Adobe Photoshop 2021 For Beginners&pros 9798478910853

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ADOBE PHOTOSHOP 2021 FOR BEGINNERS & PROS

Tech Demystified

Copyright © 2021 Tech Demystified All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. ISBN:

9798478910853

CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION TO ADOBE PHOTOSHOP WHAT IS ADOBE PHOTOSHOP? WHAT’S NEW IN ADOBE PHOTOSHOP 2021? HOW TO DOWNLOAD ADOBE PHOTOSHOP HOW TO INSTALL ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CHAPTER TWO GETTING FAMILIAR WITH THE HOME SCREEN LAUNCHING INTO PHOTO EDITOR ANATOMY OF PHOTOSHOP MAIN INTERFACE ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOLBOX CHOOSING EITHER SINGLE OR DOUBLE COLUMN TOOLBAR MOVING AND SELECTION TOOLS CROP AND SLICE TOOLS MEASUREMENT TOOLS RETOUCHING AND PAINTING TOOLS HIDDEN TOOLBAR’S TOOL DRAWING AND TYPING TOOLS NAVIGATION TOOLS UNDERSTANDING MENUS APPEARANCE OPENING AND SAVING IMAGE WITH PURPOSE OPENING FILE FROM ADOBE BRIDGE IMPORTING AND PASTING IMAGES CONVERTING SMART OBJECTS TO STANDARD PIXELS THE SAVE COMMAND AND SAVE AS COMMAND SAVING FILES IN DIFFERENT FILE FORMATS SAVING FILES IN PSD FORMAT SAVING FILES IN GIF FORMAT SAVING FILES IN JPEG FORMAT SAVING FILES IN PNG FORMAT SAVING FILES IN TIFF FORMAT SETTING PREFERENCES FOR SAVING FILES SAVING FILES FOR THE WEB COMPRESSING FILE FORMATS SHARING A PHOTO PHOTO SHARING PROVIDERS TOOLTIPS THE HISTORY PANEL REVERTING TO A PREVIOUS STATE OF AN IMAGE REVERTING TO THE LAST SAVED DELETING AND CLEARING STATES FROM THE HISTORY PANEL EXAMINING THE IMAGE WINDOW CONTEXTUAL MENU THE TOOLBOX IN THE QUICK MODE TOOLBOX IN THE EXPERT MODE TOOLS IN THE VIEW GROUP OF THE EXPERT MODE TOOLBOX TOOLS IN THE SELECT GROUP OF THE EXPERT MODE TOOLBOX TOOLS IN THE ENHANCE GROUP OF THE EXPERT MODE TOOLBOX TOOLS IN THE DRAW GROUP OF THE EXPERT MODE TOOLBOX TOOLS IN THE MODIFY GROUP OF THE EXPERT MODE TOOLBOX FINDING YOUR BEARING IN THE GUIDED MODE CHAPTER THREE WORKING WITH LAYERS GETTING TO KNOW LAYERS TYPES OF LAYERS STUDYING YOUR PATH AROUND THE LAYER PANEL AND SELECTING MENUS CONVERTING BACKGROUND TO A LAYER CREATING A NEW LAYER FROM THE SCRATCH POWER OF PHOTOSHOP COMPOSITION TRANSFORMING LAYER USING LAYER VIA COPY AND LAYER VIA CUT ADDING LAYER MASK INTRODUCING ADJUSTMENT LAYER ADJUSTING THE COLOR OF AN IMAGE ADJUSTMENT LAYER COMBINATION WORKING WITH PIXELS UNDERSTANDING RESOLUTION HOW TO CHANGE IMAGE RESOLUTION CHOOSING A RESOLUTION FOR PRINT OR ONSCREEN UNDERSTANDING IMAGE DIMENSIONS RESAMPLING HOW TO RESAMPLE AN IMAGE GETTING FAMILIAR WITH COLOR THE RGB COLOR MODE THE CMYK COLOR MODE

COLOR SETTINGS THE WORKING SPACE THE RGB WORKING SPACE CHOOSING A COLOR WORKSPACE COLOR ADJUSTMENT CALIBRATING YOUR MONITOR HOW TO CALIBRATE A MONITOR CHAPTER FOUR WORKING WITH TYPE TOOL UNDERSTANDING TYPE BASIC MAKING USE OF THE TYPE TOOL FORMAT CHARACTER PANEL CREATING PARAGRAPH TYPE USING THE TEXT ON SHAPE TOOL MASKING WITH TYPE STYLIZING AND WARPING TYPE WARPING YOUR TEXT WARPING AN IMAGE From the options that pop up, select any choice style. CHAPTER FIVE MAKING AND MODIFYING SELECTION DEFINING SELECTION CREATING RECTANGULAR AND ELLIPTICAL SELECTIONS GETTING STRAIGHT WITH THE POLYGONAL LASSO TOOL MODIFY YOUR SELECTION WORKING WIZARDLY WITH THE MAGIC WAND ELIMINATING WITH THE ERASER TOOLS THE ERASER TOOL BACKGROUND ERASER TOOL MAGIC ERASER TOOL REFINING THE EDGE OF A SELECTION CHAPTER SIX KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS CHAPTER SEVEN CORRECTING CONTRAST, COLOR, AND CLARITY USING BRIGHTNESS AND ADJUSTMENT COLORIZING A PHOTO OPENING CLOSED EYES CHAPTER EIGHT DRAWING AND PAINTING SPLASHING ON COLOR WITH THE PAINT BUCKET WORKING WITH MULTICOLOR GRADIENT WORKING WITH COLOR PICKER DRAWING MULTIPLE SHAPES PENCIL TOOL CHAPTER NINE SIMPLE MAKEOVER CROPPING, RESIZING, AND STRAIGHTENING IMAGES CROPPING AWAY WITH THE CROP TOOL RESIZING AN IMAGE EDITING IN QUICK MODE FIXING SMALL IMPERFECTIONS WITH TOOL RETOUCHING WITH THE HEALING BRUSH TOOL QUICK MODE AUTO MODE AUTO SMART TONE AUTO COLOR CORRECTION AUTO HAZE REMOVAL CLONING WITH THE CLONE STAMP TOOL ZEROING IN ON THE SPOT HEALING BRUSH TOOL REPOSITIONING WITH THE CONTENT-AWARE MOVE TOOL LIGHTENING AND DARKENING WITH DODGE AND BURN TOOLS SMUDGING AWAY ROUGH SPOT SOFTENING WITH THE BLUR TOOL THE SHARPEN TOOL THE SPONGE TOOL REPLACING A COLOR WITH ANOTHER CHAPTER TEN PLAYING WITH FILTERS, EFFECTS, STYLES, AND MORE HAVING FUN WITH FILTERS APPLYING FILTERS WORKING IN THE FILTER GALLERY FADING A FILTER MIXING UP WITH BLENDING MODE APPLYING BLENDING MODE TO A FILTER USING PHOTOMERGE CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE CAMERA RAW EDITOR HOW TO OPEN FILES IN THE CAMERA RAW INTERFACE GETTING FAMILIAR WITH THE CAMERA RAW EDITOR THE EDIT PANEL THE BOTTOM BUTTONS CHAPTER TWELVE INDISPENSABLE TIPS AND TRICKS CONCLUSION INDEX

PREFACE Welcome to Adobe Photoshop 2021 user guide, you must have probably heard of Adobe Photoshop, if not, it is an imaging and graphic design software for designing photos, creating 3D artwork, and editing videos. It doesn’t matter if you have experience in graphic design or not. Adobe Photoshop is for both business and personal uses. This user guide has been packaged to develop the prerequisites skills and knowledge that you need to exploit and make the best out of Adobe Photoshop; it is for all categories of users beginning with those who do not know anything about Photoshop as it starts from the basic level, which is the foundational level for the new beginner and stretched to the intermediate level as it introduces several new tools, adjustments and editing methodology, and workflow options. This user guide will take you through the beginner level of the primary adobe design applications with rigorous indepth research in such a way that logically explains them by establishing a path that will blur the previous orientation of the user in respect to the buttons and gadgets that may seem confusing; this guide will help to make operating buttons and gadgets easier via the step-by-step process provided. Adobe Photoshop has constant interface alteration, which might make the new buttons and gadgets seem different a little bit for a previous user; no qualms, this is a messiah user guide as every puzzle has been broken down to the simplest form for both beginners and intermediate users. In the course of going through this user guide, you will get to know how to add a bitmap image, shadow, and effects to your various images. Above all, you will be equipped with the understanding of how to become a professional digital artist. Without vain repetition, let’s dive into Adobe Photoshop 2021 proper for a full understanding of the leverages you can gain from it.

INTRODUCTION Adobe Photoshop came into being by the joint works of two art brothers, John and Thomas in 1987 to be precise; they invented Adobe Photoshop to take technology to the next level in respect of making images more attractive by creating additional effects to it, which is what they inherited from their father. Their initial intention was to name Photoshop Image pro, but the name has already been taken by another producer. The major reason behind this innovation is to take images and photos to another level by creating additional effects, thereby making the image worthwhile and lively, which is why it is called “Raster Graphic Editors’’. It has been a powerful tool used in creating and editing images and it can be saved in various formats, making a transparent image in the below layers of the image, adding several models of color, such as lap color, and lots more. The first version of Adobe Photoshop that was released is Photoshop 0.63 in 1988, but it was not released to the public, it was released to test its effectiveness by its creator; after that, there was first initial release to the public on February 19, 1990, as Photoshop 1.0, which is only for Macintosh. Another Photoshop released is an improvement over the previous release, though I can’t mention all the Adobe Photoshop versions released, I will mention the significant ones, which will prompt me to mention a notable release in November 1992, which is Adobe Photoshop 2.1, which was the first version of the application software that captured the operating system of both Mac and the Window. Another remarkable version was also released in November 1996, which is Photoshop 4.0, which brought two distinguished features “Action and Adjustment layers”. The action layer was a useful feature that allows a designer to make more than one command and effects to a single action, while the Adjustment layer allows the designer to attach an effect to a group of layers, which in return will save a significant amount of time while working with Photoshop and are still present in all the versions released afterward. As I have said earlier, every new release has one or more improvements over the previous. In a nutshell, another latest version has been released which is Adobe photoshop 2021, which comes with a lot of amazing features that are capable of making more powerful and lively editing, fully in support of Camera models, lenses fix the bug issues, and lots more. To discover the new ways to unlock the Adobe Photoshop 2021 version, stick to this carefully packed user guide for a way out of the Adobe Photoshop puzzle.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION TO ADOBE PHOTOSHOP WHAT IS ADOBE PHOTOSHOP?

Adobe Photoshop is a software that is extensively used for photo editing, animating, computing digital art, and creating graphics; it was developed by the company, Adobe. Adobe Photoshop is a standard application in the industry for creatives as it is versatile to create complex graphics. It has a wide variety of professional tools and image editing features, which makes it easier and realistic for artists to bring their ideas to life and also for image editors to have a better experience editing images. It is specifically designed to allow users to create and edit raster images in multiple layers; it allows the creation of multiple layers that can be edited solely.

WHAT’S NEW IN ADOBE PHOTOSHOP 2021? Adobe Photoshop has several new features, such as: Improved neural filters: you can use the colorize tool to easily make gray images colored, as well as the depth blur tool to blur backgrounds. Improved detection of certain AMD cards, which allows recognition of more AMD cards Save a copy option, which allows you to save a copy of your work with a different file name or format Ability to adjust the warp tool Refine hair tool Reset Transform, located in the layers panel, which enables you to reset a smart object Smart portrait, which enables you to change a person’s expression, defects, and more in a photo Sky replacement, located under the edit option, which enables you to instantly change the sky in your image Triangle tool under live shapes. Pattern preview, which enables you to see what a pattern will look like as you create it

HOW TO DOWNLOAD ADOBE PHOTOSHOP To download Adobe Photoshop, follow these steps: Go to any browser of your choice Go to the Creative Cloud Website (creativecloud.adobe.com) Click on Download

If prompted, sign in to your account if you already have an account with Adobe; if not, click on the Create an account option and follow the on-screen instructions. For Windows users, there might be a prompt to save the downloaded file, and for mac users, there might be a prompt to allow the download to take place.

HOW TO INSTALL ADOBE PHOTOSHOP To install Adobe Photoshop, there is a need to know what the requirements to install and run it are; the required Windows type to run this app is Windows 10 with 64-bit only; Windows 7 and 8 are not supported, a minimum of

4GB hard disk space is also required, with additional space for installation. Also, 8GB RAM is required to be able to successfully install it on your PC. For mac users, 8GB RAM is required on macOS 10.14, a minimum of 4GB hard disk space is also required, with additional space for installation. For both Windows and Mac users, an internet connection and registration with Adobe are basic requirements for software activation. After your system meets these requirements, you can proceed with the installation process. To install it, do the following: Go to the location where your file was downloaded Double-click on the downloaded file If you have an existing Adobe ID, enter your email address and password; tick the box if you want to stay signed in as shown below, then click on Sign In to sign in

If you don’t have an Adobe ID, click on Get an Adobe ID and fill in the required information to proceed

On the next page after signing in, click on continue A page will appear with installation options- language and location; select your preferred language and location, then click on continue

NOTE: the installation process can fail and you will get a notification as shown below

Once you see this, it means your system doesn’t meet up with the system requirement for installing the application, and the way out is to upgrade your system to meet the minimum requirement.

