(coming soon)

The next version of Adobe Photoshop, CS6, should have a new look and a significant array of new tools, early betas are said to show. Builds compiled earlier this month are described by AppleInsider as having a darker-toned, more Aperture-like aesthetic, although Adobe is at least temporarily providing users with the option of reverting back to the style of Photoshop CS5. The CS6 software is also said to include new palette icons, although these should be still recognizable enough to avoid confusion.

The focus  of new tool additions is believed to be on 3D. “3D Material Drop” and “3D Material Eyedropper” options have been added, along with a new “3D Text” command. Similarly, the Preferences pane now has “Allow Direct to Screen” and “Auto-Hide Layers” options for “Interactive Rendering.”

Also added are new “Rich Cursor” toggles, “Show on Hover” and “Show on Interaction.” Some other potential adjustments include “Invert Camera Axis” and “Separate Axis Controls” under “Axis Control,” plus an “Interactive Shadows Quality” drop-down that determines shadow rendering. The Healing Brush palette has been given a “Remix Tool,” while the Crop Tool palette has been given a “Perspective Crop” variant.

General Preferences options let users snap vector tools and transforms to the pixel grid, or vary round brush hardness with vertical HUD movement. Under the Interface tab, people can opt to enable drop shadows for text, or show transformation values. Under File Handling, “Save in Background” and “Automatically Save Recovery Information Every…” options have been added. For File Compatibility, people can choose to ignore rotation metadata, or disable compression of PSD and PSB files. The Type tab, oddly, has had two options removed, those being “Show Asian Text Options” and “Font Preview Size.”

Sources claim that Creative Suite 6 could ship sometime around May of next year.

With the Replace Color command, you can create temporary masks based on specific colors and then replace these colors. Let’s learn about it in this basic tutorial!

The Replace Color dialog box contains options for adjusting the hue, saturation, and lightness components of the selection: Hue is color,saturation is the purity of the color, and lightness is how much white or black is in the image.

You’ll use the Replace Color command to change the color of the tulip in the image we’ve been correcting throughout this lesson. Here is the original image, you can download and practise with it.

1.	Select the Rectangular Marquee tool ( ), and draw a selection border around the yellow tulip in the foreground of the image. Don’t worry about making a perfect selection, but be sure to include all of the yellow flower.

3.	Using the Eyedropper tool ( ), click anywhere in the yellow tulip in the image window to sample that color.

Then, use the Add To Sample eyedropper ( ) to sample other areas of the yellow tulip until the entire flower is selected and highlighted in the mask display in the Replace Color dialog box.

As you change the values, the color of the tulip changes in hue, saturation, and lightness, and the tulip becomes red.

If you’ve downloaded the zip/rar/or any compressed file then extract it and you will see .abr file and if don’t know what to do next, read this tutorial.

1. Put the .abr file you’ve downloaded into the folder /Users/{username}/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Presets/Brushes (on mac OS X) or C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop\Presets\Brushes (on Windows) .
2. Then open your Adobe Photoshop, active brush tool, go to option palette and click on to open the brush preset picker.

Then click on little triangel in the right upper corner.

Next on the list you choose ‘Load Brushes’

In the dialog box choose the .abr file (brush  file you just downloaded) you want to load and your new brushes appear in the Brush palette and are just ready to use.

Sadly, I spent my money made from tutorials on ‘Long Island Iced Tea cocktails’ and therefore I am forced, yet again, to live in a box with a broadband connection and a computer. Therefore, I would like to thank Jean Scheijen for providing me with this beautiful free stock image. Free stock images, I love ‘em!

Here’s a before and after.

Lastly, before we begin with the actual tutorial, I would like to show you my layer structure. For me, this setup works great. With this setup, I can navigate quickly through my layers and cut down on my work time. All of the layers will be discussed in the tutorial, so don’t worry if the scheme confuses you at the moment.

Step 1

We begin by duplicating the original layer, and with a combination of the Clone Stamp (S) Tool and the Healing Brush (J) Tool, try to remove all spots and blotches that we can find. In essence, we smooth out the skin this way and prepare it for the brushing. It is very important to use a soft brush when working like this, so that the end result blends better with the surrounding skin. If an area is hard to tackle, use the Clone Stamp Tool first and then blend the treated area with the healing brush.

Step 2

Symmetry is naturally attractive to human beings, and there are certain ‘lines’ that run across the face that when these are symmetrical, the subject seems to be more attractive to the eye. So let’s give our subject a little plastic surgery. Duplicate the layer, and using the Forward Warp Tool found in the liquefy gallery (Filter > Liquefy… or Shift+Ctrl+X), raise the area around the eyebrow just a little.

Step 3

Right now, we’ve come to the point where we can fiddle a bit with contrast, enhancing it further as we go. Let’s use a modification of a well-known technique called the ‘Angel face’ technique…at least, that is what I always call it. Again, duplicate your layer and then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blurand give this layer about a 8-10px blur. After this we set this layer to ‘Soft Light’. Since we do not want this effect to be visible everywhere, I added a Layer Mask and filled that with black, concealing the effect. Then I took a big white, soft, round brush set to around 30-50% Opacity and started brushing around the nose, cheeks, eyes, and hair to enhance their color. This effect can do miracles for blond hair since it can transform it from a dull yellow-ish color to a vibrant gold color.

Step 4

Now we’re going to focus on the actual airbrushing. This is a delicate process that requires a certain amount of patience and experience. Depending on your wishes or your client’s wishes you will have to decide how much airbrushing you want to apply. For instance, models in magazines and especially adult magazines are usually heavily airbrushed since they have to look ‘perfect’. On the other hand there are cases where you might just want to tweak the face by removing a few wrinkles or smoothing out the skin in a few places. For this reason, when I do the airbrushing, I generally do it over a few layers which gives me the option to switch layers on and off depending on how much texture I want to preserve in the end. On this image, I did the major airbrushing in two layers and merged them afterwards.

The trick is to use a low opacity (between 10 and 20 percent) soft brush. The color we pick comes from the image itself. When we pick the color, set the sample size of the Eyedropper Tool (I) to 51 by 51 pixels. If I remember correctly, this feature has only been available since CS2, so if you are using a version before that you will sample the color from a single pixel. Try to select an area where the skin is more or less smooth or set a flesh tone manually. Brush over an area multiple times and watch it become smoother.

The change is significant, especially around the nose area, and it is even more noticeable when the image is viewed on a much larger scale.

Step 5

After the airbrushing, let’s tweak the lips and the eyes. The lips have been slightly saturated using the same technique as in step 4, just pick a color from the lips instead. Then make a selection around the eyes and use ‘Layer via Copy’ (Ctrl+J), which can be found under Layer > New > Layer via Copy, to copy the selected part onto a new layer. Make sure this layer is on top at the moment. On the new layer, use the Dodge Tool with the settings shown below to lighten the iris.

Step 6

This is the final step before we apply our adjustment layers and bring this piece to life. In this step, we’re going to focus on the eyes a bit more, since these are very important in any portrait photograph.

1. Using a low opacity (15-20 percent) black brush, we enhance the make-up around the eyes. Don’t worry if the change seems small, it will pop as soon as we add those adjustment layers.

2. With the same technique as used in step 4, get rid of those wrinkles around the eyes. Yes, we all have them or we are going to have them, and yes, we all seem to hate them.

3. Finally, let’s desaturate the sclera (the white part of the eye). There are several ways to do this, but I believe that the easiest is simply to create a layer, select a white brush, and go around the white bit of the eye and set the mode of the layer to color. It’s quick, easy and gets the job done nicely.

Step 7

Time for the grand finale. This is the part where we make our picture stand out using the adjustment layers shown below. The adjustment might seem tiny but they make that crucial difference:

The levels and curves layers add contrast to the image as a whole and enrich the colors.

