Dear all, welcome to this new tutorial on Photopea, an outstanding free
alternative to Adobe Photoshop to edit PSD files, manipulate your images
and realize quick vector drawings. This runs in a web browser across any
device - from laptops to tablets and smartphones - and works offline as
well.
Catch the Photopea link from the video description below.
The main interface opens, with the possibility to log in for free by
going to Account.
To start working you can create a new PSD document with New Project, browse
for any PSD document from Photoshop or any image with Open From Computer or
go to Templates to pick any template ready to use.
You can also drag and drop any file to start editing it and open other
files in parallel with File, Open... Each file gets its own tab above with
its file name and in PSD file format.
The interface and features are very similar to Photoshop. On the left you
get the toolbar with all the tools you can use to edit your image. Some of
these show a white corner, on which you can click and hold to expand the
group of tools collected inside.
On top you get the Menu bar and the Option bar, showing the options for the
tool enabled from the left. On the right you have several useful panels
that can be closed by right-clicking on them. To reopen these go to the
Window tab and select the panel you need.
The central workspace is made of a large preview on the selected document.
You can hold down the ALT key and use your mouse wheel to zoom in and out
and hold the Spacebar key to pan around.
To resize the document enable the Crop Tool and edit the grid. Drag its
nodes to resize it and drag from outside to rotate it. You can also click
and drag to define the cropped region directly and move the grid by
dragging it. To set the aspect ratio or the width and height use the
options on top. Then click on Apply or Cancel to apply or undo the crop.
Now, let's move on to image editing. Bitmap files are made of pixels, which
may lose quality when resized or scaled down.
From the toolbar enable any brushing tool and click and drag to edit the
image. From the Option bar set the brush size, its hardness and other brush
options we are going to see.
Enable the Healing Brush or the Clone Tool to make wide corrections on
the image content. First of all, hold down the ALT key and click anywhere
to take a specific point as reference. When you release the key and click
to brush, such reference point is taken, pasting the pixels falling under
the cross.
The Clone Tool takes the exact pixels from the reference whereas the
Healing Brush applies the brush by taking into account the original
brightness and colors of the image.
To undo, make sure to use CTRL (or CMD) and Z. You can also open the
History panel to move across your actions in order.
For smaller imperfections you can use the Spot Healing Brush, which takes
as reference the pixels near your brush.
Enable the Blur Tool to add blurriness; the Sharpen Tool to remove it and
the Smudge Tool to drag pixels. Whereas use the Dodge Tool to increase
brightness and the Burn Tool to reduce it, select the light range on top
and the exposure level.
Select the Sponge Tool to increase or decrease the color level according to
the Mode selected from the top.
With Photopea you can also draw freehand! Enable the Brush or the Pencil
tool and click and drag to draw, selecting the color from the left side.
From the Option bar above you can set brush size, hardness, style, opacity
and flow as well as other options from the Brush panel on the right.
All of these brushes permanently affect the image pixels and are shown as a
single layer called Background on the right. You can create a New Layer
at the bottom so that you can select it and brush on it. This way you keep
your brushes in an independent layer, saving the original image pixels.
To drop a gradient, enable the Gradient Tool and select its type on top.
With the Eraser Tool you can delete pixels by brushing over any image or
drawing, based on the layer selected. If there are no pixels in any region
checkerboard areas appear representing complete transparency.
With Photopea you can also make vector drawings, such as objects and
brushes that are defined by algorithms instead of pixels, so they do not
lose quality when modified or resized.
With any Shape Tool you can click and drag on the preview to drop a vector
shape under a new independent layer. You can set its fill color, stroke
color, width and style and other options with the Properties panel on the
right.
Use the Pen Tool to make custom vector drawings. Click to fix cusp nodes
and click and drag to drop curves until you close the shape. Adjust fill
and stroke above and, with the same tool, click on any node to remove it
and hold down the CTRL (or CMD) key to select and move any node or any
curve handles. You can also double-click on any node to turn it into a
smooth node.
You can also transform any image into a vectorized object. Select the image
and go to Image, Vectorize bitmap, setting the options above and applying
with OK. The image will be decomposed in several path layers, one per
each color in common.
To add text enable any Text Tool, fix a text box by clicking and dragging
on the preview and type in. If text is not fully visible make sure to
enlarge such box.
Select any piece of text and adjust font family, style, size, font color,
stroke color and background color. Additional options are available in the
Character and Paragraph panel.
Note that not all brush tools work on vectors. Right-click on a vector
layer and select Rasterize to convert it into a bitmap object for editing
but remember that this action is permanent.
The Layers panel on the right displays all the objects inside your
document, separating images from vectors. Use the eye button to show or
hide any layer and the lock button to prevent modifications to it.
You can change the order of visibility of layers overlapping by selecting a
layer and adjusting its position.
The Move Tool allows you to select and move layers from the preview. You
can also hold down the Shift key to select multiple layers and move them
together. You can also use Edit, Transform to scale, rotate, and distort
selected layers.
Photopea offers various selection tools that enable you to select part of
the current layer under a dashed contour. This feature is useful for
limiting brushing tool or for cutting and pasting the selection into a new
independent layer using CTRL (or CMD) and X, V.
You can select a rectangular, elliptical or freehand lasso region.
Alternatively, you can use Quick Selection to define
selected regions based on colors in common. Use CTRL
(or CMD) and D to deselect.
Selection tools can also be used to cut images from other documents and
paste them as new layers. You can also import stock images from the Gallery
panel.
To add visual effects to overlapping objects, select any layer and go to
Layer Style, Blending Options at the bottom. These options include bevel,
textures, strokes, shadows, glows, color overlays and more.
Photopea includes several adjustments to apply color corrections to your
images. Go to Window, Adjustments to show all the possible corrections you
can apply, including brightness, contrast, color curves, saturation and
so on. When you click on any adjustment you create a new layer that applies
the correction according to the properties set from the Properties panel.
This correction is made by the adjustment layer on the left and the layer
mask on the right. This layer mask sets where the correction is applied,
by default on the entire document.
To apply it to a specific area select the region and then create the
adjustment layer. The layer mask shows the affected area in white color.
You can also select the layer mask and use the Brush Tool with white color
to extend it and the black one to remove it.
To save or export your document, select it and go to File. You can choose
Save as PSD to save it as a PSD file on your local computer or use Save
More and select PSD to Storage to save it online on PeaDrive, DropBox,
OneDrive, or Google Drive.
You can also use Export as to render your document as an image with a .JPG
format or a .PNG to save transparency or extract your vector drawings as a
.SVG file. If you want to print your document, go to Print...
Remember to save or export your work because closing the browser tab
without doing so will result in losing all your modifications.
Thank you very much for watching this tutorial! Make sure to visit our
YouTube channel and our website to learn more about photo editing and
manipulation!