CHAPTER TWO GETTING FAMILIAR WITH THE HOME SCREEN The Adobe Photoshop home screen offers users Adobe creative cloud series of apps that are more than recently opened files. You can as well browse and sort those files and display them in thumbnail or list form. On the home screen, you have access to Adobe’s online web tutorial, starting from basic videos on getting started with layers and cutting out images, to the advanced stage. Also, this is where you can make a creation for your new document. Let’s quickly dive into the details of the home screen. As you open Photoshop, without going directly to the workspace, you will be presented with an Adobe Home screen. The major part of its’ space is the recent files being arranged either in ascending or descending order.

Menu items are located at the top left of your screen; the home option is there by default, and when you click on the Learn button

it will display pages of available tutorials, out of which you can select to take a tutorial.

Lightroom Photos: After clicking on learn, follow the options, it will display a page of lightroom images that are stored online. You may want to use any of it, select it for import and it will be downloaded and opened in Photoshop.

The PS Icon located at the top left corner is the link to the Photoshop workspace; simply click on it to open; note that it will open without an image because you have not started any work on it, however, you may click on the home button to return to the home screen.

LAUNCHING INTO PHOTO EDITOR The first process of getting started with Photoshop is to start by creating a new document or open a file. To create a new document, follow the steps below: Click on “Create New” to create a new project or document, scroll to the right, up and down to select your desired template.

After the template selection, on the right side, adjust the properties of your document, the document name, width, height, orientation, resolution, color mode, and then click on create.

For the color mode, choose the RGB color. This stands for Red, Green, and Blue. These are the colors that best suit Photoshop. For the photo dimension, I recommend 880 pixels wide/450 pixels tall, while for the resolution 72 pixels/inch is good.

Once you are done filling the document properties, click on Create

The new document will open in the workspace, which is completely blank and white. It is called Canvas, which is full of a pixel that you can change.

You can use your mouse wheel to increase or reduce the size of the project work by dragging the mouse in and out as shown below.

ANATOMY OF PHOTOSHOP MAIN INTERFACE There is an amazing in-built interface within your Photoshop. Immediately you launch into Adobe Photoshop, you will notice the menu bar at the top side of the program and at the left side, you will see a sidebar in which the main tools are being arranged. Lastly, on the right side, there is a layer tool and color tool for any adjustment you may wish to make. The main screen is a composition of dark slate grey area, slightly lighter Menu, sharp white option menu, and lots of designs that make Photoshop background look fantastic and as well makes its image and photo look exceptional. Let’s look deeper into what Adobe Photoshop entails. MENU BAR This is one of the basic elements of Adobe Photoshop that contains other items/tools, such as File, Edit, Layers, and others, which can be used to access some editing tools, open and close various Windows, filter images, open and save files, and lots more. It is located at the top of the interface. I will briefly discuss the submenus below The File Menu: this is the first menu in the bar. Like the File menu in other programs, it contains the options to open a recent file, save a document, open and close a document, open a new document, and also print a document. In the File menu, you can also turn a static image into a motion image, called GIF. ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢

The New option in the File menu is used to create a new Photoshop file. When you click on it, it displays a dialog box containing different options where you can set how you want your document to look. The Open option is used to open any file you want to view, either video or pictures. The Open recent option is used to quickly locate a file you recently worked on. The Close option is used to close the currently opened document The Close All option is used to close all the documents you have opened The Save option is used to save your document; once you click on it, it brings out a list of formats where you can choose the format you want to save your document with.

The Edit Menu: In the Edit menu, there are options to copy, cut, paste, undo and redo an action, warp, flip or rotate an image, find keyboard shortcuts; you can as well adjust the color settings and lots more

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The Undo option is used to cancel a recent action/command on your document. To use this option, just highlight the image by clicking in Ctrl+A, then go to edit and click on Undo; the previously effected action on the picture will be reversed. The Step Forward option is used to return/redo a recently removed effect of two or more commands at once. The Step Backward option is used to remove the effects of recently used two or more commands at a time. The Fade tool is only active to be used to lower the opacity of an effect after using any tool, filter, or adjustment. The Paste command is used to drop an image that you cut or copied in the desired location. The Cut command is used to remove an image from the canvas to the system memory or any other desired location. It is used with another command called the Paste command; it causes the image to reflect only in the destination you pasted it. The Copy command is related to the cut command, but it duplicates the image in the desired location. The Paste command is also used here, which makes the image available on the canvas and also in the location you pasted it.

The Image Menu: The Image menu consist of tools that can be used to change how an image looks, such as adjustments, mode, crop, image size, auto contrast, and a lot more. The mode option enables you to change the canvas color; the adjustment option enables you to alter the image brightness, exposure, contrast, and more. The crop option is used for resizing the canvas manually.

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With the Mode option, you can change the color mode of the current document. Under the Adjustments command, you can edit the color of the image, contrast, brightness, and more. The Auto Tone option, when clicked on, scans the image and changes its overall color, thereby, giving it a better look. The Auto Contrast option is used to adjust the contrast between light and dark areas

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in an image. The Image size option enables you to change the size of your image The Canvas size option is used to change the size of the canvas, provided there is a need for more space in your document. The Image Rotation command is used to rotate the image; from the presets, you can choose the direction and degree to which you want to rotate your image. The Crop option allows you to select a particular area in your image, mostly the area you need, while it deletes everything that is unselected.

The Layer Menu: With the options in the Layer menu, you can choose a layer style, create a new layer, duplicate already existing layers, delete layers, link layers, hide layers, lock layers, arrange layers, and a lot more.

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The New option is used to create a new layer. The Duplicate layer option allows you to make a copy of the current layer you’re working on The Delete option is used to delete a layer you probably don’t need. The Layer Properties option enables you to rename a layer, organize it, and assign a color to it. The Layer Mask option is used to show, hide, delete, and apply a layer mask. The Smart Objects option contains tools used to edit smart objects, duplicate them and work more with them.

The Select Menu: This menu is used to select, reselect, and deselect everything in an image; it is used for Quick Mask mode and more.

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The All command is used to select everything on the current layer. The Deselect option is used to undo a previous selection action, that is, if you select an area by mistake, this command is what will help to reverse your action. The Reselect option is used to select again a mistakenly deselected area The Inverse option is used to indirectly select an area you need by selecting an area you don’t need; for example, if you have a baby in a neutral background, and you want to select the baby, it is easier to select the background and click on Inverse; it will automatically select the baby The All Layers option is used to select all the layers in an image to avoid picking one after the other. The Deselect Layers option is used to remove all the layers in your document.

The Filter Menu: entailed in this are several tools that can be used to bring various effects on your image, such as blur, sharpen, artistic, and lots more. It also has a filter gallery where you can preview the built-in filters like the sketch, texture, and others.

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Convert for Smart Filters: this command is used to convert a layer to a Smart Object Filter Gallery: with this tool, you can preview how various filters will affect your image. Liquify: this helps you to move pixels in different ways Artistic: using this tool makes your image look like a drawing or painting. Distort: this creates effects like ripple, zigzag, and twirl. Sharpen: use this command to make a blurry image clearer.

The 3D Menu: the 3D menu contains tools that can be used to modify 3D files as you desire

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The New Shape from Layer option allows you to wrap a 2D image around a 3D shape. The New Mesh from Grayscale: this command is used to change black and white images into surface maps for 3D objects. With the Render Settings option, you can adjust how the surface of your 3D object looks like. The Ground Plane Shadow Catcher option allows you to easily generate a realistic shadow cast on the ground beneath 3D objects. The Snap Object to Ground Plane option helps you to align a shadow to your 3D object. With the Auto-Hide Layers for Performance command, you can automatically hide layers you’re not working with to avoid slow running of the application

The View Menu: this menu has several options where you can choose what you want to see, and what you don’t want to see on the interface; for example, you can enable or disable the ruler. It also contains tools to view your images in different ways, such as the zoom tool.

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The Zoom In command enables you to increase the magnification level of your image The Zoom Out command is used to reduce the magnification level of your image Clicking on the Fit on Screen command, your image is resized to fill your screen With the Actual Pixels option, you can view your image at its actual size. Print size: this command shows how big or small your image will be when it’s printed out Ruler: this option enables you to show or hide the rulers that appear on your document edges.

The Window Menu: this menu contains tools that can be used to view or hide panels, arrange open documents to avoid clustering, and more.

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Arrange: under this command, you can open and close panels, minimize Windows, organize your document, and set a magnification level across all your documents Animation: this option, after being selected displays the animation timeline and editing panel. The Brush option allows you to edit built-in brushes and the ones you created. Channels: this command shows different color channels contained in the document The Character command is where you can locate all forms of settings to work with text With the Color command, you can view and change the foreground and background colors.

The Help Menu: this is the last menu in the menu bar; in this menu, you can see the version of Photoshop you’re running, get online help, access the support center, and more.

A. Tool Options Bar: This is the bar that shows the available option attached to every tool selected. For instance, if you pick a brush tool, there will be options, such as size, softness, and a lot more under it. B. Document Window: Each document you open will have a separate bar that shows its identity, such as document name, current scaling, and color space in use.

C. Toolbar or Palette: This is located on the left side of the interface. This is the place where the main editing tools are located; once you click on an individual tool, it will show a separate function you can do with it.

D. Document Details: This shows you the compressed and real size of your document. E. Active Image: This represents the interface of a large area to work on your image with a darker background color. F. Rulers: This is used to measure the exact position of your image; you can drag guidelines from here for text and layer line up. G. Search and Share: a link to search for any content, amend the workspace arrangement, and share your image on social media. H. Palettes: There are various interchangeable palettes that you can select from the Window menu. I. Layer Palette: This is an area of the current image layer you are working on. The layer at the top of the stack will be shown above those below. J. Layer Option: It gives you the access to add effects, adjustments, layer styles, and other options that you can add to your currently active layer.

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOLBOX The Photoshop toolbar hasn’t changed much, it only changed a little bit during the introduction of the Layers and the Move tool in 1994. The only visible change is that of the toolbar that can be expanded as a result of the increase in the size of the monitor with the addition of few tools. Nevertheless, if you have sound knowledge of the previous Photoshop version with its picture at heart, you will still have the fragrance of being at home with the latest version. The left side box is the Photoshop toolbox, you have to make it your good and intimate friend because the beauty of your editing and graphic work depends on how best you can use the toolbox, the tools box has been arranged for what they do.

CHOOSING EITHER SINGLE OR DOUBLE COLUMN TOOLBAR The toolbar by default appears to be single, but you can make it double-column by clicking on the top double arrow, which will make it to be expanded and shorter. Click the double arrow again to return it to the single-column toolbar.

The top part features are Selection, Cropping, and Slicing tools; these are the tools that you can use to select the part of the image you want to edit and enhance, it can help you to crop out and slicing out the part that is not needed.

The second part features are Retouching and Painting tools. They are used to clean and eliminate unwanted spots on your image or product items and to color the image as well as erase certain parts to enhance the image either by sharpening or blurring.

The bottom and last section features are the tools for Drawing and Typing. You can use them to write the text on your image or to draw on your image by using a hand pen tool. The hand pen tool will be covered in the next section.

MOVING AND SELECTION TOOLS ICONS

TOOLS

USES

Move

It is used to move layers, selections, and guides within a Photoshop document.

Artboard

It allows you to easily design multiple web layouts for different screen sizes.

Rectangular marquee

it is used to draw rectangular selection outlines. Press and hold the shift key on your keyboard as you drag to draw a square selection.

Elliptical Marquee

It is used to draw elliptical selection outlines. Press and hold the

Shift key on your keyboard as you drag to draw a perfect circle selection. Single Row Marquee

It is used to select a single row of pixels in the image from left to right.

Single Marquee

It is used to select a single column of pixels from top to bottom.

Column

Lasso

It allows you to draw a free-form selection outline around an object.

Polygonal Lasso

It surrounds the object with a polygonal, straight-edged selection outline.

Magnetic Lasso

When you move your mouse cursor around an object, it will snap the edge of the selection outline.

Object Selection

It will select an object when you draw a rough selection around an object.

Quick selection

It selects an object easily by painting over the object with a brush.

Magic Wand

It picks an area of similar color when you single-click on it. You can check the Options bar to examine how the “Tolerance” value sets the range of color.

CROP AND SLICE TOOLS ICONS

TOOLS

USES

Crop

It is used to crop an image to cut out or remove unwanted areas.

Perspective crop

It is used to crop an image and fix common problems or distortion.

Slice

It is used to divide an image or layout into smaller parts that can be exported or optimized separately.

Slice Select

It is used to select an individual slice created with the slice tool.

Frame

It allows you to place an image into rectangular or elliptical shapes.

MEASUREMENT TOOLS Icons

Tools

Uses

Eyedropper

It samples the colors of an image. For a better representation of the sample’s area color, you have to increase “Sample Size”.

3D Material Eyedropper

It is used to sample material from a 3D model.

Color Sample

This displays the color value for the selected area of an image. You can sample as many as four areas at a time.

Ruler

It aids in measuring angles and locations. It is good in positioning images and elements, just at the place where you want them.

Note

It allows you to attach text-based notes to your Photoshop document. Notes will be saved as part of the PSD files.

Count

It counts the number of objects in an image manually or counts automatically the selected areas in the image.

