image size can be adjusted by using the pull down menu under Image.
Click on Image Size.
In the dialogue box you can adjust the image size by pixels or by percentage.
So, for example, if you know you want to reduce the image by half you can change the percentage from 100 to 50.
If you know that you want an image that is 300 pixels wide you can type that into the pixel width box and the height will automatically be adjusted.
It is a good idea to check the box that says Constrain Proportions so that if you adjust the height or the width the other will be adjusted automatically to maintain the aspect ratio of the image so it will not appear distorted. Remember its usually OK to shrink an image a little without interfering with the appearance--but if you shrink it or increase it too much, the quality may be noticeably reduced.
Filters
You can play with altering your image using filters under the pull-down Filter menu.
Again, if you add a filter and don't like it you can go to the Edit menu and click Undo to undo your LAST operation. Most filters will offer a preview of sorts.
Some Filters will ask you to render the text first--just click OK.
Remember that the filter will only be applied to the layer that is selected.
Save
You should first save a .psd version of your image because this will preserve all of the layers discretely so that you can further edit them.
After you do that, then, if you are creating this image for the Web choose Save for Web.
You can note the image size and the download time at this point (look in the lower left corner of the dialogue box) and if it seems too large, go back and make it smaller.
For the web,PNG JPG GIF are the preferred formats.
PNG is usually preferred for Flash and for images that contain transparent areas
JPG tends to produce a smaller file size (good for quick downloads) and is also preferable in general for photo-realistic or photo-based images.
GIF is usually preferred for simple drawings and for images that contain transparent areas
