Lab 1 : Introduction to Adobe Photoshop

The Adobe Photoshop work area includes the command menus at the top of your screen and a
variety of tools and palettes for editing and adding elements to your image. You can also add
commands and filters to the menus by installing third-party software known as plug-in modules .

Photoshop works with bitmapped, digitized images (that is, continuous-tone images that have
been converted into a series of small squares, or picture elements, called pixels). You can also
work with vector graphics, which are drawings made of smooth lines that retain their crispness
when scaled. You can create original artwork in Photoshop, or you can import images into the
program from many sources, such as:

• Photographs from a digital camera.

• Commercial CDs of digital images.
• Scans of photographs, transparencies, negatives, graphics, or other documents.
• Captured video images.
• Artwork created in drawing programs.

1. Choose Start > All Programs > Adobe Photoshop CC.

2. The Photoshop work area appears as shown in the following illustration.

A. Menu bar B. Tool options bar C. Toolbox D.Floating palettes E. Work area

The default work area in Photoshop consists of a menu bar at the top of the screen, a tool
options bar below the menu bar, a floating toolbox on the left, floating palettes (also called
panels), and one or more image windows, which are opened separately.
3. Choose File > Open, and navigate to the folder that you copied the files to your hard drive

4. Select the Lab1A_start.psd file and click Open.

The Lab1A_start.psd file opens in its own window, called the image window .

Using the Tools

Photoshop provides an integrated set of tools for producing sophisticated graphics for print,
Web, and mobile viewing. Every lesson will introduce you to more tools and ways to use them.
By the time you finish all the lessons, you'll have a solid foundation for further explorations of
the Photoshop tool set.

Selecting and Using a Tool from the Toolbox

The toolbox—the long, narrow palette on the far left side of the work area—contains selection
tools, painting and editing tools, foreground- and background-color selection boxes, and viewing
tools. Let's start by using the Zoom tool.

1. Notice the toolbar that appears to the left of the image window as a single column. Click the
double-arrow button just above the toolbox to toggle to a double-column view. Click the
arrow again to return to a single-column toolbox and use your screen space more efficiently.

2. Examine the status bar at the bottom of the image window and notice the percentage listed
 on the far left end. This represents the current enlargement view of the image, or zoom level.

A. Zoom level B. Status bar

3. Move the pointer over the toolbox and hover it over the magnifying-glass icon until a tooltip
appears, identifying the tool by name and providing its keyboard shortcut.

4. Select the Zoom tool by either clicking the Zoom tool button ( ) in the toolbox or by
pressing Z, the keyboard shortcut for the Zoom tool.

5. Move the pointer over the image window. Notice that it now looks like a tiny magnifying
glass with a plus sign (+) in the center of the glass.

6. Click anywhere in the image window.

The image enlarges to a preset percentage level, which replaces the previous value in the
status bar. The location you clicked when you used the Zoom tool becomes the center of the
enlarged view. If you click again, the zoom advances to the next preset level, up to a
maximum of 3200% on Windows and 1600% on the Macintosh.

7. Hold down the Alt key (Windows) or Option key (Mac OS) so that the Zoom tool pointer
appears with a minus sign (–) in the center of the magnifying glass, and then click anywhere
in the image. Then release the Alt or Option key.
 Now the view zooms out to a lower preset magnification. Examine the photograph and the
coins in the center.

Note

You can zoom out other ways. For example, you can select the Zoom In ( ) or Zoom Out
( ) mode on the Zoom tool options bar. You can choose View > Zoom In or View > Zoom
Out. Or, you can type a lower percentage in the status bar and press Enter or Return.
8. Using the Zoom tool, drag a rectangle to enclose the area of the image that includes the
French coin that you will spotlight.

The image enlarges so that the area you enclosed in your rectangle now fills the entire image
window.

You have now tried three ways of using the Zoom tool to change the magnification in the
image window: clicking, holding down a keyboard modifier while clicking, and dragging to
define a magnification area. Many of the other tools in the toolbox can be used with
keyboard combinations. You'll have opportunities to use these techniques in various lessons
in this book.