RETOUCHING AND PAINTING TOOLS Icons

Tools

Uses

Spot Healing Brush

It removes blemishes and other minor problem areas in an image quickly.

Healing Brush Tool

This icon helps to repair larger problem areas in an image by painting over them. Hold Alt (for Window users)/Option (for Mac users) and click to sample the good texture, then paint over the problem area to repair the problem.

Patch

It draws a Freeform selection outline around a problem area, then repairs it by dragging the selection outline over an area of good texture.

Content-Aware Move

It is used to select and move a portion of an image to a different area. Photoshop fills the holes in the original spot automatically, using the element of the surrounding area.

Red Eye

It removes common red-eye problems in photos resulting from the camera flash.

Brush

It is used to paint with brush strokes on a layer or layer mask. It is referred to as a primary painting tool; it is used to paint soft edges.

Pencil

The pencil tool is used to paint hard edges.

Color Replacement

Is used to replace the color of an object with a different color.

Mixer brush

It simulates the elements of real painting like mixing and combining colors and paint wetness.

Clone Stamp

It’s the best basic of Photoshop retouching tools; it is used to sample pixels from one area of the image and paints them over pixels in another area.

Pattern Stamp

Is used to paint pattern over the image.

History Brush

It paints a snapshot from an earlier step into the current version of the image. You can find the previous history from the history panel.

Art history brush

It also paints a snapshot from the previous version into the image, but it uses stylized brush strokes.

Eraser

It is used to erase pixels on a layer permanently. It can also paint in an earlier historical state.

Background Eraser

It erases areas of similar color in an image by painting over them.

Magic Eraser

It selects an area of similar color and deletes them permanently.

Gradient Tool

It is used to draw gradual blends between multiple colors with the Gradient Editor; you can create and customize your gradient.

Paint Bucket Tool

It fills an area of similar color with relevant color or pattern. The area you click will affect the range of color in line with the tolerance value.

3D Material Drop

It lets you sample material from one area and drop it to another area of

your model or 3D layer.

Blur

It simply blurs and softens areas you paint over with the tool.

Sharpen Tool

It sharpens areas you paint with the tool.

Smudge

It smears and smudges an area you paint it over. It can as well be used to create a painting finger effect.

Dodge

It is used to lighten an area of the image you paint it over.

Burn

It darkens the areas you paint it over.

Sponge

It decreases and increases the color saturation of the painted area.

HIDDEN TOOLBAR’S TOOL Each toolbar is represented by the default tool or the current tool that is in use. However, many tools are available more than what you can see. To see other tools that are hidden behind the default tool, you have to click the dropdown arrow in the bottom right of that tool icon, alternatively, by right-clicking on the default or the current tool in use, you will be able to see the full available tools.

DRAWING AND TYPING TOOLS Icons

Tools

Uses

Pen

It lets you draw accurate shapes, vectors, selection, and paths.

Freeform Pen

It allows you to draw freehand paths or shapes. As you draw, the anchor point will be added automatically.

Curvature Pen

It serves the same purpose as the Pen tool but is easier than the Pen tool.

Add Anchor Point

It is used to add additional anchor points along the line.

Delete Point

It is used to remove a point. Click on an existing anchor point along a path with the Delete Anchor Point to remove such a point.

Anchor

Convert Point

Click on a smooth anchor point, with the Convert tool to convert it to a corner point, and click on the corner point to convert to a smooth point.

Horizontal type

It is used to add standard types to your document.

Vertical type

It is used to add types vertically from top to bottom.

Vertical type Mask

It is used to create a selection outline in the vertical shape format or type.

Horizontal Mask

It is used to create a selection outline in the horizontal shape format or type.

Type

Path Selection

It is used to select and move an entire path at once. It is represented with black color.

Direct Selection

It is used to select and move an individual path segment and anchor point; it is represented with white color.

Rectangle

It draws rectangular paths, vector shapes, or pixel shapes. Press and hold the Shift key as you drag to set the shape to a perfect square.

Rounded Rectangle

It draws shapes with rounded corners. Press and hold the Shift key to draw a square with rounded corners.

Ellipse

It draws elliptical vector shapes, paths, or pixel shapes. Press and hold the Shift key as you drag for the perfect circle.

Triangle

It was just included in Photoshop 2021. It is used to draw a triangle. Hold the Shift key to draw an equilateral triangle or round the corner with Radius Options.

Polygon

It’s just included in Photoshop 2021 also. It is used to draw polygonal shapes with any number of sides. You can turn polygons into stars with the Star Ratio Options.

Line

It is also 2021 updated. It helps to draw straight lines or arrows. Control the appearance of the line with stroke color and weight.

Custom Shape

It lets you select and draw custom shapes. You can create your own or choose from Photoshop in-built custom shapes.

NAVIGATION TOOLS Icons

Tools

Uses

Hand

It can be used to click and drag an image around on the screen to view different areas when zoomed in.

Rotate View

It’s used to rotate the canvas so you can view and at the same time, edit the image from different angles.

Zoom

Click on the image to zoom a specific area in. Press and hold Alt (for Windows users)/Option (for Mac users), and click with the zoom tool to zoom out.

UNDERSTANDING MENUS APPEARANCE The more you examine the Menus, the more you will have an understanding of Photoshop’s intricacy and versatility. Photoshop has about eleven Menus with additional Sub-Menus; it’s very essential to be acquainted with the significant keys for quick and effective use of Photoshop. Let’s quickly check the key Menu and Sub-Menus of Adobe Photoshop:

The key Options here are New (it’s used to create a new document), Open (to open an existing document), Save (to save your current file in the default file and location), Save as (An Option to save in a different format and location and different file name) Automate and scripts (supply the improvement batch processing and automated editing Options).

It gives you Options to effect changes to your whole image, such as mode (color type), image size, canvas size, and image rotation, most importantly, Adjustment Sub Menu, which on its own is substantial enough to find its way out as a separate main menu. With Adjustment Sub Menu, you can effectively control your images, such as Curves, Brightness/Contrast, level, Saturation, and lots more.

This is a Zoom level control; beside it is a control for the snap function, such as guidelines, especially when you are laying out a design or inputting text into the image.

The Edit menu has a lot of amazing features, such as Copy, Paste, and Cut features, Spellcheckers for correcting a mistake, Fill, Stroke ContentAware scale, Free transform, as well as the keyboard shortcut.

Layers are important features of Photoshop, the most Significant ones are New Layer and New Adjustment Layer, which can allow you to create nondestructive editing layers to the image. There is Mask, Flatten, and Merge option as well.

New text handling and presentation Option has been added to the latest version of Photoshop; it can be found in the panel options at the top of the menu. Other key 3D text and Special language Options.

It is not needed always, but it contains some indispensable features, like Arrange and Workplace Sub Menus, used to control the layout of tabs, Windows, and the various tool palette and panels.

After the remaking of the filters, there has been the availability of exceptional ones, such as Amazing Adaptive WideAngle features, liquidity filter, lens distortion correction, and other essential filters and effects.

Note: you may not need some of the Sub-Menu Options, and as a result, there is an arrangement to edit the menu you want to see and use; to do that simply: Go to the Edit Menu. Swing to Menus. Under the Menus tab, tap the Show/Hide icon for each item you want to hide. OPENING AND SAVING IMAGE WITH PURPOSE With the attempt to create a befitting masterwork, you should be able to open and navigate to your various image assets and transfer them to your Photoshop workspace to start work on them. Photoshop has its format for managing and locating your images in Adobe Bridge format. Let’s check the way to open, save and edit your image. After you are done with the creation of a new document, it is necessary to check other available options. Out of the available options is opening an image or a photo. To open a document, do the following: From the Menu bar, click on File.

Select Open (Cmd + O)

There will be a display of your stored images, where you can browse through your computer folders to check your desired image.

Immediately you’ve found the image you are looking for, you can either highlight it (or many images at once) and click on the open button at the lower right side of the Windows, or you doubleclick on the image in question, and it will open up in Photoshop.

OPENING FILE FROM ADOBE BRIDGE Adobe Bridge can also be used to search for images rather than a standard browser. Adobe Bridge will display and arrange those images in date order and addition of certain keywords, thereby, making them easier to search for when next you need them. To open an image from Adobe Bridge: Click on File.

Tap Browse in Bridge; from the drop-down options(Alt+Cmd+O).

You can single out the image and add keywords or select them in mass and add keywords specific to each of the images you have currently selected, then all the keywords will be displayed alongside the

attached images. In Bridge, you can browse your image just the same way you browse the Window browser aside from the control that the Bridge has over your image and more image data that is available, as it is shown in the image below.

Immediately you get your desired image, highlight it, and right-click for context menu options. In this guide, I will open with Adobe Photoshop 2021 option. Note: If you open any image and you don’t add any new layer during the editing process till you save it, it will only be saved in its original jpeg format, however, if you involve layers and adjustments during the process of editing, it will simply be saved in PSD format to keep those layers.

IMPORTING AND PASTING IMAGES Pasting content into your document makes your document very unique. Pasting a document shouldn’t be a difficult task, but rather an easy one. It starts with opening the image or photo, importing it to another document or another photo, and then begin the designing and editing process. Understanding this process is a prerequisite to Adobe Photoshop as it represents a stepping stone to an image editing and digital manipulation tool for photographers and designers. Without much ado, let us quickly dive into the process of importing and pasting images into a document: After you must have opened a blank document, the next is to fill your document with the necessary image.

Images may be imported into your documents through two options, which are either the Place

Embedded option by covering the image as an object and can be edited in your active document but will still contain editing within it.

Or the Place Linked option, which means, after you have placed an image into your document, the document will retain the link to the original file so that if you edit the original image, the subsequent time you look at the document that is containing your image, it will update to the latest saved version.

CONVERTING SMART OBJECTS TO STANDARD PIXELS Navigate to the folder that contains the first image you want to use, highlight it and click the place button, or double-click on it to open the image on its document blank layer. You have to know that immediately you open the image in the document layer, the layer name will change to the image name.

After you open it on the document blank layer, do the necessary adjustments, such as moving, cropping, and rotating the image before you place it finally on the layer. You can click and drag the Cover Control Points to scale the image to fill your document, then press the Enter key on your keyboard as soon as you finish the changes.

Then for the second image, follow the same process by going to the file, click Embedded again, then flip through for the image. For this guide, I will make use of a reptile animal character in the new layer. Place the new image and use the control points to scale the image, then drag to your preferred position.

Both images selected will be placed on Smart Object so far they are embedded. If you check the bottom right corner of the thumbnail, you will notice a Small Icon that represents a Placed Object. Once you are alright with the two, then you can convert them to standard pixels.

To convert them into standard pixels, simply right-click your layers to call up the context menu. Scroll down the list to see the Rasterize Layer option, then click to convert each of the Smart Objects to a normal pixel-based image which is exactly like standard photos.

You have successfully created a basic document with two layers. With this simple ideology, you should be able to exploit an opportunity of taking various image elements and particularly join them to create surprise artworks.

THE SAVE COMMAND AND SAVE AS COMMAND The save command is used to save changes to your documents in the current format. The “Save As” command is used to save a file with a different name, format, or location.

SAVING FILES IN DIFFERENT FILE FORMATS In Adobe Photoshop, you can save your file in different file formats, such as PSD (Photoshop Document), PNG (Portable Network Graphics), GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), TIFF (Tagged Image File Format), JPEG (Joint Photographic Expert Group), and more. I’ll briefly discuss each of them and how you can save your file in each format below ❖ PSD (Photoshop Document) The PSD file format means Photoshop document. It is the most important saving format because it is Photoshop’s default saving file format, and this is why you should consider saving a copy of your file in PSD format aside from any other format you might need. Any file opened in Photoshop is automatically opened in this format, not minding the file type it was. One of the advantages is that after you re-save a file as PSD, the quality of your image does not reduce. It also stores all the information you might need later to continue your editing

SAVING FILES IN PSD FORMAT Follow the steps below to save your file in PSD format 1. Click on File in the Menu bar 2. Select Save As

3.

Enter the File Name you want

4. Go to the Format menu and click on the down arrow, from the displayed options, select Photoshop (.PSD)

5. Then click on Save.

Your file will successfully save in PSD format ❖ GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) The GIF format means Graphics Interchange Format. This format allows the creation of animation. GIF is made up of a series of static images, played sequentially to create the illusion of movement.

SAVING FILES IN GIF FORMAT To save your file in GIFformat, follow the steps below 1. Go to File 2. Click on Save As

3. Type the file name you want.

4. From the Format menu, choose GIF

Note: once you select GIF, the ‘.psd’seen in step 3 above will change to ‘.gif’ 5. Then, click on Save. 6. After that, select the GIFoptions you want.

7. Lastly, click on the OK button

Your file will successfully save in GIFformat ❖

JPEG (Joint Photographic Expert Group) This is the most popularly used file format. Images saved in JPEG format are usually easily uploaded on photo-sharing providers, such as email, Flickr, and social media. Here, the higher the quality, the larger the file size, and the lower the quality, the smaller the file size. Notes: Repeated re-saving of JPEG files leads to compression of the image, thereby reducing the image quality, therefore, avoid re-saving your JPEG file over and over. Also, note that saving in this format does not preserve some important editing information

SAVING FILES IN JPEG FORMAT Follow the steps below to save your file in JPEGformat 1. Click on File in the Menu bar 2. Select Save As

3.

