Hello, welcome to this video! Let's get a quick overview on all the basic
features you need to know to start using Adobe Photoshop CC 2020!
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Photoshop CC is a great digital imaging product with loads of professional
features to realize anything: photo corrections, image manipulation and
also vector graphic design for visual illustrations and artistic drawings.
This software is available only under a subscription plan.
When opening Photoshop its Home Screen page opens with useful tips, your
most recent documents at the bottom and several sections on the left.
You can go to Lightroom photos or to the new Cloud documents section to retrieve
your files from your Lightroom collections or your dedicated Cloud.
To see how to use Photoshop, let's start with a new project (or Photoshop
document) by going to Create new. You can use Open to start from an
existing document instead.
On the New Document window set all the document properties by either taking
any ready template from the sections above or using a custom one you
define on Preset Details on the right side. Here set the document name,
its size with Width and Height, its Orientation, its Resolution and Color
Mode.
When you go to Create, the new document opens on the main interface of
Photoshop. On the center you have the main Preview, where you can use
your mouse wheel with the ALT key to zoom in and out and the Space key
to pan around.
On the left side you get the Tools bar with all the brushing tools
available inside Photoshop; on top the Menu and the Options bar,
collecting all the properties for the current object or tool selected and
including the Home button to come back to the Home Screen Page.
On the right you have several panels with professional features to manage
corrections and visibility. In case any of these is missing, you can
recover it by using the Window tab.
You can use File, Open to browse for other documents or images to open on
Photoshop, under several tabs above with their own name. You can click
on these to open the document on the main interface.
Each tab above represents an independent Photoshop document where each
document is made by several objects called layers which can be images,
vectors, text and adjustments all listed inside the Layers window. These
are the objects that you edit to realize your final work.
At first, new documents created have just a single layer with a flat
background, whereas photos opened are indeed Photoshop documents made by
the photo itself. In case these layers are in italic, you can unlock
modifications on these by double-clicking.
Let's start working on the new document by adding any photo on it. Once
any photo is open on Photoshop, you can enable the Rectangular Marquee
Tool and click and drag on the photo to select it all. Then, go to Edit,
Cut and then open the interested document to go to Edit and Paste on it.
The photo will be added as a new layer under the Layers window.
In case the document must be resized, just enable the Crop Tool and edit
the grid appearing on the preview, clicking and dragging to move it, using
its nodes to scale and dragging outside it to rotate. As you extend the
document over its original size, checkerboard zones appear indicating where
full transparency is applied. Use Cancel or Commit above to undo or apply
the Crop.
Photos and backgrounds imported on Photoshop are also called pixel layers,
being their quality and colors already defined and rendered in pixels. You
can modify any by selecting it from the Layers window and then using any
of the brushing tools from the Tools bar on the left, clicking and holding
on while brushing on the preview.
Some of these tools may show white corners. In this case you can
right-click to see the full list of tools grouped inside.
When you enable any tool, the Options bar above shows all the properties
for it, such as brush size, hardness, style and also opacity to add
transparency. These changes apply on the next brushes you make.
Use the Brush and the Pencil Tools to brush freehand on the picture,
dropping any color chosen from the Color panel on the right or from the
preview directly by holding down the ALT key.
The Healing Brush and the Clone Stamp Tools make advanced corrections on
the image by repeating its same pixels taken as reference. Hold down the
ALT key to pick any reference point to start from and then brush on the
image, pasting the pixels that fall within the reference, shown as a small
cross. This way the Clone Stamp applies an exact copy of such pixels;
whereas the Healing Brush drops these by keeping the original highlights
and lowlights levels on the brushed part.
You can also use Spot Healing Brush to correct small imperfections without
specifying any reference.
Enable the Blur and the Sharpen Tool to increase or decrease the blurriness
level of the image. Whereas use the Smudge Tool to spread its pixels by
clicking and dragging on these.
The Dodge and the Burn Tools increase and decrease the exposure level
instead, according to the Range chosen on the Options bar. Use the Sponge
Tool to adjust the color intensity, using either Saturate or Desaturate
Mode.
In case you make mistakes you can undo your latest action with CTRL (or
CMD) and Z. You can also use the History window to undo and redo multiple
actions made. Whereas use the Eraser tool to delete pixels from the image
or remove degrees of opacity from these.
With Photoshop you can also create graphic shapes and pieces of text.
These are vector layers that do not lose any resolution when resized and
edited, until you render these into pixel layers.
Use any of the Shape tools to drop geometrical shapes and lines by
clicking and dragging on the preview. From the Options bar adjust their
filling color, their stroke and their line thickness and style.
Whereas enable the Horizontal and the Vertical Type Tools to drop text
spreading horizontally or vertically. Click and drag to define a text box,
which delimits where text can spread. Then type inside, adjusting the text
properties, size and color from either the Options bar above or the
Character window for the complete list of text properties. Make sure to
select text in order to make these changes effective and use Cancel or
Commit above to undo or apply.
All the brushing tools seen for pictures can't be applied on these vector
layers, unless you render these into pixel layers. To do so, just
right-click on the interested layer and go to Rasterize layer. This action
can't be undone.
To adjust the basic properties of any pixel or vector layer just select it
from the Layers window and go to Edit, Transform. This way you can move,
scale, skew and rotate the object on the preview. You can also use the
Options bar above to insert precise values on positioning with X and Y or
size with Width (W) and Height (H), saving the aspect ratio with the link
button. Remember to apply your modifications by going to Commit.
From the Layers window you can also use the eye button to hide or show any
layer and any of the lock buttons above to block modifications from the
actual layer, from brushing tools to any editing. You can also click and
slide any layer through the list to arrange the visibility order in case
several layers overlap on the preview. To delete layers, use the bin button
at the bottom.
You can also right-click on any layer and go to Blending Options... to
apply transparency, glow, effects and color overlays.
Selection tools are used to select limited regions from the current layer
in order to apply brushes and corrections just on these or also cut, copy
and paste these as independent layers.
Use the Marquee Tools to make rectangular or elliptical selections and the
Lasso Tools to make complex selections freehand, polygonal or magnetic by
following the color variations on the preview. Whereas use the Quick
Selection Tool to select wider portions by brushing on the layer. In this
case the selected region extends until it meets strong color borders.
You can also enable the Vertical and the Horizontal Type Mask Tools to
create selected regions with the same shape of the typed text.
To remove any selected region, just use CTRL (or CMD) and D.
Inside Photoshop you also have special layers called Adjustment layers,
which apply several corrections such as brightness, contrast and color
saturation on all the pixel and vector layers placed below it.
From the Adjustments palette click on any correction to create the related
Adjustment layer with its properties on the left, that you can open by
double-clicking on it and its Layer Mask on the right, showing the regions
interested by corrections in white color. By default this is all white,
unless you create the Adjustment layer with any selected region active.
To save and export, open the interested Photoshop document and go to File,
Save As. At this point choose whether to save your document as a cloud
document online to reopen and re-edit it, or save on your computer in the
standard way, setting name, destination folder and file format such as
.psd for Photoshop documents or .jpg or .png to render the document into a
picture.
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