Selecting and Using a Hidden Tool

Photoshop has many tools you can use to edit image files, but you will probably work with only
a few of them at a time. The toolbox arranges some of the tools in groups, with only one tool
shown for each group. The other tools in the group are hidden behind that tool.

A small triangle in the lower right corner of a button is your clue that other tools are available
but hidden under that tool.
1. Position the pointer over second tool from the top in the toolbox column until the tooltip
appears, identifying it as the Rectangular Marquee tool ( ) with the keyboard shortcut M.
Then select that tool.

2. Select the Elliptical Marquee tool ( ), which is hidden behind the Rectangular Marquee
tool, using one of the following methods:

• Press and hold the mouse button over the Rectangular Marquee tool to open the pop-
up list of hidden tools, and select the Elliptical Marquee tool.

• Alt-click the tool button in the toolbox to cycle through the hidden marquee tools
until the Elliptical Marquee tool is selected.
• Press Shift+M, which switches between the Rectangular and Elliptical Marquee tool.

3. Move the pointer over the image window so that it appears as cross hairs ( ) and move it to
the upper left side of the French coin.

4. Drag the pointer down and to the right to draw an ellipse around the coin and then release
the mouse button.
An animated dashed line indicates that the area inside it is selected. When you select an area,
it becomes the only editable area of the image. The area outside the selection is protected.

5. Move the pointer inside your elliptical selection so that the pointer appears as an arrow with
a small rectangle ( ).
6. Drag the selection so that it is accurately centered over the French coin.

When you drag the selection, only the selection border moves, not pixels in the image. When you
want to move the pixels in the image, you'll need to use a different technique, which you'll learn a
little later.
7. While the coin is selected, click Image > Adjustments > Color Balance. Adjust all three
sliders to right or left direction and see the coin color changes.

Using the Tool Options Bar and Other Palettes

You've already had some experience with the tool options bar. In the previous project, you saw
that there are options in the tool options bar for the Zoom tool that change the view of the current
image window. Now you will learn more about setting tool properties in the tool options bar, as
well as using palettes and palette menus.

Setting Tool Properties in the Tool Options Bar

Open Lab1B_start.psd file. You're ready to select the characteristics for the text and then to type
your message.

1. In the toolbox, select the Horizontal Type tool ( ).

The buttons and menu in the tool options bar now relate to the Type tool.

2. In the tool options bar, select a font you like from the first pop-up menu. (We used
 Garamond, but you can use another font if you prefer.)

3. Specify 38 pt as the font size.

You can specify 38 points by typing directly in the font-size text box and pressing Enter or
Return, or by scrubbing the font-size menu label. You can also choose a standard font size
from the font-size pop-up menu.

4. Click once anywhere on the left side of the image and type Monday is Beach Cleanup Day

The text appears with the font and font-size formatting that you selected.

5. In the toolbox, select the Move tool ( ) at the top of the column on the right.

6. Position the Move tool pointer over the text you typed and drag the text into the misty white
rectangle near the bottom of the image, centering the text inside it.
Using Palettes and Palette Menus

The text color in your image is the same as the Foreground Color swatch in the toolbox, which is
black by default. The text in the end-file example was a dark blue that coordinates nicely with
the rest of the image. You'll color the text by selecting it and then choosing another color.

1. In the toolbox, select the Horizontal Type tool ( ).

2. Drag the Horizontal Type tool across the text to select all the words.

3. In the Color palette group, click the Swatches tab to bring that palette forward.
4. Select any swatch. The color you select appears in three places: as the Foreground Color in
the toolbox, in the text color swatch in the tool options bar, and in the text you typed in the
image window. (Select any other tool in the toolbox to deselect the text so that you can see
the color applied to it.)

Note

When you move the pointer over the swatches, it temporarily changes into an eyedropper.
Set the tip of the eyedropper on the swatch you want, and click to select it.

That's how easy it is to select a color, although there are other methods in Photoshop.
However, you'll use a specific color for this project, and it's easier to find it if you change the
Swatches palette display.