The brightness/contrast adjustment layer makes the make-up around the eyes and the lips pop out. As you can see, there’s a mask applied to the layer. It is entirely black (therefore hiding the effect) except for the area around the eyes and the lips.

The lip hue/saturation adjustment layer adds a vibrant pink color to the lips. Again a mask is applied to limit the effect strictly to the inner area of the lips.

And finally, another hue/saturation adjustment layer to slightly remove the warm shade from the face.

And well, did all of this make a difference? You decide:

Conclusion

Well there you go, a complete overhaul.

Adapted from “Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 Maximum Performance” by Mark Galer

[Source : photoshopsupport.com]

One of the most challenging montage or masking jobs in the profession of post-production editing is the hair lift. When the model has long flowing hair and the subject needs to change location many post-production artists call in sick. Get it wrong and, just like a bad wig, it shows. Extract filters, Magic Erasers and Tragic Extractors don’t even get us close.

Portrait image by Dan Stainsby

The first secret step must be completed before you even press the shutter on the camera. Your number one essential step for success is to first shoot your model against a white backdrop, sufficiently illuminated so that it is captured as white rather than gray. This important aspect of the initial image capture ensures that the resulting hair transplant is seamless and undetectable.

The post-production is the easy bit – simply apply the correct sequence of editing steps and the magic is all yours. This is not brain surgery but follow these simple steps and you will join the elite ranks of Photoshop gurus around the world. Celebrity status is just a few clicks away.

Step 1

The initial steps of this tutorial are concerned with creating a mask that can be used in the final montage. Start by dragging the background layer to the New Layer icon to duplicate it. Choose ‘Remove Color’ from the Adjust Color submenu found in the Enhance menu (Enhance > Adjust Color > Remove Color).

Drag this desaturated/monochrome layer to the New Layer icon in the Layers palette to duplicate it. Set the blend mode of this new layer (now on top of the layers stack) to ‘Overlay’ mode.

Step 2

From the Layer menu choose ‘Merge Down’ to create a single high-contrast monochrome layer. Select ‘Black’ as the foreground color and the ‘Brush tool’ from the Tools palette. Choose a large hard edged brush and 100% opacity from the Options bar and set the mode to ‘Overlay’ (also in the Options bar).

Painting in Overlay mode will preserve the white background and darken the rest of the pixels. Accuracy whilst painting in Overlay mode is not a concern when the background is white or is significantly lighter than the subject. Avoid going anywhere near the tips of the hair at this stage.

Step 3

Even the bright tones of the white shirt can be rendered black by repeatedly clicking the mouse whilst using a large brush in Overlay mode. Again it is important to avoid going anywhere near the hair.

Step 4

Darken the body of the hair near the scalp but avoid the locks of hair that have white background showing through. Painting these individual strands of hair will thicken the hair and may lead to subsequent halos appearing later in the montage process.

Performance Tip

Switch the blend mode of the brush in the Options bar to ‘Normal’ mode when painting away from the edge of the subject. This will ensure a speedy conclusion to the mask making process. The mask is now ready to use in the montage.

Note > If any of the background has been darkened in the process of creating a black and white mask switch the foreground color to ‘White’ and choose ‘Overlay’ in the Options bar. Paint to render any areas of gray background white. It is again important to avoid painting near the edges containing delicate hair detail.

Step 5

With the Remove Color layer selected add a Levels adjustment layer. Without making any adjustment simply select OK. This Levels adjustment layer has a layer mask that we can use to house the mask that we have created in the previous step.

Step 6

The next step relocates the mask you have just created into the layer mask of the adjustment layer. From the Select menu choose ‘All’ and from the Edit menu choose ‘Copy Merged’. Hold down the Alt key and click on the layer mask thumbnail in the Layers palette. The image window will momentarily appear white as you view the empty contents of the layer mask.

From the Edit menu choose ‘Paste’ to transfer the contents of the clipboard to this layer mask. Click on the layer below to select it and then click on the Visibility icon of this layer to switch it off. This mask layer serves no purpose now that it has been successfully transferred to the adjustment layer mask.

Step 7

The new background is placed on its own layer above the figure and mask layers. Drag the thumbnail of this new file into the image window of your project file from either the Photo Bin or the layer thumbnail in the Layers palette. Group this new background layer with the adjustment layer beneath (Layer > Group with Previous). Alternatively you can hold down the Alt key and click on the dividing line between the two layers to group them.

Step 8

Grouping the new background with the adjustment layer will mask the background in the region of the figure but the quality will not yet be acceptable. Setting the blend mode of the adjustment layer to ‘Multiply’ will bring back all of the fine detail in the hair. The background will be not darkened by applying the ‘Multiply’ blend mode as white is a neutral color. The subtle detail in the fine strands of hair will however be preserved in all their glory.

Step 9

The accuracy and quality of the edge of the mask will usually require some attention in order for the subject to achieve a seamless quality with the new background. Make a selection of all of the edges that do not include any hair detail using the Lasso tool with a small amount of feather set in the Options bar. With the adjustment layer mask selected choose the ‘Gaussian Blur filter’ (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) and apply a 1- to 2-pixel Radius Blur to the mask.

Click OK and then from the Enhance menu choose a Levels adjustment from the Adjust lighting submenu. Move the central Gamma slider underneath the histogram to realign the edge of the mask with the subject edge (no dark or light halo should be visible).

Performance Tip

If the mask is too soft the edges can be sharpened by moving the black and white sliders in towards the central Gamma slider a little. Select OK when perfect alignment has been achieved.

Zoom in to 100% Actual pixels whilst working to accurately assess the quality of your mask.

Step 10

In most instances the hair is already looking pretty fabulous but to modify and perfect the hair even further you will need to inverse the selection (Select > Inverse). Choose ‘Levels’ once again and move the central Gamma slider to the left to increase the density of the hair and eliminate any white halos that may be present. Moving the White slider to the left a little may help the process of achieving a perfect blend between subject and background. Select OK and choose ‘Deselect’ from the Select menu.

Performance Tip

Any localized refinement of the mask can be achieved manually by painting with a small soft edged brush directly into the layer mask. Paint with white at a reduced opacity (10-20%) to remove any fine halos present in localized areas. Several brush strokes will slowly erase the halo from the image.

Step 11

The true test of an accurate mask for a subject that was photographed against a white background is when you place the subject against a very dark background. Grouping a Levels adjustment layer with the new background layer can darken the background image used in this project.

Hold down the Alt key when you select a Levels adjustment layer from the Layers palette. Click on the Group with Previous box in the New Layer dialog box and then select OK to open the Levels dialog box. Move the Gamma slider to the right in order to preview your subject against a darker background in the image window.

I have received a number of emails lately in regards to this topic and I have decided to post this short tutorial with a step-by-step guide for beginners. Once you master this skill, you can apply it to pretty much every human image you want to selection/extract.

Meanwhile, if you have any tips/tricks about making selections, you’re more than welcome to share your experience with us, just drop a comment below

Although this is not a formal photo effect tutorial but rather a tip/trick, I have created a final image here:

OK let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need to the following stock image:

Girl

Step 1

Load the Girl stock image into Photoshop. We know the ultimate goal is to seperate the girl from the rest of the image, but how do we start. Firstly let’s take a look at the image:

1. The overall lighting is quite good and it doesn’t have a lot of colour variation.
2. This is a human portrait so that means taking out the hairs and making selection around it will be difficult.
3. You may think of using Pen Tool, but what happen if you’re just not that good at it??

After those thoughts above, it’s time to get down to business. To begin with, let’s take a look at the channels in the channel palatte and select the “Blue” channel as shown below:

The reason I chose the “Blue” channel here is because it provide the biggest contrast from the model to the background, comparing with the Red and Green channel.

