PSTools

This is a tutorial to show you what each part of the interface of Photoshop does! This tutorial is to introduce you to the basics of photoshop! This is the first step to mastering photoshop! ( I am currently using a Mac OS skin for my Windows XP so dont get comfused! If you have any questions feel free to ask on the forums!)

Part 1

The first section of this tutorial is about the tool bar. This is the Photoshop Toolbar...

Selction Tool

Starting with the Selection tool. If you make a right click another menu will show up looking like this...

This is pretty easy to understand just make a selection by dragging your curser and u can do an arangement of things!But next to the selection tool is the Move tool. This allows you to move a slection or layer.

Lasso Tool

On the next row is the Lasso tool! This is a free selection tool. You can use it like a pen but instead of writing it makes a selection and if you right click it this menu comes up...

it gives you the choice of Lasso Tool - Free hand selection, or Polygonal Lasso Tool - Allows you to make a selection by linking your clicks to make straight lines, or Magnetic Lasso Tool- just drag this tool along the outside of what you want to cutout and it will attract to the difference in the picture.

Magic Wand

This tool is the Magic Wand all you need to do to use this is to click on the area you want to select. This does not always work the way you want because the object must be pretty distinct from the background. You can also adjust the tolerance of the selectio at the top!

Crop Tool

The crop tool is used by making a selection and you can double click and it will take whatever you selected and make the image to the size.

Slice Tool

With the slice tool you are able to make slices resize them and select them. I find it easiest to do this in imageready!

Healing Tool

The healing tool is great to fix small imperfections in pictures. I will go into this in more detail in another tutorial.

Pen And Pencil

These tools are used to draw. You can select different brushes for the paintbrush to change the effect of the brush. Also while using these tools you can hold down SHIFT to draw a strait line.

Clone Tool

This tool is used to clone a section by pushing ALT and clicking in the area you want to clone then move the brush somewhere else and click and it will recreate the area.

History Brush

The History Brush is used to undo an edit to the older photo. If you replace the photo you can use the history brush to bring back the original photo.

Eraser Tool

This tool is a very easy to uinderstand tool! This is used to duh! Erase! It has two other options then just the regular eraser! There is also the Magic Eraser - Used to erase a sertain area in one shot, or the Background Eraser - Used to erase to eraset he background!

Fill Tool

This tool is used to fill the layer with the foreground color. If you right click it a menu comes up like this...

You can then select the Gradient tool to have a fill of one or a few colors fading through each other!

Smudge, Blur, Sharpen Tools

These tools are pretty self explanitory but will be used often!

Dodge, Burn, Sponge Tools

These tools are pretty self explanitory but will be used often also! The Dodge tool lightens the image, the burn tool darkens it, and the Sponge tool takes out the color!

Path Selection Tool

This tool is used to select points on a path! And the Direct Selection tool is to edit the points!

Type Tool

This is a very common tool it is used to create type! It also allows you to make a type mask which is basicly a selection in the form of the text.

Path Tools

These tools are used to make paths to make either vector shapes or they can be turned into selections. When you right click you will see this...

Each tool helps you in a different way to make a path for a vector image.

Shape Tools

This tool is used to make shapes. The standard choices are these...

Pretty self explanitory. But you can also download custom vector shapes from websites i will also update with custom shapes for you guys!

Note Tool

This tool is used to leave notes or audio notations on the file. These can come in handy for future editing!

Eyedropper Tool

This tool is used to select a color by puting it over anything and it will imitate the color!

Hand Tool

This is used to move the field of view around!

Zoom Tool

Used to move increase or decrease the field of view!

Foreground And Background

This is used for slecting your foreground and background colors.

Photoshop Editing Modes

This allows you to switch between the standard editing window and the masking windo.

Screen Tool

Used to switch between Normal window, Full screen with menu bar, and fullscreen.

Photoshop To Imageready

Used to switch the image over to imageready for slicing, or animating.