Dear all, welcome to this tutorial dedicated to Adobe Photoshop! In just 13 minutes you will see everything you need to know to start using it, even if you are a complete beginner! Photoshop is one of the most professional and complete software to correct and manipulate photos, combine images together or draw vectors from scratch. You can get it for both Windows and MacOS with any Creative Cloud subscription plan. When you open Photoshop its Home Screen page opens.
Here you can pick any existing project you have, browse for any photo with Open on the left or start with a new Photoshop document with New file. On top choose the category and then the standard template to use. You can also customize it under Preset Details by changing width, height, orientation, resolution and color code to use. As you click on Create the new document opens on the main workspace, showing a big preview on the center; the Tools bar on the left – with all the main Photoshop tools; the Menu and the Options bar on top – to adjust the object or the tool properties and several panels on the right, collecting useful adjustments and corrections.
If you miss any panel you can reopen it from the Window tab.
Whereas if you need to come back to the Home Screen page make sure to click on the Home button in the top left corner. Let’s first understand what a Photoshop document is. This is indeed a project file made by independent images, vector graphics or visual corrections called layers, all listed under the Layers panel on the right. These, edited and put together, realize the final appearance of your document that you export and share.
When creating a new document this is completely white in color with a single layer called Background.
When opening photos these are also Photoshop documents, with a proper tab on top and an own Background layer, representing the photo itself. These layers are locked by default and shown in italic style. You can double-click on these to unlock and start editing these as you need. Moreover you can enable the Crop tool to adjust the size of the Photoshop document through its grid. Use the nodes to scale, drag the grid to move it and click from outside to rotate.
If you see checkerboard areas these simply represent blank areas completely transparent without any pixel inside. To undo or apply the grid click on Cancel or Commit above. Now let’s see how to deal with images. These are called pixel layers, such as objects whose appearance is rendered by tiny pixels that you can edit with several brushing tools on the left.
All you have to do is to select such layer from the list, enable the right tool and brush on the preview by clicking and dragging on it.
You can hover over any tool to get more tips and right-click on these to show the complete list of tools when they show a white corner. While editing any layer make sure to zoom in and out with your mouse wheel while holding down the ALT (or the Option) key and pan around with the Space bar key. Enable the Brush or the Pencil tool to draw freehand. Pick the right color from either the Color panel on the right or any part of your screen while holding down the ALT (or the Option) key.
From the Options bar set the brush direction, size, hardness and its kind between loads of presets available.
Remember to use CTRL (or CMD) and Z to undo any action made. You can also open the History panel to check and go backwards with your actions. With Clone Stamp and Healing Brush you can correct your photo imperfections professionally. First of all hold down the ALT (or the Option) key to fix the reference point and then brush on the image to correct it. The tool drops the same pixels of your image by following the reference point (shown as a cross) that moves with your cursor.
The Clone Stamp drops the exact pixels; whereas the Healing Brush drops the same pixels by matching the colors of the brushed point.
You can also use the Spot Healing Brush to correct smaller imperfections with a single click. With the Blur and the Sharpen tools you can decrease or increase the blurriness level by brushing on the image. Whereas switch to the Smudge tool to drag pixels towards any specific direction. Enable the Dodge and the Burn tool to increase or decrease the brightness level of the image Highlights, Midtones or Shadows.
With the Sponge tool adjust the color intensity, choosing between Saturate and Desaturate Mode. Moreover you can use the Eraser tool to erase pixels from the image. Besides these tools you can also go to Filter, Camera Raw Filter to apply advanced photo adjustments on the whole image, including basic color correction, color curves, noise reduction, HSL, color grading and perspective.
Check this out! Whereas go to Filter, Neural Filters.
.. to make outstanding photo manipulations such as Landscape Mixer or Colorize to add colors to black and white images. If you can’t add these filters make sure to sign in with your Adobe account and download these features first. With Photoshop you can also draw vectorized layers, such as geometrical shapes, freehand curves and pieces of text.
In respect with images these are defined by math algorithms, so they do not lose quality when you resize or edit these. For this reason vectors remain the best kind of layer to realize drawings from scratch.
With the Shape tools you can drop regular shapes and straight lines by clicking and dragging on the preview. You can adjust size, inclination, fill and stroke color and also line thickness and style from either the Options bar on top or the Properties panel. You can also use the Custom Shape Tool to drop ready-made shapes, including trees, animals, boats and flowers.
To drop pieces of text enable the Type Tools, selecting between an horizontal or a vertical orientation. At this point click and drag to define a text box and then type inside, enlarging the box if the text content does not show up entirely. Adjust font family, style, size, distribution and color from the Options bar or the most complete Character panel. Just make sure to select any text or these new changes are not applied. Then use Cancel or Commit above to undo or drop the piece of text.
On all these vector layers you cannot apply the brushing tools as seen for the images. You must render these into pixel layers first by either answering to the dialog box or right-clicking on the interested layer and going to Rasterize Layer. Only after this conversion you can apply the brushing tools, but pay attention that this action is permanent. With the Layers panel you can manage all the layers within your document. Click on the eye button to hide and show each layer and use the lock buttons above to block specific modifications from the current layer.
Whereas click on the bin button at the bottom to delete the selected layer. You can also drag any layer up or down to change its position in the list and adjust the order of visibility if multiple layers overlap. In addition you can right-click on any layer and go to Blending Options to apply great effects including contours, shadow, glow or color overlays. Check it out! Whereas go to Edit, Transform to move, scale, rotate and skew the selected layer, applying all with Commit above.
With Photoshop you can also make selections, such as dashed regions that delimit limited portions from your entire document. These are very useful to apply brushes and corrections just within such area and allow you to select parts of layers to copy-and-paste within the same or in another document, for example if you want to combine multiple photos together. There are several selection tools available. With the Marquee tools you define rectangular or elliptical shapes by clicking and dragging on the preview; whereas enable the Lasso tools to make complex selections completely freehand, polygonal or magnetic to follow color borders. Use the Quick Selection tool to select wide areas that share the same colors or switch to the newest Object Selection tool to select quickly and fast any defined shape from the rest of the background.
There are also the Type Mask tools to type some text whose contour is used to build the selection area around it. Remember that you can remove all selections present with CTRL (or CMD) and D.
With the Adjustments panel on the right you can apply other corrections on colors, exposure, appearance and much more. When you click on any you create an adjustment layer that affects all the layers below it, including all vector layers, without the need to rasterize them. You can double-click on the left side to show the Properties panel and tune its options and double-click on the right to check the layer mask applied.
By default these adjustments are applied on the whole document, with a layer mask completely white. If you create these layers while having any selected region, you apply the corrections just within it, as you can see from the layer mask associated. To save your Photoshop document go to File and then to Save As…
You can save it online with Adobe Cloud as a PSDC file format or save it in your computer as a PSD format available offline. Whereas to render and export your document as an image you have to go to File, Save as Copy.
You can export as a PDF document, as a JPG image or as a PNG image if you want to save transparency as well. Thank you very much for watching this tutorial! Make sure to check out our channel for more amazing professional guides completely free!
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