Step 2

Now we’re are on the blue channel. The second thing we’re going to do is to increase the contrast as much as we can, while preserving the hair bits. To do this, we can make a duplication of the “Blue” Channel by right-click and choose “Duplicate channel”.

On the “Blue Copy” channel, go to Image > Adjustment > Brightness /Contrast and apply the following settings:

Then hit Ctrl + L and bring up the level adjustments tool, apply the following settings:

and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now we will have to use the power of the Quick Selection tool to select the light colour part of the girl’s body. To do this, simply grab the Quick Selection tool (W) from the tool box, set the brush size to 2px and tick “Auto-Enhance” option, make a selection of the white part as shown below:

Hint: make use the + and – quick selection tool available on the option bar for adjustments, don’t worry about the hair bits on the outside as they’re already in black colour.

When you finish the selection, simply fill it with black colour:

De-select the image when you’re done, if you see a white gap on the girl body, simply use a black brush to fill it.

Step 4

Now you will see around the girl’s body (which is in Black), there are some areas cover in dark grey colour. We must get rid of them in order to make our selection better. To do this, simply use the Quick Selection Tool to make a selection around the girl, then press Ctrl + Shift + I and inverse this selection. Grab the Eraser Tool to gently erase those dark grey bits off:

The reason we make the selection is that by doing so, we will not accidentally erase the parts on the girl’s body.

Here is the effect so far:

Now we have successfully completed a Channel Mask, which we

Step 5

Now we can go back to the layer palatte, go to select > load selection and choose the following:

and you will see now the model is selected:

Press Ctrl + J and make a duplication of the selection, and create a new layer in between and fill it with white colour, you will see we have now successfully make a pretty good selection for the girl model:

Step 6

Now we can of course fine tune the image a bit by using the Sharpen Filter. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen and apply the following settings:

Also add a series of adjustment layers on top of it will help to bring out extra light and contrast: (Go to Layer > Adjustment Layer)

For all adjustment layers, make sure to tick the “Use previous layer as clipping mask” option.

Black and White:

Levels

Curves

Hue and Saturation

and here is the effect so far:

Step 7

Now we have a perfect girl image, without any background and great to work on as a starting point. It’s time to use your imagination and creativity I simply use some custom brushsets from qbrushes.com and add some patterns in the background, adjusted the colour balance a bit.

That’s for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

[Source: psdvault.com]

If you don’t have a copy of Photoshop, you can download a trial version here. I’m using version CS3 of Photoshop for this article. The skills described in this article should work with the latest, CS4, and previous versions of Photoshop.

Here’s a copy of the original image used in this introductory photoshop tutorial. Notice it’s lacking control and saturation of color. It’s a little flat.

To get started, simply open a portrait or facial shot similar to the one I’m using here. If the image is really important to you, make sure to duplicate it first and then use the copy for the exercises below.

1. Duplicate The Background Layer

The first thing you want to get used to doing is making a copy of the background layer of your image. The Layers palette should open by default, but it is also found by clicking on Windows>Layers in the menu bar of Photoshop.

Select the Background Layer and click on the little triangle at the top right of the palette. When the palette options open, click Duplicate Layer, or you can use the shortcut keystroke, Command+J (Mac users) or Alt+J (PC users.)

By duplicating the background layer, you can make all types of adjustments to duplicate layers without permanently changing the bottom background layer. If you make some adjustments you don’t like, you can drag the duplicate layers (with all the adjustments and effects you made to them) to the trash at the bottom right of the layer palette.

2. Automatic Image Adjustments

When you start learning how to use Photoshop to improve your photos, you might want to try out some of the automatic adjustments that can be made, even if you don’t understand the tools themselves.

The basic image enhancement and adjustment tools in Photoshop are found under Image>Adjustments in the menu bar. In the Adjustment palette, there are various tools like Levels…, Auto Contrast, Curves, Brightness/Contrast.

To introduce you to these adjustment tools in this introductory photoshop tutorial, I’m going to suggest that you use the automatic and preset features of these tools. As you begin to understand them more, you will make use of manual adjustments.

So with your background layer duplicated and selected, click on Image>Adjustments>Auto Levels in the menu bar. When you release the mouse of the menu item, the automatic Levels adjustment should enhance or at least affect the shadow (dark), midtones, and highlights (bright) areas of your image. Often, a photo can be improved in Photoshop with just the automatic adjustments applied.

3. More About Layers

Now let’s revisit how layers work. Go back to the Layers palette and click on the little eye next the Duplicate layer that you just applied the Auto Layers adjustment to. When you toggle that little eye off, it means that you’re turning off the adjustment or effect that you made in that layer. Since the adjusted layer is on top of the background layer like a clear transparency, you can toggle the eye off and on to see how the adjustments are applied to the background layer (also remember: you can drag the duplicate layer to the trash to get rid of the adjustment(s) all together).

4. Automatic Curves

Okay, let’s return to a few other automatic adjustments and enhancements you can make to your photo. Go back to Image>Adjustments and then click on Curves. The Curves box will open. This box may look seriously scary with its grid, points, lines, and ear droppers. But don’t worry about that. We’re simply going to use some automatic adjustments to see how Curves can impact your photo.

Click on the button next to the word Preset. In the drop-down box, select Medium Contrast (RGB). If you don’t see much of a change in the contrast of your photo, go back to the Preset button and try Strong Contrast. You should be able to see the effect of the Preset on your photo before you click OK. Curves works similar to Levels but with more intensity in contrast.

Much more could be said about Curves and Levels, but this is just an introduction. You can play around with the points in the Curves box and see how they affect your photo. Remember, the changes you make are non-destructive to your photo, so you can experiment as much as you like. The illustration below explains a little about how the three main points in the grid function. If you make a mess of things, simply click Cancel and start over, or click OK when you’re satisfied with how the photo is looking.

5. Make Colors Pop

Okay, now lets move on to learn about other enhancements that can be made. One of the tools I use on nearly all the images I bring into Photoshop is one called Soft Light. Here’s how it works.

Go back to the Layers Palette, drag all the layers, except the background layer to the trash. Click on the Background layer and create another duplicate of it. Now click on the Normal button at the top of the Layers Palette. In the drop-down box, select Soft Light. When selecting this adjustment, it should make the colors of your image pop, or at least intensify the contrast of your images. The contrast of most digital images always need to be improved. This technique does that job extremely well without too much loss to detail.

If the Softlight application is too strong, select the Opacity button at the top of the Layers Palette and decrease the opacity of the layer/effect.

6. Black-And-White Conversion

One easy and popular tool you want to know about in Photoshop is how to make a black-and-white conversion of an image. There are entire books written about black-and-white or monochrome conversion using Photoshop, but I”˜m going to show you a quick, down and dirty way to do it.

Again, duplicate the background layer, and this time click on the little black/white circle at the bottom of the Layers Palette. When the drop-down box opens, select Black & White. The adjustment box will open and you should automatically get a preview of the black-and-white conversion of your image.

Again, you can play around with the settings, but the one I suggest is clicking the Tint box and then moving the Saturation slider all the way to left and then moving it back a little towards the right. When you select the Tint box, you might get a sepia effect on the image, so just desaturate the sepia effect until it looks okay to you. After you click OK, you’ll now have your black-and-white conversion.

7. Resizing & Cropping Images

Many times you’ll bring images into Photoshop and you will want to print them. Well, printing photos requires that you resize your photos to fit the size of the paper you want to print on. Say I want to print this photo on standard 8.5 by 11 paper. Well, to get the image to fit well on the photo paper, I need to change the size.

When I click on Image>Image Size in the menu bar, I can see that the original size of the photo is 15.84 by 10.5. That’s of course larger than I want. But when I try to change the numbers to 11 by 8.5, the proportional sizes don’t quite fit. So what I need to do is crop the photo for the size I need.