Type in your desired file name

4. Click on the Format menu arrow, from the options, select JPEG

The file format changes to .jpg

5. Then, click on Save

6. After that, a dialog box named JPEG options will be displayed; select the options you want

7. Finally, click on OK

Your file will successfully save in JPEG format ❖ PNG (Portable Network Graphics) The PNG file format reduces file size by compressing images, but, the compression method it uses does not result in reduced image quality. Re-saving a PNG file repeatedly does not result in loss of quality. Note that PNG does not support CMYK color.

SAVING FILES IN PNG FORMAT To save your file in PNG format, follow these steps 1. Click on File in the Menu bar 2. Select Save As

3.

Type in your desired file name

4. Click on the Format menu arrow, from the options, select PNG

Note: once you select PNG, the ‘.psd’seen in step 3 above will change to ‘.png’ 5. Then, click on Save

Your file will successfully save in PNG format ❖ TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) The TIFF file format allows you to save files with the highest quality, though the files can be large; this is the universally accepted standard for commercial printing.

SAVING FILES IN TIFF FORMAT Follow the steps below to save your file in TIFF format 1. In the menu bar, click on File 2. Select Save As

3. Type in your desired file name

4. Click on the Format menu arrow, from the options, select TIFF

Note: once you select TIFF, the ‘.psd’seen in step 3 above will change to ‘.tif’ 5. Then, click on Save

6. TIFF dialog box will appear, select the options you want, and click OK

Your file will successfully save in TIFF format ❖ BMP(Bitmap) This file format stores files without compressing it, thereby producing high-quality images, which automatically means files saved in this format will have large sizes. Even if compressed, files still have large sizes, though with no quality or information loss. To save files in this format, simply follow the steps below: 1. Go to the Menu bar, click on File 2. Select Save As

3. Type in your desired file name and specify a location to save your file

4. Click on the Format menu arrow, from the options, select BMP

Note: once you select BMP, the ‘.psd’seen in step 3 above will change to ‘.bmp’ 5. Then, click on Save

6. The BMP dialog box will appear, select the options you want, and click OK. Your file then saves in BMP format.

SETTING PREFERENCES FOR SAVING FILES To set preferences for saving an image, follow these steps below: 1. Go to the Edit (on Windows) or Photoshop (on Mac) 2. Choose Preferences 3. Select File Handling; a dialog box will appear; there, select the File Saving Options you want to use

SAVING FILES FOR THE WEB After working on a file, you might need to post it online; for such files, the Save for Web feature is used, thereby making it easier to download and view online. To save for the Web, follow these steps: Go to File Select the Save for Web option

A dialog box will appear; here, you have to do some settings; first, select the file format and quality level you want

Still, under the settings, you can also resize the image by typing the desired image width and height under the Image Size menu

Then click on Save,

Another dialog box will appear; type the desired file name and choose a location, then lastly, click on Save.

COMPRESSING FILE FORMATS File compression is used to reduce file sizes. There are two methods of file compression, the Lossy method, and the Lossless method; the former removes the image detail while compressing a file, while the latter compresses a file without removing the image detail or information. An example of a file format that uses the lossy technique is JPEG, while an example of a file format that uses the lossless technique is PNG.

SHARING A PHOTO After working properly on a photo, you might want to share it either on social media, mail, or any other sharing provider of your choice. To share a photo, follow these simple steps: Go to File Select locate the Share option and click on it

Then proceed to select the version you want to share, either full size or a smaller version. Proceed to click on the service through which you want to share the file, for example, select Mail. If prompted, fill in the needed additional information; for example, posting to a Mail might require you to type the recipient’s email account

PHOTO SHARING PROVIDERS There are various photo-sharing providers in Photoshop. What you disable or enable in your operating system preferences determines the list of services that will appear in the share panel. Some options are Gmail, Facebook, and more.

TOOLTIPS A tooltip is a helpful message that offers a short description of what a tool is used for; it shows up when you hover your mouse cursor over a tool; it makes it easier to identify and learn tools as it helps you to know the tool you’re selecting. You can choose to enable or hide tooltips, but by default, it is enabled. To show or hide tooltips, do the following 1. Navigate to the Edit menu 2. Choose Preferences

3. From the options, click on Tools

4. From the options, you will see the Show Tool Tips option with a box beside it; tick the box to show tooltips, or untick it to hide tooltips

For Mac users, do the following 1. Click on Photoshop 2. Select Preferences, click on Tools, then tick or untick the Show Tool Tips box

THE HISTORY PANEL The history panel is the panel that shows the chronological sequence of recent actions you performed or recent states of an image during the current working session to let you access your previous actions or previous states of the image. Each step you take that brings changes to your image will be added to the history panel. For example, if you add a filter, crop, and paint an image, each of those states of the image will be listed in the history panel for easy access. Just in case you want to revert to a previous state, select the state you want, then the image reverts to how it looked when you applied that change. To locate the history panel, go to the Windows menu, locate History and click on it

Notes: ➢

By default, the history panel only records the previous 20 states of changes you make on an image; you can change this by following these steps 1. Go to the Edit menu 2. Locate Preferences and click on it

3. From the options, select Performance

4. On the right side, locate History State, click the drop-down arrow to select the number of remembered states that you want, and finally press OK

➢ ➢ ➢ ➢

Changes that are not specific to the image you’re working on will not be recorded The name of the tool you applied on the image is the name you will see in the history panel When you select a state and you continue working from there, the other states below will be discarded If you delete a state, the other states below it will also be deleted.

REVERTING TO A PREVIOUS STATE OF AN IMAGE To revert to the previous state of an image, you can either click the name of the state in the history panel or navigate to the Edit menu and select Step backward.

REVERTING TO THE LAST SAVED This option replaces your current file with the last version you saved. To revert to the last saved version of your document, go to the File menu, locate the Revert option, and click on it.

DELETING AND CLEARING STATES FROM THE HISTORY PANEL There are different methods to delete a state from the History Panel, 1. You can click on the state you want to delete and then click on Delete from the history panel; automatically, the other states after it will also be deleted.

2. Drag the state to the Delete icon 3. Go to the Edit menu, locate and click on Purge, then select Histories to purge the list of states for all open documents.

EXAMINING THE IMAGE WINDOW The Image Window is the Window used to display the current image, that is, where the image appears. The most important part of the image Window is the canvas, also known as image display, surrounded by a line showing the image boundary against the default background. Each Window displays one image; it is also possible to open an image in more than one Window, I will discuss this later. Below is how the image Window looks like

The Image Window has several components, which are 1. The Title Bar: this is located at the top of the image. It consists of the name of the image and other basic information, such as the file format. Note that its appearance may vary with the operating system. 2. The Image Menu Bar: below the Title Bar is the Image Menu Bar, which consists of several menus through which you can perform several operations on an image. 3. The Menu Button: it is located on the upper left side of the Menu bar. Click on it to display your Menu bar in a column. 4. Ruler: rulers are displayed above and to the left side of the image. Rulers help you to place or align objects accurately. The default unit for the ruler is pixels 5. QuickMask Toggle: this is located at the lower-left corner. It is used to temporarily paint a selection 6. Pointer Coordinates: this box displays the current pointer coordinate. The unit is also in pixels. 7. Units Menu: here, you can change the current unit used for rulers; other units include cm, inches, and more 8. The Zoom Button: this is used to zoom an image in or out. 9. Status Area: this part of the Image Window displays the active part of the image as well as the amount of system memory used by the image; this is not the exact file size because images can be in a compressed format. You can edit the information displayed in this column; simply go to the Edit menu, locate Preferences, select Image Windows, and click on Title & Status. 10. The Cancel button: this is located in the lower right corner of the Window. It temporarily appears during a time-consuming editing session. 11. Navigation Control: this is a small cross-shaped button located at the lower right side of the Image

Window. It is used to display the preview of an image. With this icon, you can move around a large image with a small portion displayed. 12. Inactive Padding Area: the padding area makes it possible for you to distinguish between the image active and inactive padding area. 13. Image display: this is also referred to as canvas; as I said earlier, it is the most important part of the Image Window. This is the exact area where the image is displayed; it is located in the central area of the Window. 14. Image Window Resize Toggle: enable this feature to change the Image Window size. Note that you can customize the default appearance of your Image Window in the Preferences dialog box located in the Edit menu

CONTEXTUAL MENU A Contextual menu is also called a context menu. It is a pop-up menu that contains some commands or tools in line with the current context and also contains the commands you choose repeatedly; this menu makes it quick to perform some actions. All operating systems support the contextual menu because it’s a relevant tool that contains important options. You can access it by; Positioning the pointer over the image or the area you want to access the quick options Right-clicking (Control-click on Mac) and select a command from the menu. Note that the options displayed are dependent on the tool or feature and the area you click, for example, if you open a contextual menu when the cursor is over an image, options/commands you will see there are those related to images; likewise when you make a selection, the commands you’ll get are those related to selection as seen below

To close the context menu, simply select an action from the options, or click the open space outside the menu area.

THE TOOLBOX IN THE QUICK MODE

The quick mode groups basic tools that are used for photo-fixing in one place. It’s a quick way to adjust the sharpness, exposure, color, and more. The tools available here are the Zoom tool, Crop tool, Move tool, Hand tool, Eye tool, Straighten tool, Whiten Teeth tool, Type tool, Quick Selection tool, and Spot Healing Brush tool.

TOOLBOX IN THE EXPERT MODE You can choose to edit in this mode if you’re familiar with editing in Photoshop. This mode has tools to create special effects, enhance effects, correct color problems. The tools are organized in groups and you can rearrange them as desired. The groups include the View group, Select group, Enhance group, Draw group, and Modify group, each of which I will discuss below. Note that the letters in the bracket are the keyboard shortcuts.

TOOLS IN THE VIEW GROUP OF THE EXPERT MODE TOOLBOX The tools in the View group are: 1. Zoom tool (Z): use this tool to magnify a selected part of an image; it allows you to zoom in and out. 2. Hand tool(H): this tool allows you to move or drag an image while it is zoomed in to enable you to view other parts of the image.

TOOLS IN THE SELECT GROUP OF THE EXPERT MODE TOOLBOX The tools here are: 1. Move tool (V): used to move a selection or layer 2. Rectangular Marquee tool (M): this tool is used to select an area in an image in a rectangular shape 3. Elliptical Marquee tool (M): used to select an area in an image in an elliptical shape 4. Lasso tool (L): used to make a freehand selection around an object or an area in an image. 5. Magnetic Lasso Tool (L): it is used to select objects that have complex edged 6. Polygonal Lasso tool (L): used to draw segments of a selection border that are straight-edged 7. Quick Selection tool (W): allows you to select an object by painting over it using a brush 8. Selection Brush tool (A): used to select an area of your image by painting 9. Magic Wand tool (W): this is used to select areas of similar color in a single click 10. Refine Selection Brush tool (A): adds or removes areas to and from a selection. It also helps to refine the edges of a selection you made. 11. Auto Selection tool (A): use this tool if you intend to have an automatic selection when you draw a shape around an object you want to select.

TOOLS IN THE ENHANCE GROUP OF THE EXPERT MODE TOOLBOX Tools in the Enhance group include: 1. The Eye tool (Y): used to remove the red-eye effect, pet eye effect, and correct closed eyes in an image. 2. Spot Healing Brush tool (J): it is used to remove spots or blemishes from an image 3. Healing Brush tool (J): used to correct an imperfection in an image by selecting a part of the image as the reference point. 4. Smart Brush tool (F): used to apply tonal and color adjustments to some specific areas in an image. 5. Detail Smart Brush tool (F): this tool enables you to paint the adjustment to specific areas in an image. 6. Clone Stamp tool (S): use this tool to duplicate an exact color or pixels from one part of the image to another part. 7. Pattern Stamp tool (S): this is used to paint with a preset pattern or a pattern defined from an image 8. Blur tool (R): it is used to soften hard areas or edges. 9. Sharpen tool (R): it is used to sharpen the soft edges of an image to increase clarity and focus 10. Smudge tool (R): this tool, when used smears the areas you paint over like a brush spreading wet paint. It can be used to cover small defects or blemishes in an image 11. Sponge tool (O): it is used to increase or decrease color saturation 12. Dodge tool (O): this tool is used to lighten areas of an image and also to bring out details in shadows 13. Burn tool (O): it is used to darken areas of an image and also to bring out details in highlights

TOOLS IN THE DRAW GROUP OF THE EXPERT MODE TOOLBOX 1. Brush tool (B): it is used to create soft or hard strokes of color. It is the primary tool for painting 2. Impressionist Brush tool (B): used to paint over existing colors in an image, thereby making the color look like it was painted. 3. Color Replacement tool (B): with this tool, you can easily replace specific colors in your image. 4. Eraser tool (E): as you drag through with this tool, it erases the pixels in an image

5. Background Eraser tool (E): It removes areas of similar color in an image 6. Magic Eraser tool (E): it selects areas of the same color with a single click like the Magic Wand Tool, but permanently deletes areas you select. 7. Paint Bucket tool (K): if you click some pixels, this tool is used to fill an area that is similar in color value to the pixels you click. 8. Pattern tool (K): Applies a fill or a pattern to an image 9. Gradient tool (G): This is used for filling an area of an image by a gradient. 10. Color Picker tool (I): with this tool, you can sample 11. Custom Shape tool (U): this option makes available different shape options you can select from for you to draw 12. Type tool (T): it is used to create and edit text on an image 13. Pencil tool (N): it is used to create freehand lines with hard edges.

