Learning Photoshop
with Prabhas Joshi
[Session - 1]
- an introduction
Hello everyone to this section of tutes! Over here we will go about doing all sorts of experiments with our software of interest i.e Photoshop CS3 and keep on learning new things in the process. And believe me it's going to be real fun. You just have to abide by my two instructions-
1] Start thinking creatively and out of the box.
2] Experiment a lot- tinker around with setting to see what they do- you'll learn it better that way!
Go though the First look at Photoshop Section before reading any further. These tutes will be in forms of sections each one catered to do a particular task. Do not proceed to the next section if you havent completed the previous one. Ok then, lets not waste time and get started!
FAQs
This section is for those of you who have not yet got your hands dirty on Photoshop. But we'll make it such so that you atleast make yourselves comfortable with Photoshop. But before beginning anything, I'll make a quick introduction to photoshop in general through a quick question-answer section:
[ The participants of the discussions]
Prabhas [prb]: thats me!
You: Yes, you the reader
Prb: Allright, What do you want to ask.
You: What is this photoshop all about?
Prb: Its a software by Adobe systems and is primarily intended for all kinds of image related functions/operations which you can think of. It is used all across the globe by professional involved in any kind of image related work- varying from Graphic Web designers to 3d game Texture arist to Art directors. This software is huge and a master of whatever it does- you can't get any better with any other software package.
You: Wow! thats impressive. Now why shoud I learn photoshop?
Prb: Thats not because of the convinience it provides, but because of the necessity/need of todays industry. It is so big a phenomena that simply having the knowledge of Photoshop will make you very comfortable in a variety of jobs which I just mentioned above. Remember, it is used everywhere and knowing it can get you anywhere- It's the need and compulsion of the present times if you want to meddle with any kind of art related work. Geting the point.
You: Yeah, ok. But how do I start, I havent done anything like this before.
Prb: Dont worry. You do every new thing for the first time. And this can be made really easy. just follow the tutes!
You: No I'm not scared. Infact the interface looks pretty neat and clean. Does it have enough features?
Prb:
Haha! Dont get fooled by it's interface. It has enough features to keep
you booked for a week. And when photoshop starts getting complex, it
can even get dreadful- take for example it's custom effects filter or
Displace filter or the lightning effects.
You: uggggh, you're scaring me again. But can you tell me 1 cool thing about Photoshop- which can be really useful?
Prb: Well, for beginners, 1 cool thing that I would enlist that you can create unbelieveble things in a really short amount of time. You'll be surprised at the end product keeping in mind the time you invested and the reasults you got.
You: Hmmmmmm. ok Prabhas Just 1 last question
Prb: No more questions. Lets just proceed to the first chapter: Photoshop- An outer look. You'll get the answer of all your queries then and there.
Photoshop from the outside
-learning the interface
For this chapter, I assume that you have installed Photoshop CS3 [Basic /Extended- doesn't make some hell of a difference here, but for later chapters, I recommend the Extended version]. I also advise you to close all unnecessary applications or else Photoshop will tend to slow down.
Having done that start Photoshop and be a silent spectator of what happens next. You'll see a nice blue Splash Screen alongwith names of the people involved in it's making. It's worth mentioning here that the Thomas Knoll- He shows on the top of the list- was the basic inventor of photoshop. And voila, you are greeted by it's new cool grey interface. To experience the power of it's interface do the following things:
1] Go to windows-> Workspace-> Default Workspace to set the default workspace.
2] Take a good view to the right panels and to the dark grey bar on top of panels. You also see a set of
a) 2 small triangles - used to expand and collapse panels- click successively to find out what they do.
b) set of 3 small lines- used to increase/decrease the width of various
panels- drag them to either sides and resize the panels according to
your use.
3] Now for some fun- this is called "Docking of panels"- try this:
a) Click and drag the light grey panel bar and drag it out- it gets detached from the other panels.
b) Now click once on the panel bar to expand it and again drag it around- it becomes transparent as long as you drag it.
c) Now take it below the rest of the panels- and you'll see a blue
halo-which indicates that it will be docked back. Now release it and it
sits back properly with the rest of the panels.
All
these controls let you manually play around with the interface and use
it to free more space for your real work. Just tweek around with these
controls untill you are satisfied. If you like some particular
arrangement, then you can save this scheme by going to
window->workspace->save worspace. But if you dont like the
present arrangement, then just revert it by
repeating the first step.
Now lets check out the various panels separately :
1] Open the sample1 image. [ctrl+o or through file menu]
2]
A window containing the image appears. This is called the image window.