To do this, click on the Crop tool in the Tools Palette. It should be open by default, but you call also open it by going to Windows>Tools.

Now drag your cursor over the image. The resulting crop box should only allow you to stretch it to 11 x 8.5 inches. You can move the crop box around to get the framing and crop you want.

8. Image Border

Another tool that beginning Photoshop users might want to know is how to add a border around an image. Again there are a few ways to do this. One way is to select the top layer in the Layers palette. Next click on Image>Canvas Size. In the dialogue box that opens up, change the Width and Height to both to .2. Choose a color for your border. Make sure the center of the Anchor box is selected. Click OK and you should see a border around the image.

9. Saving For The Web

One of the biggest issues with digital images is that many people don’t know how to resize photos for emailing and web posting purposes. How many times have you clicked on an image or received one or several in an email and they were too large for good viewing? Photoshop comes with a Save for Web feature that helps you resize photos.

First off you can click on Image>Image Size in the menu bar to view and resize an open image in Photoshop. You can either change the pixel dimension or document size of the image for the size you need. For example, the average size for web posting and emailing photos is 800 x 600 pixels. This is also a good size for slide show presentations. Images should rarely be larger than 1024 x 768 pixels, because that is the typical size of largest computer monitors. If you need a particular print size, you would change the document size, making sure that the Constrain Proportions box is checked so that the image won’t get stretched on either size. You might have to use the cropping tool as explained above to get the correct size you need.

With your image resized, you’re ready to save it for web posting. Click on Save>Save for Web posting and devices. In the resulting dialogue box you want to check the number on the bottom left of the image box, which is the current resolution size of the photo. It also gives you an idea how long will take that photo to download at its current size.

On the upper left side of the window, you can select up to four views of image, each giving you a preview of the image quality at various sizes. When the resolution size is reduced, pixels are taken away, which results in a loss of detail or sharpness in an image.

You want to reduce the size of the image to say less than 100K, but maintain good image quality. In the top box on the upper right side, click the Preset button and select PNG-24 or JPEG High. PNG format typically gives you a smaller resolution size without too much loss of quality. The Quality button on the right side of the box can also be used to lower or increase the resolution size. The presets typically work fine. Just make sure you notice if the size you choose causes the image to look slightly blurry or smudgy.

After you change the resolution size, check the size again (bottom left) to see if a good size for posting. Finally, click the Save button. Photoshop will save a copy of the image where you tell it to. It will leave the original untouched.

10. PSD vs Non-PSD

Finally, when you go to save a file that you have been working on, there are two things you want to consider. You can save it in the Photoshop (PSD) format which means that you will save all the adjustments you made to the image, plus the various layers that you created when making adjustments and adding effects. This means that your file is typically going to be larger than the original size you started off with. But it also mean that you can reopen the file, and the layers and edits you made will be retained so that you can make more changes or complete the job.

Another way to save a file in Photoshop is in a non-PSD format, such as JPEG or PNG. Saving a file in one of these formats means that you’re not going to retain the layers when you save. What will be saved are all the changes you made and applied to the original photo. The layers will be gone. If you didn’t make a copy of the original photo before bringing it into Photoshop and you save it as a JPEG, you will lose that original state of the photo.

So when saving a image in Photoshop, it’s best to first save it in PSD format (even while you work on it) and then click File>Save As to save it in a non-PSD format. You can always delete the PSD file when you no longer need it.

There are many other techniques that could be explained for beginning Photoshop users, but the few included in this introductory photoshop tutorial should be enough to get you started.

Virtually every computer program there is today comes with a way for users to interact with it. If it didn’t, the program wouldn’t be of much use to anyone, would it? Most older programs offered nothing more than a rather frightening and intimidating text-based command line interface which required you to know awkward commands to be able to use it. Most of the more recent programs today, thank goodness, provide us with a graphical user interface (commonly called a GUI or “gooey”) which is a much more user-friendly and intuitive way of telling the program what it is we want it to do. Fortunately for us, Photoshop comes with all kinds of “gooey” goodness, which makes our life a whole lot easier right off the bat.

Photoshop’s interface is comprised of several items and sections. Let’s take a brief look at them below:

The Menu Bar

If you’ve been using a computer for any length of time, you’re undoubtedly familiar with the concept of a menu bar, usually located at the top of the screen. The browser you’re using to view this website has one, and with most programs, it’s where you’ll find
the standard options to open, close, save and print files, as well as various other options and commands specific to that program.

Photoshop is no different. You’ll find the Photoshop Menu Bar in its usual place up in the top left corner of the screen, and there’s more options here than you’ll probably ever use in the program. Some of the more common options though that you will use a lot are:

• the Open, Close, Save, and Print commands in the File Menu
• the Cut, Copy, Paste, and Transform commands in the Edit Menu
• the Image Size and Crop commands in the Image Menu
• Adjustment Layers found in the Layer Menu
• the Select, Deselect, Inverse Selection and Transform Selection commands in the Select Menu
• the Gaussian Blur and Unsharp Mask filters in the Filter Menu
• the Zoom In, Zoom Out, Fit On Screen and Actual Pixels commands in the View Menu
• the ability to show and hide all of Photoshop’s palettes in the Window Menu
• the Photoshop Help option in the Help Menu

The Options Bar

Photoshop’s Options Bar is located directly below the Menu Bar and it’s where you’ll find all the various options associated with the different tools in the Tools palette.

Of course, Photoshop has a lot of tools for us to work with, and if the Options Bar displayed every option for every tool all at once, it would take up the entire screen. So Adobe has taken a great approach with the Options Bar and made it dynamic and context-sensitive. What this means is that the options displayed in the Options Bar change according to which tool you have selected. If you have the Move tool selected, you’ll see various options related to the Move tool in the Options Bar. If you have the Magic Wand selected, you’ll see options for the Magic Wand displayed, and so on.

The Options Bar is also where you’ll find a button which looks like a file folder with a magnifying glass in it’s top right corner. Clicking on this button will bring up the Adobe Bridge, which is a separate application new to Photoshop CS2 that replaces the File Browser from previous versions of Photoshop, and allows you to view, organize and navigate through the various files and images you have stored on your computer.

The Tools Palette

Photoshop’s Tools palette, located by default on the left side of the screen, is where you’ll find, as the name implies, all of Photoshop’s various tools. As I mentioned in the Options Bar section, when you select one of the tools in the Tool Bar, you’ll find the options specific to that tool up in the Options Bar at the top of the screen.The Tools palette may seem at first to be a random selection of icons, but if you

look closely, you’ll see horizontal lines running through it. These lines are there to separate the tools into related groups.Also if you look closely, you’ll notice that some of the tools have tiny black arrows pointing down and away from them. These arrows indicate that there are additional related tools hidden behind them, and if you click your mouse and hold it down on one of these tools, the tools that were hidden behind them will appear. For example, the Rectangular Marquee tool in the top left of the Tools palette also has an Elliptical Marquee tool, a Single Row Marquee tool, and a Single Column marquee tool hidden behind it. Clicking and holding the mouse down on the Rectangular Marquee tool will allow these additional tools to appear.

Palettes are essentially dialog boxes on your screen which enable you to interact with Photoshop. They allow you to do things such as view important information about your image or document (the Info palette), select the color you want to use (the Color palette), step back and forth through the changes you’ve been making to your document (the History palette), or make changes to your text (the Character and Paragraph palettes), plus so much more.

The Palettes

You can view a list of all the palettes available in Photoshop by clicking on the Window Menu in the Menu Bar at the top of the screen.

The Palette Well

The Palette Well is located in the top right corner of the screen in Photoshop and is an area where you can dock various palettes that you want to have available but don’t necessarily want them cluttering up the screen. By default, Photoshop places three palettes in the Palette Well for us (the Brushes, Tool Presets and Layer Comps palettes). When a palette is docked inside the Palette Well, all that’s visible is the palette’s name tab. To view the palette, simply click on the tab and the rest of the palette will appear. To close the palette again, simply click anywhere on the screen outside of the palette.