TOOLS IN THE MODIFY GROUP OF THE EXPERT MODE TOOLBOX The tools under this group are: 1. Crop tool (C): it is used to trim a part of an image to remove unwanted or less important areas. 2. Cookie Cutter tool (C): it is used to crop a photo into a shape you desire. 3. Perspective Crop tool (C): fixes perspective or distortion problems of a picture while cropping it 4. Recompose tool (W): it is used to resize photos 5. Content-Aware Move tool (Q): used to select a part of an image and move it to another location 6. Straighten tool (P): it is used to realign an image vertically or horizontally.

FINDING YOUR BEARING IN THE GUIDED MODE The guided mode makes available guided edits, which you can use to achieve a variety of predefined effects. The guided edits are grouped into six categories that will be discussed below: The Basic Edit The basic edit entails Brightness and Contrast (corrects the brightness and contrast of an image), Correct Skin Tone (removes color cast from your image and corrects skin tone), Crop Photo (trims the edges of an image), Levels (also adjusts the brightness, contrast, and the tonal range of an image), Lighten and Darken (helps to get a perfect exposure, either by lightening or darkening the image), Move and Scale (makes changing the position and size of an object easy), Object Removal (removes unwanted objects from a photo), Resize your Photo (resizes an image to print or post to the web), Rotate and Straighten (helps you rotate and straighten/realign images), Sharpen (improves the clarity of an image), and the Vignette effect (helps you highlight certain parts of an image, either by creating blur or shadow, thereby showing the importance of that part of the image) The Color Edit The effects in the color edit are the Enhance Color edit (used to improve the hue, saturation, and lightness of an image), the Lomo Camera effect (gives an image a high contrast), Remove Color Cast effect (edits color cast in an image), and the Saturated Film effect. The Black and White Edit Here are the effects in the Black and White color edit; the Black and White effect (helps to achieve black and white images from colored ones), Black and White Color pop (used to highlight one color in an image and desaturate the other colors), Black and White Selection (allows you to desaturate a selected part in an image), High Key Effect (helps you achieve a dreamy effect), Line Drawing Effect (using this effect converts your photo into a pencil sketch), and lastly the Low Key Effect (enhances shadows and highlights edges) The Fun Edit In the fun edit mode are the following effects; Double exposure(this allows you to integrate one image into another at a lesser opacity to make a single image), Duotone Effect (with this edit, you can achieve an effect on your image using just two colors), Effects Collage (helps you to apply effects to different areas of your image), Meme Maker (this edit enables you to make entertaining memes containing images and texts), Multi-Photo Text (this allows you to create texts with different photos inside each letter), Old Fashioned Photo(using this edit makes your photo look like an old one) Out Of Bounds (helps you add a frame to an image and select a part to be displayed outside the frame), Painterly (this enables you to paint an image using a brush on different textured canvasses and applying different painting effects), Partial Sketch (used to turn part of an image into an art-like sketch), Pattern Brush (enables you to use patterns that look like art on your image), Photo Text (with this, you can create a text that is stenciled into an image you pick as the background), Picture Stack (helps you to add frames to your photo)

Pop Art (this allows you to turn your image into pop art), Puzzle Effect (using this edit makes your image look like putting together pieces of tiles to form a puzzle), Reflection (use this to choose and apply a predefined reflection effect to an image), Shape Overlay Effect (enables you to add different shapes to an image), Speed Effect (with this, you can make an object look like it’s on motion and speed), Speed Pan (you can use this to add a sense of motion to your subject in an image by blurring the background), and Zoom Burst Effect (this makes attention drawn to the main object in an image by creating an illusion of motion in the background). The Special Edit The effects in the special edit are Depth of Field (blurs out other areas in an image and focuses on the selected parts), Frame Creator (enables you to create frame), Orton Effect (this provides an image with a dreamy effect). Perfect Landscape (this edit allows you to erase unwanted areas, replace skies, and remove haze from an image), Perfect Portrait (helps you to remove blemishes and improve other parts of the image with some tools that are easy to use), Recompose (easily and simply resizes an image and keeping the important parts), Replace Background (allows you to replace the background of an image with your created background, preset background, or colors), Restore Old Photo (with a step-by-step process, helps you restore an old image by repairing the damages/defects that it already has), Scratches and Blemishes (helps you fix small or large imperfections in an image), Text and Border Overlay (this enables you to add borders containing text to a photo), Tilt-Shift (this shifts attention on the main subject in an image), and Watercolor Effect (gives an image watercolor effect). The Photomerge Edit Photomerge Compose (this helps you to crop out a part of an image into another image to achieve a single image), Photomerge Exposure (enables you to adjust exposure issues by using a good exposure from one image into another image), Photomerge Faces (enables you to get a complete face from different facial features), Photomerge Group Shot (with this edit, you can get a perfect group photo from different photos), Photomerge Scene Cleaner (cleans the photo environment from unwanted objects), and the Photomerge Panorama effect (this combines multiple pictures to become one).

CHAPTER THREE WORKING WITH LAYERS GETTING TO KNOW LAYERS Understanding layers is the foundation basics of editing; it is the core part of Photoshop image editing. With layers, the elements of the image are added up and displayed in descending order, though you can later change the order of the layer in the stack. Layers can include transparency and as a result, lower layers can be visible through higher layers. You may apply effects, adjustments, and operations to an individual layer or all the layers at once, layer can be turned on or off; you can as well delete any layer without affecting others. To understand the principle and concept of layers, you have to see them as a pile of glass panels with the element that makes up the image painted onto them, while you are looking down on them from the top to check how they are stacked up. Layers grant you the chance of editing your image non-destructively by changing one element of a layer without affecting other layers. Let us take for instance; if you are about to perform any adjustment or effect on the layer but you are not very sure if the result will be okay, you can simply make a duplicate layer and set the original to be invisible, then proceed to carry on your editing on the duplicate, if in the end, you’re not satisfied with the result, you may delete it and go back to the original one. TYPES OF LAYERS Layers are of four main types: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Pixel layer: It contains all the graphical elements of the image. Text layer: It contains text information that you can edit and resize. Vector layer: It contains vector information, such as work paths and shape. Adjustment layer: It contains embedded commands, the commands that affect the layer below.

Note: The drawback to using the layers is the file sizes that will be accumulating as you continue adding layers and attached information; it greatly increases the size of the file and thus immediately you are done with editing before saving the picture you have created; you have to flatten the single image that contains all the layers you merged.

STUDYING YOUR PATH AROUND THE LAYER PANEL AND SELECTING MENUS

(A) Adjustment Layer: it helps you to add any adjustment effects such as Brightness, Contrast, Levels, and Saturation. This is an alternative link to the main layer menu. (B) New Layer Group: This is the link to create a new layer group inside which you can drag and drop layers and it will help you arrange your layers even if the composition is complicated. (C) New Layer Link: A link to create a blank new layer directly over the current above the active layer. (D) Layers delete button: Click on it to delete the currently active layer or you can drag the layer into the button to delete it. CONVERTING BACKGROUND TO A LAYER Anytime an image is opened or you create a new document with white or colored background, such an image or document will contain a single layer called the Background layer.

You can change the background layer into a regular layer by simply double-clicking on the background layer within

the layers panel, which is filled with a new layer Window; the default name for the new layer will be “layer 0” in the new layer Window. Type a new layer name into the Name text box; after you are done renaming the layer, click on the Ok button.

Immediately, such background layer will become a regular layer that can be moved; blending modes may be added to it including enablement to change the opacity on the layer. Alternatively, you can also change your background layer to a regular layer by moving to the Layer menu and selecting New, then select the ‘Layer from background’ option.

CREATING A NEW LAYER FROM THE SCRATCH To create a new layer, click on the Create New Layer icon (It is similar to a piece of paper with the lower-left corner folded) on the bottom left layers panel.

Note: When you create a new layer, such a layer will be placed above the layer that was selected before creating the new layer. Each new layer will be given a default name, Layer 1, 2, 3, or 4, and so on.

To change the name of the layer, double-click on the layer name to select the existing name and then type the new name for the new layer.

POWER OF PHOTOSHOP COMPOSITION We have gotten to that crucial level of getting to know the essence of what Photoshop is all about. Working with layers in a document together with the importation of various images and graphics is an essential part of how Photoshop functions, however, opening such Photos and then adding layers of adjustment over them is what makes them inspiring images; you can augment or add features to your favorite image to make it look more attractive, or create fantastic compositions by combining various images or part of them enticingly to entice your viewers to long to do it well and exactly like that. TRANSFORMING LAYER Let us begin to exploit Photoshop composition power; Start by opening the base image by clicking on File Then select Open (Cmd + O) and flip to the location where the image you want to use as the background was saved. Without wasting much time, for this part, I will choose woodland as you are familiar with it as earlier explained.

Follow the same process to open the browser to the front and search for it, then drag the next image you will be using to the top of the base image.

Be aware that the next image has its separate layer, which will be named after the title of the file. In our illustration here, the sorcerer sits on top of the base image on a new layer.

Let us drop another image (sleepy dragon) and make it sit nicely in the background. Note that a little issue has occurred; the dragon appears to block the foreground character, and this is exactly where the layer functions very well.

To correct this issue, simply click and hold the mouse cursor over the layer that contains the dragon and drag the layer to sit under the layer containing the sorceress. Immediately after the adjustment of the foreground and the dragon behind it, the image will look more excellent.

As earlier discussed, each element has a separate layer; therefore, they can be manipulated and edited independently of each other; for example, the dragon will be amazing if it was the other way round; as a result, let us flip the layer horizontally for a much awesome looking composition.

At this point, you can still go to the Layer palette to click on Create A New Layer Button, so that you can add a layer between the dragon and the base image, which is called shadows. After that, you can proceed to use a soft black brush to add some shadow to anchor to make the ground creature more real.

Since the figure and the dragon are smart objects, then you can choose “Rasterize Layer” under Layer in the menu bar and convert them to normal pixel images by right-clicking on each layer after you must have been satisfied with the final placement, size, and orientation.

Lastly, in between the sorcerer and the dragon, there will be a layer of mist that contains white brush marks, which means to complete this composition, its opacity has dropped to about 47%.

USING LAYER VIA COPY AND LAYER VIA CUT One of the essential Photoshop features that makes it widely acceptable is the enablement to cut out one image part and merge it to another image entirely. One of the key actions that you cannot do without in Photoshop is the selection and cutting of an image, which in turn will enhance, manipulate, and improve the image. In this sub-topic, I will take you through the process of cutting one image part and using it in another. Stay calm, it is not as difficult as you imagine it is, let us dive into it: Go to File, click on Open and select at least two images you want to merge; for this guide, I will select a moody woodland and cosmonaut.

Start working with the image you want to cut out from; I will work on the cosmonaut image first because I want to cut from this background.

We can choose to use the Lasso Tool for freeform drawing to outline the spaceman, but it will take much time and may not be the best when there are suitable tools that are less time-consuming available in the Photoshop store.

Thus, let us make use of the Quick Selection Tool; select it from the Tools Option Panel located at the top, and then ensure you enable the Auto-Enhance to refine any selection you have made.

Let’s make use of a relatively small brush size of about 10 pixels, then begin to click and drag the tool across the outline of the cosmonaut; be careful not to drag outside the edges of the suit’s outline, then the Quick Selection tool will start to make the selection as it goes, automatically.

Immediately you are done selecting the suit, you can refine it further by using the Select and Mask tool. You may click on it and then use the Refine Edge Brush tool to brush over any area that might require some specific refinement like the lower leg and glove of the cosmonaut.

Once you are satisfied with the refinement, tap OK to continue and go back to the main image, then swing to the Edit menu and click on Copy from the Edit drop-down options to copy all the pixels inside the selection area you have created. Now, click the document tab of the other image to open it.

In the other document, swing to the Edit menu and click on Paste from the Edit drop-down options to paste the selected part from the cosmonaut into this document on a separate layer, which is named “layer 1” by default.

You can as well move, scale and, rotate it until you have it the way you want it against the woodland background.

Use a soft black brush tool on the new cosmonaut’s layer to brush on a few anchors to cut out the figure to the ground of the woodland layer

As seen below, the cut-out makes it look very cool.

ADDING LAYER MASK The ability to add masks to layers is one of the most important aspects of what makes a layer so versatile because it opens the eyes of the users to their full creativity. It is a powerful tool that you can use to hide and blend part of one image on a layer and control how they interact with one another. Besides, Layer masks can be used together with an adjustment layer, which will also provide the same hiding and revealing function part of the effect you have chosen. Let me quickly dive into the process of covering up part of a base image and allow part of another image to show through to transform the look of the original: From the File menu, choose an image, for me, I will work with an image of Lagoon and Sky; the aim is to replace the sky with a more amazing one; however, it is only masking that can give us such a result.

Check through your file, once you find an alternative (for me, I found a more attractive sky that can replace the original mountain image perfectly), the next thing to do is to drag and drop the sky image into the active document on its layer, then you can then proceed to scale the image to make the sky fill most of the frame.]