You can open multiple images which appear in different image windows-
press ctrl+tab to transfer the control to different image-windows. You
can scroll through the image
using the scroll bars.
[Q & Answer round (prabhas-prb and you)
you : So prabhas, are there any better ways of navigating through the image-window
Prb: yeah, many options- firstly you should maximize the image window to work on any particular image. But if you want to have a look at all the images, then either
a) Restore the image window
b) From your maximised window, goto window-> arrange-> check out
1. Cascade 2. Tile Horizintally/vertically to get all the images in the
image windows.
If you want to navigate through the image, then either
a) Double click the magnifying glass tool [down below in the toolbox] to get a 100% magnification. The zoom tool can be used to zoom individual parts of the image- just click on the part you want to magnify. One thing worth mentioning here are the keyboard shortcuts for [ Zoom In: Ctrl+spacebar] [ Zoom Out: Alt+Spacebar]- these are very useful.
b) Double click the hand tool [above the magnifying tool] to fit in window. Also, you can drag the image with the hand tool if it is too large to fit.
c) Check out the navigator panel on the top right side. Ctrl+drag to create a marquee on the image thumbnail shown in the Navigator- and that part is zoomed. The hand tool can be used to drag this marquee on the navigator and different parts can be zoomed. Also try the slider given at the bottom of the navigator. It is pretty cool to navigate using navigator.
Any more questions......
you: Yes, how can I increase the space used to increase the effective space for the image or incase I am doing some work that doesnt reqire all the panels.
Prb: Good question, apart from the simple technique of closing some of the unwanted palettes, Photoshop provides for 4 screen modes- acessed through the last tool on the toolbox- check them out!
For still more space, there are a few shortcuts as follows:
1. Press "tab" -hide all palettes including the toolbox and the options bar.
2. Press "shift+tab" to hide all palettes except the toolbox + options bar.
3. You can hide unnecessary extra features [like grids, smart guides, slices and so on] by pressing ctrl+H-and yes this works as a toggle.
You: huh! whats a toggle?
Prb: Jesus! I had not expected such a question. But it's ok. A toggle means that you can repeatedly hide and show the extras by pressing ctrl+h again and again- you can say the same phenomena such as a light bulb switch- on and off. Getting it!
You: Oh yes! thats pretty well explained. Ok continue.
Prb: Right. Try them out fast- they may not seem pretty exciting right now but later you'll see it's importance. Also note, if the space created isnt accomodating your space then you can navigate through the image- Check out section for navigation.
You: Ok. Oh yes, 1 more thing you had mentioned about these "Palettes" without any prior introduction. So what basically are palettes and how are they organised in photoshop?
Prb: Oops sorry! I am so used to working to photoshop that I tend to forget that you have to be told about Palettes. Ok. So you can say a palette is a panel or a box- equipped with functions used to control some aspect of photoshop. Take for example the Navigator is used to navigate around the image or the info palette is used to give all sorts of info about the image and so on.
Another wierd fact is that the options bar- just below the menubar and the toolbox- docked to the extreme right are palettes as well. Including them, there are a total of 21 palettes- which gives you the idea about the power Photshop can unleash.
Now the question arises that how do I access the other palettes- very easy- just goto window-menu and it shows you a list of the all the palettes. This list is used to toggle their visibility. Any more questions.
You: Can you tell me about the Toolbox.
Prb: Yes. The toolbox gives access to all the photoshop tools- each tool being represented by an icon. Some of the tools share a single flyout such as [brush, pencil and color replacement tool]- all share the same spot. To view and select the hidden tools do these simple steps:
1] Each tool flyout has an alphabet attahced to it. To know this alphabet, take the mouse over the tool and wait for the tooltip to appear. For ex. Take the mouse over the topmost tool [just below the Ps] and hold on for a sec- you will see a tooltip- Move tool (V). Thus it means that you can select the move tool by using it's shortcut V. Try this for others.
Assignment: Make a list of all the alphabets that helps you to choose the various tools.
2] If the same flyout shares many tools you can select any of the tool by - double-clicking on the tool flyout-->which expands the flyout and shows a menu. Without releasing the mouse button select the tool and then release it and Voila-you have the tool selected.
3] To know which tool has been selected by you, just in case, you tend to forget that, try this
1. Goto to the info palette. Click on the top-right button and choose Palette options- just below the close [x] button.
Tick the checkbox for the current tool. Now you can the see current tool in the info palette.
4] We'll talk about tool presets in the later chapters.
