Hello, welcome to this new tutorial dedicated to Adobe Photoshop, one of
the best products you can use to correct and manipulate photos and work
with vector drawings!
In this video we are going to see Adobe Photoshop CC, which is part of the
Creative Cloud subscription for both Windows and MacOS.
When you open Photoshop its Home Screen shows up with the list of your most
recent projects made. On the left click on Open to browse for another or go
to New file to create a new Photoshop document. In this case choose the
proper document properties by selecting the category on top and the
specific template you need.
On the right set document name, its width and height, its orientation,
color code and default color to use for the background. As you click on
Create the new document opens on the main interface. This shows a big
preview on the center, the Tools bar on the left, the Options bar on the top -
with all the objects and tools options - and several panels on the right we
are going to see. In case any panel is missing you can reopen it from the
Window tab. To come back to the Home Screen page click on the Home button
in the top left corner!
To open any image go to File, Open... and browse for it. This gets opened
as an independent Photoshop document under a new tab.
To understand how to use Photoshop it is important to know what is a
Photoshop document. This is a project file made by several objects that,
put together, realize what you see on the preview. These objects are called
layers, listed under the Layers panel on the right, and can be images,
vector drawings and adjustments.
A new document shows a single layer called Background completely white in
color. The same is present when you open an image, with the difference that
this layer represents the entire photo. These background layers are locked
by default. You can unlock these by
double-clicking on these.
To resize the document you can enable the Crop tool and use the nodes to
scale the grid and drag from outside to rotate it. You can also click and
drag the grid to move it, leaving outside what you want to cut. To crop
with specific resolutions you can type width and height in pixels on the
Options bar above. Click on Cancel or Commit to undo the crop or apply it.
Any checkerboard area you see on the preview represents area without
pixels, so complete transparency.
Let's see how to edit images. These are pixel layers, such as objects
rendered in pixels that can be edited and corrected with the brushing tools
on the left. Just select the interested layer, enable the brushing tool and
click and drag on the preview.
and right-click on the tool to show others related.
If you do not find any tool right-click
on the three-dots and go to Edit Toolbar to show the tool you are
looking for.
To check better the preview you can zoom in and out with your mouse wheel
while holding down the ALT (or the Option) key. Use the Spacebar key to pan
around instead.
Now let's see the main brushing tools. Enable the Brush or the Pencil tool
to brush freehand, selecting the right color from the Color panel on the
right. You can also pick any color from the screen if you hold the ALT (or
the Option) key. Remember to use CTRL (or CMD) and Z to undo or open the
History to undo several actions all at once.
From the Option bar above adjust the brush direction, size, hardness or
select any ready preset at the bottom.
Enable the Clone Stamp and the Healing Brush tools to correct photo
imperfections. Fix the reference point by clicking on the image while
holding down the ALT (or the Option) key. When you brush on the image the
tool pastes the pixels under the reference (cross) that follows your
cursor.
Clone Stamp pastes the same pixels; the Healing Brush drops pixels by
taking into account the original colors of the image.
Switch to Spot Healing Brush to correct smaller imperfections by clicking
once on the preview.
With the Blur and the Sharpen tools you can increase or reduce blurriness
by brushing on the image. Whereas use the Smudge tool to drag pixels as you
brush.
Enable the Dodge and the Burn tools to increase or decrease the brightness
level for the different sections of the image you can select on top, such
as Highlights, Midtones or Shadows. Switch to Sponge to adjust the color
intensity, reducing it with Desaturate mode and increasing it with Saturate
mode.
With the Eraser tool you can remove pixels from the image, as you can see
from the checkerboard area.
To apply advanced corrections on the entire image you can go to Filter,
Camera Raw Filter and select between load of corrections to apply.
Also go to Neural Filters... to apply outstanding photo manipulations. We
won't see these in this beginner tutorial.
With Photoshop you can also work with vector layers to make drawings,
geometrical shapes and text annotations. In respect to images, these are
defined by math algorithms instead of pixels, so they never lose quality
when modified.
On the left enable any Shape tool to drop straight lines and geometrical
shapes by clicking and dragging on the preview. From the Option bar adjust
line thickness, line style, fill color and stroke color; from the
Properties panel on the right adjust size, position and inclination as
needed.
Enable the Custom Shape tool to drop any ready-made shapes selected from the
Option bar above.
To drop text you can enable the Horizontal or the Vertical Type tool and
click and drag on the preview to drop a text box and type inside,
horizontally or vertically. If you are not able to see the entire text
make sure to enlarge its box enough.
From the Option bar adjust font family, style, size, distribution and
color.
You can also open the Character panel to set text leading, tracking,
baseline and much more. If you do not see any change select any piece of
the text first. Use Cancel or Commit to undo or apply text.
The brushing tools seen before do not work on vectors unless you transform
these into pixel layers. To do so click on OK on the dialog box or right-
click on the vector and go to Rasterize... Pay attention that this action
is permanent so you may not be able to edit vectors like before anymore.
On the right you can use the Layers panel to manage each single object
inside your document. Hide or show any layer with the eye button; prevent
any modification with the lock button and delete the selected layer with
the bin button at the bottom.
Move any layer up or down to change the order of visibility in case the
selected layer is overlapped. You can also right-click on any layer and go
to Blending Options to apply nice effects, including stroke contours,
shadows, glow and color overlays.
To apply basic modifications on the selected layer go to Edit, Transform.
This allows you to move, scale, rotate and skew the object from the
preview.
Use Commit above to apply.
To make precise corrections you may use the Adjustments panel on the right.
You can correct brightness, contrast, color and much more by creating an
adjustment layer, affecting all the pixel and vector layers below it in the
Layers list. This object is composed by the adjustment properties on the
left and the layer mask on the right.
If you double-click on the properties you can tune the corrections while
checking the preview. If you double-click on the right you manage the layer
mask, which is the white area that shows where the adjustment is applied,
by default on the entire document. To apply adjustments on limited regions,
you need to use the selection tools.
With the selection tools you can select specific regions of the document in
order to act only within such dashed contour. For example any brushing tool
will be effective only within such region. If you apply any adjustment
layer, this is applied only on such region, as it is shown on the layer
mask as well.
You can also cut, copy and paste the selected region with CTRL (or CMD) and
X, C, V. You can use this cut-paste operation to paste multiple images
within the same document, each treated as an independent layer.
There are several selection tools available. Use the Marquee tools to
select wide regions following a rectangular or an elliptical shape by
clicking and dragging on the preview. Choose the Lasso tools to select
regions freehand, polygonal or with some help with magnetic.
With the Objects Selection tool you can click on the preview to
automatically select entire shapes from the layer; whereas with Quick
Selection you can select by brushing on the preview. Use the Type Mask Tool
to select by following any piece of text you type!
Remember that all these selections are always referred to the selected
layer from the right! To remove any selection, use CTRL (or CMD) and D.
To save your Photoshop document go to File and then to Save As. Select
whether to save it online on Adobe Cloud as PSDC or in your computer
offline as a PSD file format.
When your document is ready and you want to render and export it go to File,
Save a Copy. Select between loads of different formats, including PDF
document, JPG image and also PNG if you want to save transparency.
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