Set the new layer inactive for some minutes, while you set the background image active by clicking its layer, then navigate to the toolbar, click on the Quick Selection Tool, which will, in turn, allow for simple selection based on detecting contrasting edges.

If you examine it critically, you will notice that the outline of the featureless sky is well defined against the mountain, and thus Quick Selection Tool can easily select the sky alone; simply click on the area of the sky with the tool and slowly drag the cursor around the sky area to select more of the sky as the cursor moves.

Set the top layer active and visible again by clicking on it; as you do that, you will notice you are actively selecting the area that surrounds the sky (indicated by the white and black line known as Marching ants). The next thing is to turn the area into a mask, which will hide the area outside the selection.

After setting the selection active, navigate to the Layer Palette options and choose Add Layer Mask; a mask will be added to the top layer in the exact shape of the selection you made. The area inside the selection is white, while the one outside the selection is black as shown below

The white-masked area indicates that part of the layer is seen, while the black part signifies that that part of the layer is hidden; the result here shows that the sky area of the top layer is visible, while the featureless sky of the second layer is hidden.

You can view the mask on its own; to do that, press the Alt key on your keyboard and left-click on the mask. The Quick Selection Tool will perform a decent assignment that will make you discern the mountain and the featureless sky.

To change it back to the normal view, press the Alt key on your keyboard and left-click on the mask again; the normal view will reappear.

You can move around the sky in the top layer, but keep the mask in its exact position; to unlink the image from the mask so that both the image and the mask can move without affecting the other, click on the small chain icon layer thumbnail and the layer mask thumbnail.

INTRODUCING ADJUSTMENT LAYER Another aspect of Photoshop that grants you access to non-destructive image editing is the Adjustment layer. What does this denote? It means anytime you use an adjustment layer to make an effect on an image, you can later remove the adjustment you made and the image will return to its previous version. Also, with the Adjustment Layer, you can save your work as a PSD file and create a document with every effect you want, having the mindset that the original copy is preserved. So, let’s get started with the Adjustment Layer

First, check through your image files to select an image; below is the image I selected but it’s a little bit underexposed and not bright enough. No qualms, Adjustment Layer got us covered.

Allow the image to remain as a locked background image, then go to the Layer menu and click on the New Adjustment Layer option

From the drop-down options, choose Brightness and Contrast, then the Adjustment Layer will come above the main image.

The Properties panel will then pop up, but if it doesn’t, just double-click on the Adjustment Layer thumbnail (do not misuse Mask for thumbnail), then the properties panel will appear in respect of that specific adjustment. The Properties panel contains the Brightness and Contrast slide controls and you can use the sliders to adjust the brightness and contrast as you want.

For this particular image, I improved the Brightness by +50 and the contrast by -8, which makes it look better and brighter.

Note that there is no fixed number to increase or decrease the brightness and contrast, but, rather, adjust it till it suits you. If after using this option, you’re still not satisfied with how your image looks, maybe it has a dark look, that is, too black without any visible appearance, no cause for alarm, there’s another Adjustment Layer tool that can lighten it, just follow the steps below ➢ Click on the New Fill Layer or Adjustment Layer option again, select Levels, then click on Levels 1 to add level1 Adjustment, which will now come above brightness 1 level and grant you more control over any shadow, mid-tones, and image highlights than what Brightness and Contrast alone can do.

Click on the Middle Slider and move it to the left, then all the middle tones will get lighter; you may as well shift the Black Point Slider below the middle slider just a little to the right to remap solid black to progressive lighter tones. Check the effect on your image, you will notice at this level, it has a brighter look than the previous one. Just in case you want it lighter, go back to the Levels option and make further adjustments until it suits you

ADJUSTING THE COLOR OF AN IMAGE Great, we’re making progress! Still using the picture selected for the previous tool, let us proceed to adjust the color of the image. For any reason, you might want to change the color of the image you’re working with, maybe the color looks dull a little and you want to change it to your choice, ➢ Go to the Adjustment Layer and choose Hue and Saturation from the drop-down list, then put it on the growing layer stack.

➢

The decision to boost Saturation depends on individual choice. Check the Colorize box

➢

Adjust the Hue slider to the specific color you want, move the Saturation and Lightness slider to get the desired effect you want. Remember all these adjustments are on the layer and thus they can be removed or modified at any moment without difficulty.

Below is the result after adjusting the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness sliders as desired

ADJUSTMENT LAYER COMBINATION Do you know you can add up multiple layers and merge them into one effect, and apply the merged effects to another image to get the exact look and feel? You may wonder if that is possible, well, let’s see. Go to the File menu and get your base image

Make sure your base image is active, then navigate to the bottom of the Layers palette and click on the Create New Fill option, from the drop-down options, start making various adjustments, such as alteration of the tone and color of the original image to your desired state.

Below is the result after making my desired adjustments

Getting this amazing look is a combination of the four Adjustment layers shown above.

Now that you have gotten a desired combined adjustment layer effects that you can save as one, you might wish to have the exact combination of those effects in a separate image; as I have said earlier, you can combine all the Adjustments you made and replicate them as a single effect so that you can apply it into another image without the need for step-by-step adjustments. But, before you start the appliance on the current document, you must have a locked background layer of it by clicking on the layer to be locked, then go to the Layers menu and select Lock Layers; this is to avoid unintended changes to your work. Below is an example of a locked layer

After you ensure that there is a locked background layer for your current document, navigate to the File menu, from the drop-down options, click on Export, then select Color Lookup Tables

Then type your desired Filename for the combined effect.

Now, proceed to open a new image on which you want to apply your combined effect.

Click on Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer button, then choose Color Lookup to add a New Adjustment layer.

From the Color Lookup properties, choose Load 3D LUT and move to the location where you saved the combined effect file in the previous step

Immediately, the Color lookup 1 adjustment layer will affect the image using the combined adjustment layer file you selected as its guide, thereby making the image take a completely new look, same as the previous image you worked with and different from the original image without any need for step-by-step Adjustments.

WORKING WITH PIXELS Pixel is a short word for Picture Element. It is the smallest item of information of an image always represented using squares. Pixels are tiny building blocks that make up all digital images. Each pixel contains its color, and a combination of several pixels together can form a digital image. A pixel cannot be seen by just staring at an image; to have a closer look at pixels, open an image, navigate to the Toolbar and select the Zoom Tool. Continue clicking on the image to about 500%; boom! There you have your image pixels. Below is an example of how a pixel looks like.

UNDERSTANDING RESOLUTION Resolution is simply the number of pixels in an image. It is measured in pixels per inch (PPI), that is, how many pixels are displayed per inch of an image, meaning that the number of pixels in an image determines the image resolution. Resolution determines how good the quality of your image will be; when the resolution is high, it means there are more pixels per inch, thereby resulting in the high quality of your image. Remember that the higher the quality, the larger the file size. Note that resolution affects the size of your image when printed, which implies that if the resolution is too low, the image will print poorly.

HOW TO CHANGE IMAGE RESOLUTION

The resolution of an image can be changed, majorly for printing purposes; remember I earlier discussed that the resolution of an image affects its quality when printed. Changing image resolution does not mean you’re changing the number of pixels in the image, but rather the number of pixels to be displayed per inch. To change the resolution of your image, follow these steps below: 1. Go to File, click on Open, and select the image you want to change its resolution. 2. Proceed to the Menu bar and click on Image; from the options, select Image Size

1.

The image dialog box will pop up as shown below

Note: to print, 300ppi is the standard used and you might also need to test run to find the best resolution that will produce the size and quality that you need. If you want to change the resolution to post online, you can set it yourself. 1.

Now, go to the Resolution box and type in your desired resolution.

Note that as you type your desired value, the Width and Height under the Document Size menu change to fit. 2. Uncheck the Resample Image box, to show that you’re changing only the image resolution and not resizing the image, nor changing the number of pixels in it.

3. Finally, click OK to confirm the changes.

CHOOSING A RESOLUTION FOR PRINT OR ONSCREEN To choose a resolution for print, note that there are various printing output devices, and their resolution requirements vary. There are some recommended resolutions for various printing devices, but to get the exact resolution for your printer, try to print an image using different resolutions. Below is a table of recommended resolutions for different output devices: Output Device Optimum (ppi) Desktop laser printers (black and white) Desktop color inkjet printers Magazine Quality Desktop laser printers Professional photo lab printers Large-format inkjet printers

170 300 300 300 300 150

Acceptable (ppi) 100 180 225 200 200 120

Resolution

For your onscreen resolution, note that to view an image on the screen, you need fewer pixels than you need for printing. You can have the best view of your image onscreen at 72ppi.

UNDERSTANDING IMAGE DIMENSIONS Image dimensions are the height (vertical) and width (horizontal) measurements of an image. It can be measured in inches or centimeters based on your choice, but usually, it is measured in pixels. It is located in the image size dialog box; to locate it, go to the Menu bar and click on Image; from the options, select Image Size

Then the image dialog box pops up as shown below

The first section in the dialog box is the pixel/image dimension

Whether you will change the image dimension/size is dependent on what you want to use the image for. One of the ways you can change an image dimension is by resampling.

RESAMPLING Resampling is simply changing the number of pixels (pixel dimension) in an image without changing the size. It is important to note that resampling is different from resizing; resizing requires changing only the document size of an

image without changing the pixel number, while the main aim of resampling is to change the number of pixels in an image. To resample, you can choose to increase or reduce the number of pixels in your image; increasing the number of pixels in your image is termed upsampling while reducing the number of pixels in an image is termed downsampling. When you upsample, new image detail that was not present in the original image cannot be created, but when you downsample, detail and information from your original image will be eliminated. For a better result after downsampling, apply the Unsharp Mask filter located in the Sharpen option under the Filter menu. You might be asking, why do I need to resample? Here is it; after working on an image, there might be a need for you to send it to an email or display it on the web, for this, what you will need to do is to downsample. You might also want to print out your image, for this, you need to upsample. I guess you would want to know where exactly the resample option is located; follow these simple steps: Go to the Menu bar and click on Image; from the options, select Image Size

Then the image dialog box pops up as shown below

Look to the lower left side of the dialog box, there you will see the Resample Image option

The Resample Image box determines what happens to the other two options above it and the Pixel Dimensions menu; if the Resample Image box is checked, the other two options are active and in the Pixel Dimensions menu, you will be able to change the values of the width and height

If the Resample Image box is unchecked, the two options above it are greyed out and you won’t be able to change the values in the Pixel Dimensions menu.

HOW TO RESAMPLE AN IMAGE Now, to resample your image, open the image you want to resample, then open the Image Size dialog box as discussed earlier and check the Resample Image box, go to the Pixel Dimensions, enter your desired width and height values; if you want the width to automatically fit the height ratio as you change the height, or vice versa, check the Constrain Proportions option. If your image has styled layers, check the Scale Styles option to scale the style effect in the resampled image. Ready to click the OK button? Hold on, just one more thing; let’s get to know what this box is meant for, I guess you might have wondered what it’s doing right there.

From this box, you can choose the resampling method you would like to use, that is, the method by which you want Photoshop to handle your resampling (interpolation), click in the drop-down arrow to pick your choice.

Bicubic: this resampling method adds new pixels using cubic splines, that is, a cell of pixels, 4 by 4, surrounds each new pixel location. It’s a recommended resampling method as it aids accuracy and speed. Bicubic Sharper: This method maintains the detail in a resampled image and when you want to resample your image smaller, that is, downsample, this option is used to achieve enhanced

sharpening. If it oversharpens some areas, use Bicubic. Bicubic Smoother: use this option when you want to upsample and get a smoother result. Bilinear: this method uses linear interpolation to add new pixels, that is, cell of pixels, 2 by 2, surrounds each new pixel location. The images produced by this method are of medium-quality, smoother than those produced by the nearest neighbor method, but less sharp and less smooth than those produced using the bicubic method. Nearest Neighbor: this is the simplest resampling method; it computes new pixels as the value of the closest pixel in the original image, this results in a coarse effect when downsampling, and a blocky effect when upsampling. Now that you understand the purpose of the dialog box and how you can make use of each resampling method, proceed to select the method that best suits you and finally click on the OK option.

GETTING FAMILIAR WITH COLOR Naturally, the human eye sees colors differently from how a computer monitor does. The human eye sees colors based on three characteristics, which are; hue, saturation, and brightness (HSB), while a computer monitor displays color in varying amounts of red, green, and blue (RGB). From the human perspective, hue is the color reflected by an object; it can be identified by the names, e.g. blue, green, and yellow, etc.

Saturation is the strength of the color

Brightness is how dark or light the color is.

THE RGB COLOR MODE The RGB color model is the standard and the default color mode that Photoshop uses. A monitor, as well as television screens, reflect light through the red, blue, and green (RGB) colors; these colors are referred to as additive primaries and can be mixed in various proportions and intensities resulting in a visible spectrum. It is ideal for images that would be used for web or presentation purposes. When mixed in the same proportions, the result is white; the absence of the three colors results in black color.

THE CMYK COLOR MODE These are colors that are the results of adding two additive primaries together; they are called subtractive primaries because they contain less pure versions of the additive primaries. These colors are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black and are referred to as CMYK. This mode is the standard mode used when you’re planning to print an image. This mode varies based on the settings you specify in the color settings.

COLOR SETTINGS In photoshop, there are default color settings; using them is advisable, but if you choose to change any option, make sure you have a proper understanding of it before you do so. The Color Settings is located in the Edit menu in the menu bar.