5] To fine-tune the controls provided by the various tools, photoshop provides an option bar which spans the width of the image window. You can use the various controls by:
a) Selecting options.
b) clicking icons.
c) dragging sliders.
d) choosing options from pop-up menus.
You: Yeah, but how do we actually control all these controls.
Prb: Ok. Now that you really want to get into all that, follow the following instructions to get a feel of what feels like controlling the tool from the options bar:
1) We are all acquainted with the brush tool- directly [through photoshop] or indirectly [through flash/Paint]- it's used to create brush strokes of various variety- ranging from a thin dark stroke of dark color to big bushy strokes of light colors. The large variety available to us can be exercised easily using the control panel. Lets see how.
2) Open up a new document in photoshop using [ctrl+N/File-->New...] and set the paramenters as follows:
Name : Put anything [ doesnt matter to me- anyways this is a useless activity because it wont save the document with that name- for that you'll have to go to (save dialog box/ ctrl+s)- for specifying the final name and location for saving the file ]
Preset: Custom [ this feature gives you access to various popular document sizes- but we dont need that right now- so [we select "custom"- meaning completely user defined settings]
Width : 640 px [I won't kill you if you take 638!]
Height :480 px [same here!]
Resolutions :72 px/in [Obviously the bigger the resolution, the higher is the image quality- but We'll have a larger [discussion on resolution. Right now, just stick to 72 pixels per inch.]
Color Mode : RGB [8-bit-->that amounts to 2^8=256 shades each of red, green and blue which amounts to-->(256^3)=well a [hell lot of colors! ]
Background Contents :White [taking transparent will not provide the required contrast-->so select white!]
3) Ok, so we have our new document thrown at the mercy of our hands and powers of photoshop. So lets tinker with the brush tool using the options bar at the top. Select the brush tool by pressing 'B'. Having done that, select an appropriate foreground color-located at the bottom of the toolbox- check out the 2 square shaped swatches showing 2 colors-->just click on them to select the appropriate color-Don't worry there'll be a detailed chapter on color and it's selection, later.
4) Having selected the color, take a good look at the options bar-which reveals further control. Now select the mode [see the dropdown] as "normal"- you can also press [shift+alt+N]. Set the opacity to 100% and get ready for some action- start dragging the mouse over the main image window and Voila!-you get nice strokes of color-on and on and on.
5) Now comes the fun part- start changing the different settings- the modes, the opacity, the fill value-->[which means the amount of color released while painting with the brush] and the air-brush toggle setting [which decides whether color is released from a brush or not- even while you hold it down at a position- To experiment with it- try turning it on and holding the brush at a place on the document- you'll see]. Play with all these settings like a small kid and when you're finished, you'll know about the powers of the options bar.
This options bar alongwith the large amount of tools, each with it's own options equips you with unbeatable power. So now you know something about the options bar.
And with that we come to an end of our discussion about Photoshop interface. There are still lots of things left to be discussed but I prefer to tell you about it later. These include the tool-presets, the Bridge and the Interface customization. All this is even more easy.
Now let us revise briefly what we did in this tute:
1] Basic Parts of Photoshop Interface- Image Window, Palettes, Toolbox and Options bar.
2] Docking, expanding and collapsing of palette to suit one's needs.
3] Zooming and panning the image- using zoom and hand tool and navigating the image using the Navigator palette.
4] Customizing the brush using the options bar.
Some important shortcuts worth remembering from this chapter are:
1] Ctrl key : the tool changes from the current tool to the move tool untill you keep holding down the ctrl key.
2] spacebar : the tool changes from the current tool to the hand tool untill you keep holding down the spacebar key.
3] spacebar+ctrl : the tool changes from the current tool to the Zoom In untill you keep holding down this combination.
4] spacebar+alt : the tool changes from the current tool to the Zoom Out untill you keep holding down this combination.
5] 'v'- to select the move tool/ 'h'- to select the hand tool/ 'z'- to select the zoom tool
6] 'd'- to select the default color [black foreground and white background]
7] 'f'- press 'f' repeatedly to cycle through the various screen modes present.
Readers Please Note Carefully :
Please go through this chapter thoroughly as I have written it so that you get really comfortable in navigation and choosing tools with a fingertip [using keyboard shortcuts]. Get familiar with the interface. Try practising lots of docking and resizing of the panels. In short you have to make Photoshop CS3 your second home.
And yes if you have any kind of trouble/problem in understanding this tutorial, then please mail your queries to:
prabhas@desdevpro.com
-Prabhas Joshi
Desdevpro Inc.
