Thursday, November 12, 2009

Becoming Acquainted With Photoshop

By David Peters

Photoshop is the market leading computer program used to create and manipulate images and photographs. Photoshop contains a variety of tools to create images such as logos, banners, and buttons from scratch. You can also download photos, scanned artwork, or Internet icons to Photoshop and edit them to suit your needs. If you are a beginner to graphic creation or photo editing the incredible breadth of Photoshop?s functions can be daunting; however, after spending a bit of time reading the instruction manual, even the beginner should be able to take advantage of Photoshop?s many features. You can also find video tutorials which can guide you through any part of Photoshop you with to go.

There are four main components that will appear on your screen when you open Photoshop. These will be the main tools you use to create and edit images. These tools are:- Menu Bar, Drawing Canvas, Toolbox & Palettes.

We'll start with the most familiar item first. The Menu Bar looks like the menu bar in most other applications. Each menu item is almost self explanatory; for example, if you want to do anything with the "file" you are working on you will find it under "File." If you want to manipulate anything on the screen you should find it under "Edit" or "Tools." Basically, you can save, get a new screen, copy, and paste; all the functions with which you are already familiar.

The Drawing Canvas is the next part of Photoshop that you want to become familiar with. The drawing canvas is the large white area in the middle of the screen where you can create or edit your images. Here you can also limit or specify the size of your image and you will want to set the size of your drawing canvas to match your projects requirements. The drawing canvas title bar will tell you the name of your image once you have saved it, as well as the magnification level at which you are viewing your screen and what workspace mode you are in. You can have an unlimited number of drawing canvases open at one time and to set them to all different sizes.

The Toolbox is your main arsenal for creating and editing images in Photoshop. The toolbox holds twenty different tools that allow you to draw and modify images on your drawing canvas. You can draw lines, fill in colors, erase images, select parts of an image, and so much more. For every function you select in your toolbox, Photoshop changes the shape of your pointer in hopes of helping you to remember what tool you have selected.

The final main component of Photoshop is the Palettes. By default, five palettes will come up on your screen when you open Photoshop. These palettes are: information, brushes, layers, command, and color. More are available in a drop down menu on the menu bar. The palettes are what give Photoshop its versatility. Each palette modifies the properties of the tools in the toolbox. For example, the brushes palette allows you to change the thickness of line your brush draws. There are a lot features in each palette. As you are familiarizing yourself with this function, make sure to check out all the tabs and fly-out menu options.

Once you are comfortable with the basic layout of Photoshop you should get to know all the tools in your toolbox. The best way to do this is open a new drawing canvas select each tool and begin to play and see what each one does. If you have the instruction manual in front of you you will be able to read about each of the tools properties and what exactly it does. Once you have become comfortable with the basics of the program you can begin to work on the more advanced features.

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