To edit the Color Settings, once you locate it in the Edit menu, click on it and the dialog box will appear. There are different sections in the dialog box as seen below

THE WORKING SPACE A color workspace is a variant of a color model with a specific range (gamut) of colors. In the Working Space, there are four options, which are: RGB, CMYK, Gray, and Spot. The last three options are needed when printing, while RGB is the only option required because it is through it that images are displayed on the screen. In the RGB color model, there are color spaces like sRGB, ProPhoto RGB, and so on; each device has its own color space, and this is the reason for the change in image color when an image is moved from one device to another.

THE RGB WORKING SPACE As I mentioned earlier, RGB stands for Red, Green, and Blue; they are primary additives mixed in different

amounts to display the colors we see on the screen. The actual range of colors that Photoshop will produce is based on the color space chosen in the RGB working space. There are some options you can choose from, the common ones are sRGB, Adobe RGB, and ProPhoto RGB. sRGB: this was the designed standard-based for a range of colors. It has a small range of colors, but despite this, it is most widely used, safe to choose, and it is the default color space if you intend to upload your file on the web. It is easy to understand, if you’re a beginner, you might want to stick to this option. Below is the sRGB color range

Adobe RGB (1998): some digital cameras are capable of capturing more than the range available in sRGB, Adobe RGB offers a wider color range than sRGB, thereby allowing photos to preserve their original colors. It also helps photos look better when printed. If desired, files can easily be converted to sRGB after editing. Below is the color range of Adobe RGB

ProPhoto RGB: this is the largest of the commonly used RGB working space; it has a wider color range than Adobe RGB, thereby preserving all color data. After editing in ProPhoto RGB, converting to a smaller RGB color space like sRGB is possible and advisable because ProPhoto RGB requires a larger space than sRGB and Adobe RGB, and also if a ProPhoto RGB edited file is viewed in a non-color managed application, it tends to give a different and dull color. Below is the color gamut of ProPhoto RGB

CHOOSING A COLOR WORKSPACE Choosing a color workspace is dependent on some conditions like what your camera can capture, what your printer can print, the subject you capture, and what suits your needs best. There are computer monitors that can display almost all the color ranges that Adobe RGB has, thereby, making your photo contain richer colors, which will surely make your photo look better. Also, if you would want to print, some printers can produce colors that are only available in Adobe RGB. You might consider choosing sRGB if you intend to display your photos online or send them to a client.

COLOR ADJUSTMENT While editing, you might want to adjust the color in the image, either a portion of the image or the whole image. There are different ways to adjust color in an image, one of which is to select the portion of the image you want to adjust, then click on the color adjustment tool in the Adjustments panel. Before you make color adjustments, duplicate a copy of your image file, remove blemishes, dust spots, and scratches from the image. In making color adjustments, there are several color adjustment commands to help you achieve your goal, these are: Levels command: this command enables you to adjust the color balance. In the Adjustments panel, click on the levels icon, then click on Auto to apply the default automatic levels adjustment. Adjust Levels Auto: this allows you to correct the color balance. You can fine-tune how it behaves to suit you Vibrance command: with this, you can adjust the color saturation in an image Exposure command: this is used to adjust tonality Color Balance command: this command is used to change the general mixture of colors in an image. Hue and Saturation command: this is used to adjust the hue, saturation, and brightness of an image

CALIBRATING YOUR MONITOR There is a tendency that after making a nice edit of an image, you transfer it to another person or print it out, and it appears different from how it is on your screen. Monitor calibration helps to bridge this gap. Monitor calibration is the process of measuring, adjusting, and aligning the screen colors on your computer monitor to match a common standard set by the RGB (red, green, and blue) color model since almost every screen works on this model. Monitor calibration helps you achieve a good-looking image on social media and if you print it or send it to another person that is to view on a separate screen, you’ll be relaxed to get the exact look you want. To measure the color, you need a device called a spectrophotometer or colorimeter; they are devices used to measure light color; though some operating systems provide a local calibration tool, the most recommended option is to get a calibration kit because it doesn’t rely on the user to make adjustments as humans see color differently.

HOW TO CALIBRATE A MONITOR To calibrate your monitor, follow these steps; ❖ Put on your monitor for about 30 minutes before you start to ensure that the monitor displays its normal

❖

brightness. Go to Settings and from the options, click on Display Settings. Once the dialog box appears, scroll down to Calibrate display color and click on Open or just go to the Search bar and type Calibrate display color, then click Open.

❖

A welcome page will be displayed; click on Next to start calibrating, follow the instructions as it guides you through each step, and continue clicking on Next at intervals.

❖

Once the calibration tool opens, the first option you’ll be able to set is gamma, followed by brightness, then, contrast, and finally color. Windows takes you through each step and gives you instructions to follow. Once you finish the last stage, a dialog box will pop up showing you that you’ve successfully created a

❖

new calibration

❖

If you wish to compare the previous calibration and the current calibration, click on the Previous calibration option. Note that this will not change your current calibration

❖

If you’re satisfied with the new one, click on the Finish option, to save your file; if not, click on Cancel to start all over.

CHAPTER FOUR WORKING WITH TYPE TOOL UNDERSTANDING TYPE BASIC While working in Photoshop, you might need to add text to your document; type tools are what make that possible. Photoshop allows users to create both horizontal and vertical text when there is a need to; you can use the same to create Masks; you can as well structure your text in form of cool amazing logos.

MAKING USE OF THE TYPE TOOL The Type Tool comes in four variations, which are the Horizontal Type Tool, the Vertical Type Tool, Horizontal Type Mask Tool, and the Vertical Type Mask Tool. To use the Horizontal Type Tool for example, Open your image or file depending on what you want to do, navigate to the toolbar on the right side and click on the Horizontal Type Tool.

Immediately you tap on the Horizontal Type Tool, the Options Menu at the top of your screen will show up what is available for that particular tool you have clicked. With the Options bar, you can choose your desired font style, font size, font weight, text color, and other available options.

Click and drag with the Type tool on an area of your image to create a new text layer

Then look at the default text to see how your font style and size will look like

Now, you can type your desired text; for this illustration, I’ll use the word “HELLO”.

FORMAT CHARACTER PANEL In the format and character panel, you can set how you want your type attributes to look like or change the appearance of a single selected character, a series of selected characters, or more. Here, you have more formatting options in addition to those available in the Options bar. To locate the character option, go to Windows in the menu bar and select the Character option

Once you click on Character, the dialog box will appear as shown below

Panel Menu: it includes no break, which means no breaking space between two words to remain on the same line. Leading: it helps you to adjust vertical space between lines of text, Auto setting is good. Kerning: it is used to set the space between two characters, Metric is the default design for your font, Optical allows Photoshop to set it for you. Baseline Shift: Moves selected characters above or below the baseline. Commonly used are the subscript and superscript characters. Faux styles: it is used to choose the appearance of the character style; in the faux styles are the Bold, Oblique, and Italic fonts. It also consists of the all caps and small caps, used to capitalize your font text. Dictionary: there are several built-in dictionaries in Photoshop. You can use it to assign dictionaries to be used as you type. Note that if you want to move the text, you need to select the Move tool, click, and drag it to the desired location.

CREATING PARAGRAPH TYPE For larger pieces type of text like paragraph or lists, you will have to: Create a text box line and choose the Horizontal Type Tool. Set your formatting option, then click and drag diagonally on the canvas to create a rectangular text box. You can then proceed to paste or type your text into the box.

The text box is a fixed size, immediately the text reaches the right edge, it wraps onto a new line, and if the text is longer than the box you made you will have to resize the box to make the remaining text visible. To do that, click Control + T and then hold the shift key and drag one of the handle bags.

USING THE TEXT ON SHAPE TOOL In Photoshop, you are not limited to rectangular text boxes. There are various shape tools and you can even manually draw a shape with the pen tool and then fill those shapes with your desired text. Select any of the shape tools you need or you use the pen tool to draw.

Set the Tool Mode to a path in the top left corner of the Options Bar, then draw your shape on the Canvas.

After that, grab the horizontal type tool and click inside the shape you have drawn and the shape will be turned into a text box. Then set your text alignment to Center and type the text into the box. Using a shape tool for your text is useful when you need to wrap text around your image or other objects inside your design.

MASKING WITH TYPE The last parts of Photoshop’s type tool are the Horizontal Type Mask Tool and the Vertical Type Mask Tool; these tools do not place text on canvas, they rather create text-based shapes that you can use in your design. However, it is very important to select your desired font before you start because returning to edit is not allowed. To use these tools; ➢ Start by either opening an image in Photoshop or you can select a colored layer

➢

Navigate to the toolbar to select one Type Mask tool and set your desired font. I’ll use the Horizontal Type Mask Tool to illustrate.

➢

Then click the Canvas and start typing, when you are done typing, click the Enter key, and your text will turn into a selection.

You will see that the area inside the text displays the image clearly and outside the text is presently colored red, which signifies that at the next process of masking, you will not be able to select the same mask format anymore. ➢ Proceed to click on the Commit Change button, the text will change into an active selection which will give you a couple of options. Then, click on the Selection Tool that resembles the Lasso Tool, right-click on the tool, and select Layer via Copy for you to copy the area inside the text to a new layer.

You can navigate to the Layer Option Panel to choose to add a Mask if you want to, and the entire image of the text will be covered with Mask, leaving the area inside the Selection visible when masking. Do not forget that white reveals and black hides.

Other two ways to use Type Mask: 1.

Add a texture to your text. Click the Add Layer Mask button located at the bottom of the Layers panel, then the background will be transparent, showing the text shape containing the texture from the original image.

2. Fill the text with the background color. Press CTRL + Backspace to cut out the text and replace it with your currently selected background color.

STYLIZING AND WARPING TYPE After you have gotten the basic setting Options Bar, there are a few things you need to know if you must get the best from the type tool. 1. Text Direction: Used to switch between horizontal and vertical text. 2. Anti-aliasing: Sets how smooth or crisp you want your text to look.

3. Warp Text: it distorts texts; it has 15 preset styles you can choose from. 4. Open character/paragraph panel: used for adjusting character settings. 5. 3D: used to switch to Photoshop’s 3D view.

WARPING YOUR TEXT To warp means to distort. You might need to fit in a text to a particular shape, warp text helps you achieve that. You can warp your text with different effects such as Arc, Wave, Burge, Fisheye, and Flag. I will take you through the steps to warp texts; follow me Click on the text you want to warp Navigate to the Edit menu From the options, select Transform

Then click on Warp

From the popup menu, select a warp style.

Also, you can simply highlight the text and click on the Create Warp Text icon in the Options menu bar

WARPING AN IMAGE Photoshop lets you warp an image as well, thereby, allowing you to make use of the warp option to slightly slim a person. Do this by gently clicking on the control points. To warp an image, simply select the area of the image you want to warp, go to the Edit menu, select the Transform option and click on Warp; a grid will show over the image, then, you can start manipulating the image until it suits you by clicking on the control points (the points on the grid); if you want to use a warp preset, click on the warp icon in the Options bar

From the options that pop up, select any choice style.

CHAPTER FIVE MAKING AND MODIFYING SELECTION DEFINING SELECTION Selecting and modifying certain parts of an image is essential to Photoshop function. Part of the basic features of Photoshop is the enablement to modify only one part of an image leaving the rest untouched; this can be by Selection and there are lots of tools menu operations that help in realizing this objective. There are a lot of selection tools, but the most basic ones are Rectangular and Elliptical Marquee tools; they enable you to manually select simple shapes of any size; you can as well select several areas either separate or joined together. One of the selection tools also is the Lasso tool, which has various tools as well that you can use to select an area of irregular shape, freehand area, and a lot more. Let us move to the process of making a selection and check the various options under it.

CREATING RECTANGULAR AND ELLIPTICAL SELECTIONS The Rectangular Marquee Tool is used when you need to draw a selection in the shape of a rectangle or a square. The Elliptical Marquee Tool works exactly as the Rectangular Marquee Tool aside from the oval or circular shape it can draw. The size and aspect ratio can be set with the help of the Rectangular Marquee Tool; a ratio of 1 x 1 can draw a circle, while the other ratio will draw ellipses of various sizes. These tools are located at the top of the Tools panel and the icon there is dependent on the tool you used last.

To use the Elliptical Marquee Tool, go to the Tools panel and select the Elliptical Marquee Tool as discussed earlier

Proceed to where you want to start your selection, then with your mouse, click and drag to the opposite corner until it covers the area you want to select. As you continue dragging, the selection marquee (marching ants) appears. Once you cover the desired area, release your mouse. It may seem tricky to get at the first trial. Alternatively, if you

want to drag from the center out, simply hold down the Alt and Shift keys on your keyboard and start dragging from the center outward where you want your ellipse to be. When you have your desired selection, release your mouse, then the Alt and Shift keys.

To use the Rectangular Marquee, select the Rectangular Marquee Tool

Click and drag with your mouse from the corner of the area you want to select to the opposite corner. As you continue dragging, the selection marquee will appear. Once you cover the desired area, release your mouse

You may either draw it with a freehand rectangle or you set the Size or Ratio by using the style option in the Options bar. In the style option, select Fixed Ratio and set both the width and height as 1, thereby making it a 1x1 ratio.