The Document Window

Last but certainly not least in our look at Photoshop’s interface is the Document Window, which is usually the largest object on the screen and is the window that actually contains the image we’re working on. The Document Window contains a lot more than just the image though.

Photoshop and Fireworks are two of the most commonly used tools in the web designer’s arsenal. From the preparation of initial design comps to generating optimized graphics for a web page, most web designers rely heavily on these two programs.

In this introductory chapter, which has been adapted from The Photoshop Anthology, 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks and Techniques, I’ll cover some of the basic tools and tasks that we’ll draw on in the later chapters. I’ll also share some of the shortcuts and time-savers that I use frequently. This chapter won’t give you an exhaustive review of the many things that Photoshop can do (where would it end!), but it should provide the bare bones that will help get beginners started. If you’re already familiar with the interface and can perform tasks like making selections, applying gradients, and working with layers, you might want to skip ahead to the next chapter.

So what are you waiting for? Open up Photoshop and let’s go!

The Photoshop Workspace

Photoshop’s “out of the box” workspace consists of the following components:

• menu bar – You will probably already be familiar with the menu bar from other programs. This runs across the top of your Photoshop window, and contains various menu options for Photoshop’s tools.
• options bar – The options bar sits beneath the menu bar and holds contextualized options for different tools. It also contains the workspace menu, where you can save and load arrangements of palettes.
• toolbox – By default, the toolbox sits to the left of your Photoshop window, and contains shortcuts to Photoshop tools.

Comps and Turtlenecks: Designer Lingo
Now that you’re going to be working in Photoshop, you might want to start talking like a designer. Designers, like professionals in most specialist fields, have their own terminology and words for things. A comp (short for “composite”) refers to a mockup of the final solution that a designer has in mind. Traditionally, “comp” is used in the print world to refer to page layouts, but for web designers it usually refers to a static interface prepared entirely in Photoshop for the client to look over before he or she decides to proceed. You might even hear it being used as a verb: “comping” is the process of creating that mockup site.

• palettes – Individual “panes” that hold information or options for working with your file, known as palettes (or panels), float on the right-hand side. Each palette is labeled with a tab, and can be minimized, closed, grouped with other palettes, or dragged in and out of a panel dock. In the example that follows, the Navigator palette contains a thumbnail of the image that allows you to zoom in or out of the image quickly, and to change the part of the image displayed on the screen.
• document windows – Each open document has its own document window with a status bar along the bottom. The status bar sits to the right of the zoom percentage displayed in the bottom left-hand corner, and displays information that’s specific to the document.

Customizing your Workspace

You can customize your Photoshop workspace to suit you or your project — almost everything within your workspace can be repositioned and reconfigured! You might choose to customize your workspace by:

changing the look of the menu bar

You can change which menu items are visible in your menu bar, and even add color to your menu items. If you wanted, you could also assign new or different keyboard shortcuts to menu commands (which I don’t recommend until you feel very comfortable with Photoshop or have a compelling reason to do so!). Go to Edit > Menus and use the dialog box to modify the menu bar and palette menus.

moving the options bar

If you want to move the options bar, you can do so by clicking on the handle on its left side and moving it around. The options bar will “dock” to the top or bottom of the screen automatically if moved near those areas.

moving the toolbox

The toolbox is extremely portable, and can be moved to any location on your screen. Move the toolbox by clicking on the light gray area at the top of it and dragging it around. You can switch between different toolbox layouts by clicking the double arrow along the top of the toolbox.

rearranging palettes

There are many ways to rearrange your palettes. You might want to separate a palette from its palette group, and move it into another group. You can do this by dragging the palette tab out of its original group and into the new group. You may want to expand or collapse a dock, by clicking on the double arrows at the top of the dock. You might also decide to drag some of your palette tabs out of their dock, and close the rest. To display a palette that has been closed, go to Window and select the palette you want to show.

displaying different information in the document window status bar

The status bar displays the document file size by default. The file size is shown as two numbers separated by a forward slash: the first number is an approximation of the image file size with all layers merged (known as “flattening” the image), and the second number is an approximation of the total file size of the image with layers intact. If all this sounds new to you, don’t worry — we’ll be discussing layers shortly. You can set the status bar to display different information, such as the document dimension in pixels, or the version number of the file. To do this, click on the arrow icon next to the status bar, select Show and choose the information you’d like to see.

Saving your Customized Workspace

As you become more proficient with Photoshop, you may discover that you use certain sets of palettes for different types of projects, and that there are some palettes that you don’t use at all. Photoshop allows you to save and load different workspaces — different arrangements of palettes, menus, and even different keyboard shortcuts — to help you work more efficiently.

After you’ve customized your workspace to your satisfaction, select the Workspace menu in the options bar, click Save Workspace and enter a name for your workspace, such as Creating Thumbnails or My Default Workspace. You can then load your different workspaces by opening Workspace and selecting your custom workspace from the menu list.

Working in Photoshop

Now that you’ve been introduced to the Photoshop workspace and have a basic idea of where everything is, let’s start getting our hands dirty.

Creating New Documents

You can create a new document by selecting File > New from the menu bar, or pressing the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-N on a PC or Command-N on a Mac. The New dialog box will appear,where you can specify the document size and other settings.

Opening Files

Open files by selecting File > Open from the menu bar, or pressing Ctrl-O (Command-O on a Mac). You can select and open multiple files by holding down Ctrl (Command on a Mac) and clicking on all the files you require in the file dialog box.

Saving Files

Save a file by selecting File > Save, or pressing Ctrl-S (Command-S on a Mac). For a newly-created document, this will save your work in Photoshop Document (PSD) format. If you would prefer to save a copy of the document, you can use File > Save As or pressing Ctrl-Shift-S (Command-Shift-S on a Mac) instead.

Snappy Presets
If you’re designing for a web site with a minimum screen size of 800×600 pixels, I’d recommend you start with a 750×550 pixel document. The smaller dimensions give you a better estimate of your actual screen area after you take into account scroll bars and menu bars. Also, be sure to set the resolution at 72dpi to reflect the actual screen resolution. If you want easy access to these dimensions for other new documents, it’s probably a good idea to click Save Preset and give the settings a name like Web Page. The next time you create a new document, you will be able to load your Web Page settings from the Preset list.

Saving Files for the Web

Photoshop files themselves can’t be embedded into a web page. You will need to export your file and save it in a web-friendly format. There are three formats for web graphics: GIFs, JPEGs, and PNGs.

GIF

The GIF format (pronounced “jiff” or “giff” depending on which side of the tracks you grew up) can have a maximum of 256 colors. GIF files support transparency and animation, and work best with graphics that have large areas of the same color, as shown in the logo below.

JPEG

The JPEG format (pronounced “jay-peg”), works best with photographic images or images that have more than 256 colors and gradients, such as the flower on the opposite page. Images saved in JPEG format are compressed, which means that image information will actually be lost, causing the image to degrade in quality.

PNG

The PNG format (pronounced “ping”) is similar to the GIF format in that it supports transparency and works best with solid-color images like the logo shown to the right, but it’s superior to the GIF format as it has the ability to support true levels of transparency for colored areas. Transparent PNGs are currently not in widespread use on the Web because older versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer do not support them; however, they’re often used in Macromedia Flash movies. PNGs can produce a better quality image at a smaller file size than can GIFs. Photoshop allows you to save an image as a PNG-8 file (which works the same way as a GIF would with 256 colors) or a PNG-24 file (which allows for millions of colors as well as variable transparency).