5. Select the Hand tool ( ) to deselect the text. Then click the Default Foreground And
Background Colors button ( ) in the toolbox to make Black the foreground color.

Resetting the default colors does not change the color of the text, because the text is no
longer selected.

6. Save and Close the file.

Undoing Actions in Photoshop

In a perfect world, you'd never make a mistake. You'd never click the wrong item. You'd always
perfectly anticipate how specific actions would bring your design ideas to life exactly as you
imagined them. In a perfect world, you'd never have to backtrack.

For the real world, Photoshop gives you the power to step back and undo actions so that you can
try other options. Our next project provides you with an opportunity to experiment freely,
knowing that you can reverse the process.

This project also introduces you to layering, which is one of the fundamental and most powerful
features in Photoshop. Photoshop features many kinds of layers, some of which contain images,
text, or solid colors, and others that simply interact with layers below them.

Undoing a Single Action

Even beginning computer users quickly learn to use and appreciate the familiar Undo command.
As we will do each time we start a new project, we'll begin by looking at the final result.

1. Open Lab1C_start.psd.

2. In the Layers palette select the Tie Designs layer.

Notice the listings in the Layers palette. The Tie Designs layer is a clipping mask. A clipping
mask works somewhat like a selection in that it restricts the area of the image that can be
altered. With the clipping mask in place, you can paint a design over the man's tie without
worrying about any stray brush strokes disturbing the rest of the image. The Tie Designs
layer is selected, because it's the layer you'll be editing now.

3. In the toolbox, select the Brush tool ( ), or press B to select it by its keyboard shortcut.

4. In the Brush tool options bar click the brush size to reveal the Brushes palette. Scroll down
the list of brushes and select the Soft Round 65-pixel brush. (The name will appear as a
tooltip if you hover the pointer over a brush.)
 If you want to try a different brush, that's OK, but select a brush that's reasonably close to 65
pixels preferably between 45 and 75 pixels.

5. Move the pointer over the image so that it appears as a circle with the diameter you selected
in Step 5. Then draw a stripe anywhere in the orange tie. You don't have to worry about
staying within the lines, because the brush won't paint anything outside the tie clipping
mask.

Oops! Your stripe may be very nice, but the design calls for dots, so you'll need to remove
the painted stripe.

7. Choose Edit > Undo Brush Tool, or press Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Command+Z (Mac OS) to
undo the Brush tool action.

The tie is again a solid orange color, with no stripe.

Undoing Multiple Actions

The Undo command reverses only one step. This is a practicality because Photoshop files can be
very large, and maintaining multiple Undo steps can tie up a lot of memory, which tends to
degrade performance. However, you can still step back through multiple actions using the
History palette.

1. Using the same Brush tool settings, click once over the (unstriped) orange tie to create a soft
dot.

2. Click several more times in different areas on the tie to create a pattern of dots.

3.
Click the History palette icon ( ) alongside the palette dock on the right side of the
window. This expands the palette so that you can see its contents. Then drag a corner of the
History palette to resize it so that you can see more steps.

You can also expand the History palette by clicking the

minimize/maximize button on the palette title bar. This resizes the palette
so that all the current history states are in view.

The History palette records the recent actions you've performed in the image. The current
state is selected, at the bottom of the list.

4. Click one of the earlier actions in the History palette, and examine the changes this causes in
the image window: Several previous actions are undone.
5. In the image window, create a new dot on the tie with the Brush tool.

Notice that the History palette has removed the dimmed actions that had been listed after the
selected history state and has added a new one.

6. Choose Edit > Undo Brush Tool or press Ctrl+Z (Windows) to undo the dot you created in
Step 5.

Now the History palette restores the earlier listing of dimmed actions.

7. Select the state at the bottom of the History palette list.

The image is restored to the condition it was in when you finished Step 2 of this exercise.

By default, the Photoshop History palette retains only the last 20 actions.
Exercice 1 :

Open Lab1B_start.psd file. Using the Horizontal Type tool ( ), type your name and matric
number at the top-right corner of the image. In the tool options bar, select a font and color
you like but the font size must be 36pt.