Double-clicking Power
As if keyboard shortcuts weren’t quick enough, Windows users have even more ways to open and save files, such as: holding down Ctrl and double-clicking the work area to create new documents double-clicking the work area to pull up the Open dialog box to open files holding down Alt and double-clicking the work area to open existing files as new documents holding down Ctrl-Shift and double-clicking the work area to save documents holding down Shift and double-clicking the work area to access Adobe Bridge — Adobe’s “control center” and file browser The work area is the gray area behind the document windows. If your shortcuts aren’t working, check that you are clicking on an empty spot on the work area, and not in one of the document windows or Photoshop tools! Alas, Photoshop on a Mac does not have a work area, so Mac users won’t get to enjoy the goodness of double-click shortcuts.

To save for the Web in Photoshop, select File > Save for Web & Devices… or press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-S(Command-Option-Shift-S on a Mac). This will bring up the Save For Web dialog box shown overleaf, which will show you a preview of the image that will be exported, with its optimized size in the bottom left-hand corner. You can adjust the settings for the image using the options in the pane on the right. Choose whether you want to save the file as a GIF,JPEG, PNG-8, or PNG-24, and have a play with the other settings, keeping an eye on the optimized file size. Try to strike a balance between the quality and file size of the image. When you’re happy with your result, click Save and give your image a filename.

If you tried the above exercise, you’re probably quite pleased with yourself for saving an image of reasonable quality at a file size significantly smaller than the original. You managed this by altering the settings in the right-hand pane, but what do these settings actually do?

GIF/PNG-8

• colors – Adjusting this setting reduces the number of colors used in the image. This will usually make the biggest difference in the final image.
• dither amount and type (No Dither, Diffusion, Pattern, Noise) – This setting has nothing to do with being nervous or agitated (although it’s quite possible that you may have been a few moments ago!). Dither refers to a compression technique in which the pattern of dots is varied to give the illusion of a color gradient. Changing the dither will result in a more noticeable degradation for images that involve a large number of colors blended together.
• transparency – If you want transparent areas in your graphic, check this box. We’ll look more closely at transparency in Chapter 2.
• matte color – For transparent images, the matte color is used to help blend the edges of your image into the background of the web page. For non-transparent images, the matte color defines the background color of the image. Using matte color with transparent images is covered in more detail in Chapter 2.

JPEG

• quality – Changing the value in the Quality drop-down box alters the level of compression for the image. Reducing the quality may result in blurring or pixelation, but too high a setting will produce a large file that will take users too long to download. A good approach is to decrease the quality value gradually until you notice the degradation of your image becoming unacceptable. A reasonable compromise will be somewhere around this point.

Saving Files for the Web in Fireworks

You can optimize images for the Web in Fireworks using the Optimize palette, shown at right. Set the file type and options in the Optimize palette in advance, and when you’re ready to export your web image, select File > Export or press Ctrl-Shift-R (Command-Shift-R on a Mac). Fireworks will save the image based on the settings that you’ve defined.

Why Two Tools?
Considering that it’s possible to save files for the Web in Photoshop, it’s perfectly reasonable for you to wonder why you would need Fireworks. While it’s true that both programs can perform many of the same tasks, there are certain things that Fireworks can do that Photoshop can’t. Fireworks also makes web-specific tasks easier, and since it’s a smaller program that doesn’t contain the full suite of Photoshop effects, it loads more quickly than Photoshop. As you work through this book you’ll come to learn which tool is more suitable for particular tasks.

Photoshop Layers

Layers are a powerful feature of Photoshop that allow you to work on one part of an image without disturbing the rest of it. While the concept of layers may seem intimidating at first, once you get the hang of using layers you’ll wonder how you ever survived without them! The examples on the next page show how the layers in the Photoshop document to the right stack together.

The transparent parts of any layer, shown by the checkered grid, allow the layers beneath that layer to show through.

You can show and hide each layer in an image by clicking on its corresponding eye icon in the Layers palette, as shown at the bottom of the following page.

To organize your layers, you can arrange them into layer groups by going to Layer > New > Group…. Each layer group displays in the same way as any ungrouped layers on the Layers palette. A layer group is signified by a folder icon. You can collapse or expand layer groups by clicking on the triangle to the left of the folder icon, and nest layer groups within each other by dragging one folder icon into another.

Layer Shortcuts and Tasks

• Rename layers by double-clicking on the layer name.
• Change the transparency of a layer by changing its opacity with the Opacity slider, or typing a value into the Opacity box (which is visible when you have the Selection, Move, or Crop tools selected).
• Duplicate a selected layer by pressing Ctrl-J (Command-J on a Mac). You can also duplicate a layer by dragging it while pressing the Alt (Option) key.
• Select multiple layers by holding down Ctrl (Command on a Mac) and clicking the layer names. This forms a temporary link between the selected layers that allows you to move them as one unit, delete them all, and so on.
• You can also link layers together. Select layers by clicking on them while holding down Shift or Ctrl (Command on a Mac). Once you have selected all the layers you wish to link, click the Link Layers button at the bottom-left of the Layers palette (signified by the chain). Linking layers allows the link relationship to remain even after you select a different layer (unlike the process of simply selecting multiple layers).
• To unlink all the layers, select one of the linked layers and go to Layer > Unlink Layers. To unlink a single layer, select the layer you wish to remove from the link and click its corresponding link icon; the other layers will stay linked. To temporarily unlink a layer, hold down Shift and click on its link icon (a red “X” will appear over the link icon). Reactivate the link by holding down Shift and clicking the link icon again.
• Rearrange layers by dragging the layer above or below other layers. Use the “move down” shortcut Ctrl-[ (Command-[ on a Mac) and the "move up" shortcut Ctrl-] (Command-]) to move selected layers up and down. Shift-Ctrl-[ and Shift-Ctrl-] (Shift-Command-[ and Shift-Command-] on a Mac) will bring layers to the very top or the very bottom of the stack.
• Select a layer by using the keyboard shortcuts Alt-[ and Alt-] (Option-[ and Option-] on a Mac). These keystrokes let you move up and down through the layers in the Layers palette.
• Create a new layer by pressing Shift-Ctrl-N (Shift-Command-N on a Mac). This will bring up the New Layer dialog box. Want to create new layers quickly without having to deal with the dialogue box? Simply press Shift-Ctrl-Alt-N (Shift-Command-Option-N).

Merge a layer into the one beneath it by pressing Ctrl-E (Command-E). If you have selected layers, this shortcut will merge those selected layers together.

Quick Keyboard Shortcuts
Naturally, most of the tools in the toolbox have a keyboard shortcut. You can learn each tool’s shortcut by hovering your cursor over a tool for a few seconds: a tooltip box will appear, displaying the name of the tool and its shortcut. If additional tools are available in the flyout menu, you can cycle through them by pressing Shift-[keyboard shortcut]. Keyboard shortcuts can save you valuable time — pressing “V” to bring up the Move Tool is certainly a lot quicker than moving the cursor over to the toolbox to select it. It may not seem all that significant right now, but the time you take to access tools will add up over the course of a project! For your convenience, whenever I mention a tool, I’ll list its shortcut in parentheses, e.g., the Move Tool (V).

Photoshop Toolbox

You’ve probably been hanging out to get stuck into the very nifty Photoshop toolbox. In this section, I’ll introduce some of the most frequently used tools found in the toolbox. I’ll discuss some of the other tools in later chapters as we apply them to solutions.

You’ll notice that some of the tool icons have small black triangles in their bottom right-hand corners. These icons contain hidden treasures! The triangle indicates that there are more related tools available; if you click on the tool icon and hold it down, a “flyout” menu will appear,displaying the additional tools.

Secret Selections
Selections can have varying levels of transparency, known as the degree of opacity. It’s actually possible to make a selection with an opacity of 100% in one area, but only 20% in another area. If a selection contains any pixels for which the opacity is more than 50%, they will be displayed with a border of dotted lines. Photoshop won’t visibly outline areas with less than 50% opacity (though they will still be selected). Selection tools automatically select at 100% opacity. We’ll learn about creating transparent selections using Quick Masks and alpha channels later in this chapter.

Selection Tools

You can use the selection tools to select certain areas of your document for editing. If you use a selection tool, only the area that’s selected will be affected by any changes you make. You can “feather” selections (specify a fuzzy radius for them) using the Feather field in the options bar. The example at the top of the next page shows two rectangles: one created by filling in a selection with a feather of zero pixels, and one that’s created by filling in the same selection with a feather of five pixels.

Marquee tools (M) are used to create rectangular or elliptical selections, including selections that are “single row” (one pixel tall, stretching across the entire width of the document) and “single column” (one pixel wide, stretching through the entire height of the document). To make single-row or single-column selections, click with the appropriate tool on the image area where you want to select a row or column.

You can use the Lasso tools (L) to create freeform selections. The Lasso Tool comes in three different forms:

• Lasso Tool (L) – Click and drag the Lasso Tool to draw aselection area. Releasing the mouse buttonwill close the selection by joining the start and end points with a straight line.
• Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) – Click at different points to create vertices of a polygonal shape. Close the selection by moving your cursor to the beginning and clicking once, or pressing the Enter key.

No Selection Sometimes Equals All Selected
If you’ve made a selection, only the pixels within the selection are active and can be worked on. Some tools can be used without making a selection at all. However, be aware that if you have not made a specific selection, Photoshop will assume that you are working on the entire layer and any changes you make will affect all pixels in the layer.

• Magnetic Lasso Tool (L) – If you think you need help with making your selection, try the Magnetic Lasso Tool. Photoshop will attempt to make a “smart” selection by following the edges of contrast and color difference. Click once near the “edge” of an object and follow around it — Photoshop will automatically lay down a path. You can also click as you follow the line to force points to be created on the path. Close the selection by pressing the Enter key or clicking at a point near the beginning of the selection.

Magic Wand

The Magic Wand Tool (W) selects areas of similar color. You can change the tolerance (how close the color values should be to the sampled color in order to be selected) of a Magic Wand selection, and choose whether you want the selection to be contiguous (pixels that are touching) or not (in which case, matching colors across the entire document will be selected).

Selection Shortcuts and Tasks
Hold the Shift key to add another selection to the first. Hold the Alt key (Option key on a Mac) to subtract your new selection from the first. Hold Shift-Alt (Shift-Option) to select the intersection of your first and second selections. Use the arrow keys to move the selection pixel by pixel. If you feel that this doesn’t move your selection quickly enough, hold down Shift and use the arrow keys to move the selection ten pixels at a time. Press Ctrl-J (Command-J on a Mac) to copy the selection into its own layer. To cut the selection into its own layer, press Shift-Ctrl-J (Shift-Command-J). If this seems familiar to you, it’s because I mentioned earlier how to copy a layer using the same keyboard shortcut. Now that you know that not selecting anything sometimes means that everything is selected, it makes sense that simply by selecting a layer in the Layers palette, you can copy the entire layer by pressing Ctrl-J (Command-J). To deselect a selected area, click outside of it with one of the Marquee tools, or press Ctrl-D (Command-D on a Mac). To reactivate your last selection, press Shift-Ctrl-D (Shift-Command-D).

The Move Tool

The Move Tool (V) moves a selected area or an entire layer. You can invoke the Move Tool temporarily when using most other tools by holding down the Ctrl key (Command key on a Mac).

Move and Copy Shortcut
For most tools, holding Ctrl-Alt (Command-Option on a Mac) and dragging a selected area will temporarily invoke the Move Tool, allowing you to move and duplicate the selected layer quickly.

You can also duplicate a layer by holding down the Alt key (Option key on a Mac) while using the Move Tool, as shown in the image below.

The Crop Tool

The Crop Tool (C) is used to trim images. Create a selection using the Crop Tool, then double-click the center of the selection, or press Enter, to crop the image to the size of the selection.

To cancel without cropping, select another tool or press the Esc key.

Crop Outside the Box
You can use the Crop Tool to resize your canvas. Expand your document window so that it’s larger than the image area, and create a crop selection that includes the image and extends onto the gray areas “outside” the image. Applying this crop will resize your canvas to include those extended boundaries, making your canvas larger.

Drawing and Painting Tools

Apart from its extraordinary photo editing abilities, the multi-talented Photoshop also provides drawing and painting tools that allow you to create your own shapes and backgrounds.

Brush

The Brush Tool (B) is suitable for soft-edged painting or drawing. Draw strokes by clicking and dragging the mouse over the canvas. You can change the brush size and other settings in the options bar at the top of the window.

Pencil

The Pencil Tool (B) is suitable for hard-edged drawing or painting and has similar options to the Brush Tool for setting its size, opacity, and more. The Pencil Tool is often used for drawing on, and editing individual pixels in, zoomed-in images.

Eraser

The Eraser Tool (E) removes pixels from the canvas. You can choose between Pencil, Brush, or Block mode from the Mode drop-down menu in the options bar.

Aliased vs Anti-aliased
Unlike the Brush Tool, the Pencil Tool’s edges are aliased. The term aliased refers to the edges of an object being “jagged,” in contrast to an anti-aliased object, in which the edges are “smooth.” In the two examples shown here, the top shape in each example was created using the Pencil Tool, while the bottom shape was created using the Brush Tool. Notice the difference in the “jaggedness” of the edges of these curves. We’ll look more closely at anti-aliasing when we discuss the Text Tool.

Paint Bucket

The Paint Bucket Tool (G) fills a selection with a flat color. To use the Paint Bucket Tool, click once in the area that you wish to fill. If the chosen area is not within a selection, the Paint Bucket Tool will fill all similarly-colored pixels within the vicinity of the clicked area.

Gradient

The Gradient Tool (G) fills a selection with a blend of two or more colors, known as a gradient. You can easily create your own gradient, or use any of the preset gradients available in Photoshop.

Display the gradient presets and tools by clicking on the small triangle on the right-hand side of the Gradient Tool. Apply a gradient by setting your desired colors, choosing your gradient style, then clicking and dragging the cursor over the area to be filled.

I find that I use the first two gradients — the foreground-to-background gradient, and the foreground-to-transparent gradient — most often. The former will blend your foreground color into your background color, while the latter will blend your foreground color into a transparent background, giving it a “fading out” effect.

Text Tool

The Text Tool (T), true to its name, creates text layers. This one’s easy to use — just select the Text Tool, click on the canvas, and start typing! You can also click and drag to create a rectangular text area that will force text to wrap within its boundaries. You can change the font size, color, and other text properties using the options bar along the top of the window.

When the Text Tool is active, you can move the cursor outside of the text area. The cursor will change from the “text insert” cursor to the “move” cursor, and you’ll be able to move the text layer around.

It’s worth noting that when the Text Tool is active, you can’t use keyboard shortcuts to access other tools. This may seem like an obvious thing to point out now, but it won’t always be so apparent — especially when your text mysteriously starts spurting strange characters because you’ve been trying to use the shortcut keys!

To finish using the Text Tool, press Ctrl-Enter (Command-Return on a Mac). You can then resume your regular keyboard shortcutting!

Shape Tools

You can create shapes simply by clicking and dragging Photoshop’s Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, Line, and Custom Shape tools (U).

The specific options for each shape tool are displayed in the options bar, and you can access additional options by clicking on the arrow to the right of the Custom Shape button. For example, the Line Tool has options for displaying arrowheads, and for controlling the shapes and sizes of those arrowheads, as shown in the example below.

If you look at the options for each shape, you’ll notice that there are three different methods you can use to create a shape:

Your shape will be created as a solid-colored layer covered with a vector shape mask. Confused? Think of the mask as a sheet of dark paper that has a hole (your shape) cut out of it so that the color shines through the hole. To change the color,double-click on the color block in the Layers palette as shown in this example. To change the vector shape mask, use the vector editing tools.

• as a path – Your shape will be created as a path in the Paths palette, as shown in the example above (in which the path has been named Work Path).
• as filled pixels – Your shape will be created on whichever layer is currently selected. I created a new layer, then created a shape using the Fill pixels option on Layer 1 in the above example.

Selecting Colors

Set foreground and background colors by clicking on the appropriate tile and choosing a color from the Color Picker, as demonstrated in the example below.

Color Picker Shortcuts
Press X if you want to switch the foreground and background colors. Press D if you want to revert to a black foreground and white background.

Eyedropper

The Eyedropper Tool (I) lets you sample another color from your image, and set this as the foreground color. In fact, it’s actually possible to sample colors from anywhere in your display and even from other applications outside of Photoshop. Simply click inside the document window, then drag the cursor to the color you wish to sample. Click to select that color.

The Eyedropper Tool also allows you to set the background color. To do so, hold down the Alt key (Option key on a Mac) as you select colors using the eyedropper.

The Paint Brush, Pencil, Paint Bucket and any of the other painting or drawing tools can temporarily be turned into the Eyedropper Tool by holding down Alt (Option).

The Hand Tool

The Hand Tool (H) moves your canvas, which is handy (pardon the pun!) when you’re zoomed in to an image, or have a very large document open.

What’s even handier is the fact that you can invoke the Hand Tool while you’re using any other tool (except the Text Tool) by holding down the spacebar. This is a neat way to position your image exactly where you want it without having to chop and change between tools to do so.

Other Useful Tasks and Shortcuts

Zooming

Zooming right into your image is the only way to make subtle changes at the pixel level. Use Ctrl + to zoom in and Ctrl – to zoom out. You can also zoom using the slider on the Navigator palette.

Making a Selection Using the Layers Palette

To select the pixels on a particular layer, press Ctrl (Command on a Mac) and click the thumbnail of the layer. This selection will also take into account the transparency of any pixels, so painting in the selection will recreate the transparency settings of the original layer. The example at the top of the next page shows a selection I made based on one of the text layers in my sunset document.

Making a Selection Using a Quick Mask

Quick Masks are one of those closely guarded trade secrets that professional designers use all the time, but beginners often are wary of trying because they seem complicated at first. Well, they’re not!

A Quick Mask is an alternative way of making a selection. The usual way to use a Quick Mask is to go into Quick Mask Mode (Q) and, using a tool such as the Brush Tool, painting the things you don’t want to select. This is called painting a “mask,” and the resulting reverse-selection will display as the transparent red color that you can see in the example overleaf. You can edit this red layer — honing the mask shape, for instance — using the drawing and painting tools. Those alterations won’t affect your image, though: they impact only on your final selection. Switching back to Standard Mode (Q) will complete your selection.

Why would we use this technique instead of those trusty selection tools that we’ve all come to depend on so heavily? Well, Quick Masks have a couple of advantages over the standard selection tools:

1. They allow you to control the level of transparency of your selection.
2. It’s easier to color an object in, than it is to carefully draw a line around it.

Initially, it can be difficult to get your head around the fact that you aren’t painting on your image: you’re just painting the selection. But once you master that concept, you’ll feel confident to be able to make a selection quickly on any shape, no matter how difficult it seems!

Quick Mask Options
I prefer to set Quick Mask Mode so that it lets me paint in the selected areas rather than the non-selected areas, as shown in this example. To alter your settings to do the same thing, double-click on the Quick Mask Mode icon and change the Color Indicates: option to Selected Areas.

Alpha Channels and Selections

You can use alpha channels to create selections and save them for later use. If you open the Channels palette, you’ll see several channels, displayed in a similar way to layers in the Layers palette. By default, you’ll see the color channels, which represent how much of each color is represented in the document. You can click the Create New Channel icon at the bottom of the palette to create your own alpha channel.

You can then use any of Photoshop’s painting or drawing tools to create a grayscale image that will represent your selection — white areas represent selected areas, black areas represent deselected areas, and grays represent the levels of transparency in the selection.

To turn your alpha channel masterpiece into a selection, simply hold down Ctrl and click the channel’s thumbnail (hold Command and click if you’re on a Mac).

To return to the normal image view, click on the Layers palette tab, and select any layer. Your selection will still be visible.

You can also create your own alpha channels from existing selections — a capability that can be very useful! For example, let’s say you’ve created a selection of an island silhouette like the one shown in the example below. You have a feeling that you’ll be reselecting this island pretty often, but you’d rather not recreate the selection each time. No problem! Once the selection has been made, use Select > Save Selection. Name your selection (in this example, Land), and click OK.

If you go to the Channels palette, you’ll see a new selection at the bottom of the list, named Land in the following image — that’s your saved selection. Now you can reload your Land selection as many times as you need to!

The History Palette

The History palette is your key to time travel (in Photoshop, anyway). It lists the most recent steps that you’ve made, and allows you to undo your actions by rolling your image back to a previous state. You can set the number of steps that are stored in the memory by selecting Edit > Preferences > Performance (Photoshop > Preferences > Performance on a Mac) and changing the value in the History States text box.

Like most of Photoshop’s other tools, the History palette has a set of useful keyboard shortcuts for quick access:

• Ctrl-Z (Command-Z on a Mac) lets you undo and redo the previous step.
• Ctrl-Alt-Z (Command-Option-Z) steps back through the History palette.
• Shift-Alt-Z (Shift-Option-Z) steps forward through the History palette.

As only a limited number of history states are available, there may be cases in which you want to save a”snapshot” of your document so that you can revert back to it later if required. To do so, click on the small triangle on the top-right of the History palette and choose New Snapshot…. You can save a snapshot of the whole document, the current layer, or merged layers.

When Photoshop Stops Working

Woah! Photoshop stops working? That certainly doesn’t sound too promising! Before you panic, let me explain. Given the multitude of powerful features and fantastic tools it offers, it’s no wonder that, on occasion, Photoshop can exhaust itself. It may start behaving a bit erratically, and might even freeze, crash, or automatically exit during startup. If you find yourself in this situation, the first thing to do is reset the preferences file. The preferences file (which you can customize by going to Edit > Preferences on a PC, or Photoshop > Preferences on a Mac) holds Photoshop settings and can often become corrupted.

The location of the preferences file depends on the operating system and version of Photoshop you are using. For Photoshop CS3, the preferences file is named Adobe Photoshop CS3 Prefs.psp.The preference file for other versions of Photoshop will have a similar name.

Backing Up Your Preferences File
It’s a good idea to back up your preferences file by copying and pasting it into a location outside of the Photoshop settings folder. Then, if the preferences file Photoshop is using becomes corrupted, you can copy your backup back into the settings folder to replace the corrupted file, without losing any of your settings.

To reset the preferences file, locate the current preferences file, delete it (while Photoshop is closed), and restart Photoshop — it will recreate the preferences file using default settings. Creativepro.com provides a detailed tutorial that explains how to find and replace your preferences file, and includes preference filenames for different versions of Photoshop.

If Photoshop continues to act up, restart it while holding down the Shift-Ctrl-Alt keys (Shift-Command-Option on a Mac), and click OK when asked if you wish to delete the Photoshop settings file. Unfortunately, this will also delete your custom actions, tools, and other settings, but the good news is that it should fix your Photoshop problems.

Summary

This chapter provided an overview of the Photoshop and Fireworks interfaces and common tools, and also explained a few basic tasks such as creating new documents and saving files for the Web. You also took a quick tour of handy keyboard shortcuts and other time-saving tips. Even if you haven’t used Photoshop before, you now have the tools that you’ll need to work with the examples we’ll discuss throughout the rest of this book.