GETTING STRAIGHT WITH THE POLYGONAL LASSO TOOL

When shapes are becoming more complex, Polygonal Lasso Tool is needed. If you wish to draw a complex freehand drawing, make use of the Polygonal tool and the mouse; it may seem tricky but continue practicing it, you will get to master it. To start with, select the Polygonal Lasso Tool

After you have selected your Polygonal Lasso Tool, proceed to click around the edge of the area you want to select. As soon you complete the loop you are making or you double-click, the selection will be completed automatically and you will notice the “Marching ants” border.

You should be aware that an ideal tool for cutting or copying a complex shape out from a background is the polygonal Lasso Tool Selection, and you can make the part you cut out or copy as part of another picture. The Polygonal Lasso Tool is helpful especially when the case has lots of straight and regular edges that you can follow with ease as the one shown below.

MODIFY YOUR SELECTION Modify selection in Photoshop simply means refining selections. The standard tools for selection are Lasso, Magic Wand, and Marquee; they are all good for making basic selections of regular and well-defined shapes. Their only shortcoming is the inability to pick out soft-edged or fined shapes; that has always been an issue.

WORKING WIZARDLY WITH THE MAGIC WAND Let us take for instance and examine this studio image setting that has too much light, which is not in good alignment with the plain background; for this reason, there is a need to separate it from the background. However, because it is plain background, it may be kind of difficult to use an ordinary selection tool like Magic Wand. Nevertheless, let us give it a try and check its result

The result makes the edge around the model’s hair look very terrible as a consequence of using Magic Wand selection because the image area has an uneven edge, while the Magic Wand has an inherent inability to distinguish between the fine edge of the hair and the background.

ELIMINATING WITH THE ERASER TOOLS The eraser tool has a little similar function to a brush and uses the same palette options. It is different from the standard brush tool because it can render pixels from a layer transparent by allowing those layers beneath to show through. The Eraser tool also has tool options like Opacity, Flow, and a unique one, Erase to history, which can be used together with the history palette to select undo changes in layers. The mode option being used by Eraser are Brush, Block, and Pencil. There are other types of Eraser options that you can use if you click and hold the Eraser tool, they are Background Eraser and Magic Eraser. The background layer will erase part of the background by converting the background into a layer, while the Magic Eraser tool combines the Magic Wand tool with the Eraser tool and selectively connect areas of color.

THE ERASER TOOL Let’s examine one example with the Eraser tool to understand the technique very well: Just like a real-world eraser, the Eraser tool erases the pixels from your image. Whichever color you have selected as your background will be the same you will use to erase pixel data from the image just exactly as if you are using a solid colored brush. You likewise set the Opacity and Size of the eraser.

If the image is on the layer, it means erasing pixels will show a transparent area instead. Furthermore, you may alter the Size and Opacity of the Eraser Tool. Also, you can set the transparent area to be fully or partially transparent, which will depend on the Brush opacity setting.

BACKGROUND ERASER TOOL The Background Eraser tool is very useful for the targeted removal of certain parts of an image. It reacts somehow like Color Replacement Tool, but in this case, any pixel color beneath the cursor is removed, leaving the transparent area when it is on a layer.

You may change the Size and Tolerance of the brush, including the softness and spacing of the brush you use. Tolerance serves as the key to the sensitivity of the brush to changes in color. High

Tolerance simply means a more varied color under the cursor position.

In respect of this illustration, the blue sky can be erased from the image simply by placing the cursor over the blue sky to be removed. As you click and drag the mouse, whichever blue sky falls under the cursor position will be erased, but the white color will not be changed since it is not blue.

MAGIC ERASER TOOL The Magic Eraser Tool is a widely acceptable erasing tool. Adjust the tolerance for more to be included or lower to select fewer shades of the target color at the cursor position. As you click on the blue sky, large swatches of that color will be removed with each click of the mouse.

REFINING THE EDGE OF A SELECTION Fortunately, the ‘Select and Mask’ option has been introduced into the latest Photoshop version, which can make a finer distinction. You will find the Select and Mask option very simple to use; begin with Magic Wand or Polygonal Lasso selection, set as close as possible to the edge of the hair or edge selection.

Then click on the Refine Edge button on the Tool Options bar in the dialog Windows; check the box marked Smart Radius, and then set the brush size with the square brackets keys so that it will be large enough to cover the area that surrounds the hair. Continue by painting around the edge, which will overlap both the model and the background as well.

After you are done painting around all the edges that you want to refine, simply click on Ok for it to start to recalculate the edge; you would notice that the later result is a better improvement over the earlier one.

There are other tools you can use to modify a selection that will give you a finer result; to access those tools, navigate to the Select menu and click on Modify, there will be drop-down options, which are Border, Smooth, Expand, Contract, and Feather; they are very easy to use and helpful as well. Let us try to check on each of them:

Border: this option is used to create borders of equal sizes around your original selection by using the Paint Bucket Tool. It will convert the single-line selection into a border of a specific width; be careful so that the border will not extend equal amounts from either side of your original selection. Go to the Select menu, click on Modify and click on Borders; a dialog box named Border Selection will popup; type the border width that you will like to use, and click on the OK option. Note that the higher the number, the bigger the border will appear on your image.

Smooth: is the tool that erases the wrinkles and kinks from the line of your selection; it works perfectly if you have a smooth-edged object selection, but it will round off the corner if it happens to be an irregular shape. From the Modify options under the Select menu, select Smooth; the dialog box will pop up, then type in the desired value. The bigger the value of the smooth selection, the smoother and less detailed the selection will be.

Expand: exactly as its name denotes, its work is to expand the size of the selection by a particular number of pixels. Under the Select menu, click on Modify and select Expand. In the dialog box, type in the value you want. The bigger the value of the selection expansion, the smaller the detail and shape of the original selection will become.

Contract: this is the exact opposite of Expand; it shrinks the size of the selection by a particular number of pixels, for the Contract option, the higher the value you input to contract the selection, the higher the original selection’s shape and details will be.

Feather: Feathering A Selection After you make a selection, you’ll notice that the selection edges are too sharp/hard; feathering them helps to soften them. Let’s assume the tool you used for selection is the Rectangular Marquee Tool, after clicking on the point where you want to start your selection, and then you hold and drag diagonally to the Opposite Corner, as I mentioned earlier, you will notice “Marching ants” following the cursor as it makes a line around your selection points.

After you release your mouse and the selection is made, you will notice that the edges are too sharp and that’s where feathering comes in. To proceed, use the Paint Bucket tool to fill the area you have selected. (The Paint Bucket tool is located in the Tools Panel as one of the options under the Gradient tool. Click and hold the Gradient Tool to show other related tools and locate the Paint Bucket tool that looks like a bucket with a droplet of paint ). Once you locate it, click on it to fill the area you selected

NOTE: If you’re using the tool directly on an image, there is no need to use the Paint Bucket Tool, just move to the next step. Now, let’s see the effect of feathering on selected parts below Go to the Select menu at the menu bar located at the top of your screen

Locate the Modify option and click on it

From the displayed options, click on Feather

The Feather Selection dialog box will popup; type a desired number into the Feather Radius box depending on how soft you want the edges to become. The higher the number you type in the box, the greater the feathering effect. After that, click on the OK option

Now, you will notice that the selection edges are now feathered with the Marquee (Marching ants) staying at the very middle of the feathered area.

Note: you may want to select more than one area or want to add to your current selection, simply hold the Shift button and it will temporarily put the tool into “Add Selection” mode.

CHAPTER SIX KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS You can perform almost every action in Photoshop in a quick and fast way. Almost all the program functions can be coded with the combination of two or more keys. Knowing these shortcut keys will speed up your work greatly. Let me quickly take you through some commonly-used shortcuts that can fast-track your image editing work. Though there are many shortcuts, let’s focus on the key ones for easy understanding. CREATE

NEW

LAYER

CREATE NEW DOCUMENT PASTE

FROM

CLIPBOARD REDO LAST STEP

INVERT SELECTION COPY TO CLIPBOARD CLOSE CURRENT DOCUMENT CLOSE ALL DOCUMENT

LEVELS ZOOM IN VIEW CURVES

ZOOM OUT VIEW

CUT TO CLIPBOARD

FREE TRANSFORM

FIT ON SCREEN INCREASE BRUSH SIZE

DECREASE BRUSH SIZE

SAVE CURRENT DOCUMENT

100% ZOOM

TURN SNAP-ON OR OFF BRING

CURRENT

LAYER

TO

TOP

SHOW RULERS SELECT

ALL

ON

CURRENT

LAYER

SAVE AS

DESELECT ALL

UNDO LAST STEP

MOVE CURRENT LAYER UP

SHOW OR HIDE GRID MOVE

CURRENT

LAYER

DOWN TOGGLE LAST STATE

HELP

SHOW OR HIDE GUIDE

CHAPTER SEVEN CORRECTING CONTRAST, COLOR, AND CLARITY USING BRIGHTNESS AND ADJUSTMENT If you want to brighten your photo quickly and easily, brightness is the best option. Brightness/Contrast is found in an Adjustment layer in the palette on the right side, or go to the Image menu, and click on Adjustments.

Brightness/Contrast has been improved over time; the adjustment includes the tonal balance to adjust the brightness of the images. The overall brightness of the whole photo will be increased anytime the Brightness Slider is shifted to the right; though the new algorithms retain a significant balance in shadow tones, you can twist or adjust the effect with Contrast Slider.

COLORIZING A PHOTO At times, you may feel like sampling the color you want to use for your document; that is not a difficult task to do; let me take you through how to sample color in Photoshop Let's assume the picture you are about to use has no color and there is a need for a colored background, or the image subject is to be removed from its background and there is a need to place a color behind it.

Simply navigate to the bottom of the Layer Palette and click on the Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon and select from the options of the available layer adjustments. For this case, select Solid Color, and the color picker “specifically” solid color will open.

The default color for Solid Color is always black, except you have chosen a color, which is the active foreground color. The new Color Fill 1 layer will be put on top of the cut-out subject; you have to click and drag so that it will be placed below the subject. After that, your subject should be sitting on a black background.

Double-click on the Color Fill 1 thumbnails (note that the thumbnail is different from the masks) and the color picker will show up again, then hover your cursor over any Photoshop workspace, then left-click and hold. Whichever area your cursor is, the color below it will directly become the new background color.

Hover the cursor over your subject and in no time the background becomes the color; click on another color, like pink, and then hover the cursor over your subject and it becomes a pink color. You can also click on the blue color in the color picker, and the background will become a steel blue color, which is a great job, though there is still more to it.

Having the color picker active, resize the Photoshop Window and create another Window beside it, then open a preferred browser and search for “Earth color Swatches”. Having your color picker still active, hover your cursor on top of the contents of the other Window to sample even more colors.

OPENING CLOSED EYES Gone are those days that you throw your picture away because the eyes are shut, the latest version of Photoshop has accurately provided a means by which you can open closed eyes; if you have another face sample where the eyes are opened and look like your original picture in respect of color and lighting, you can easily replace those closed eyes with the open ones. Follow these simple steps below to achieve that Navigate to the File menu and then to your primary photo storage where your photo is kept; to open the image, either select it and click the Open button or double-click the Image.

Move to the Enhance menu, then swing to the Open Closed Eyes option and the Open Eyes dialog will appear, there you can choose the compatible Eye source to open your closed image eyes with.

If it happens you have some selections that you can try instantly with, just like two female and two male sets of sample eyes as seen below, you can proceed to try it out with any of them.

For an excellent result, check for a photo that nearly matches the color and lighting of your original photo. You can click on Choose from the Computer option and search for an appropriate picture.

As soon as you get the compatible image, double-click on it to load it as an eye source, and then click on the eye source thumbnails to apply it to your image. Click Ok when you are done.

The new eyes format you have found will be mapped over the original image and it will be blended as possible as it can be. Once you are satisfied with the result, you should save it under another.

CHAPTER EIGHT DRAWING AND PAINTING SPLASHING ON COLOR WITH THE PAINT BUCKET The Paint Bucket tool grants you the chance to fill areas with solid colors, you can set the Opacity, Blend modes, and Tolerance. If you set the tolerance to be high, it simply means it is going to use edge detection to decide areas that can be filled, while low setting tolerance means it is going to ignore it.

The entire layer can be filled or you can use it to fill a specific area. Let us check the example we have for this, which is a cartoon character on a white background. If you check its outline, you will notice it is quite well-defined, and thus, clicking the Paint Bucket means the background can easily be filled with a color.

Under the options heading, you will see an option for Contiguous Fill, if you tick it, it will only be filled with neighboring colors, but if it is not ticked it simply means all matching colors in the image will be filled, it does not matter their position in the picture.

Furthermore, for the Paint Bucket, the Pattern fill option is available, you have to adjust the Tolerance and Opacity levels in this place as well, then select a pattern and use such to fill the whole layer, in this cartoon, the black background can be filled with texture as shown below

WORKING WITH MULTICOLOR GRADIENT Gradient tools allow you to fill your entire layer and area of your image with colors, such colors can fade from one to another or fade from color to transparent; gradient tool needs a filled shape, which should be defined by a selection, that means it does not use edge detection.

Click on the Gradient Picker and pick the gradient you want to use, then select a Preset from the list; preset ranges from foreground to transparent to multiple color gradients, which you can access with a click of a button.

You may choose to create your gradient, simply click on the Gradient Editor and add the specific option called color stops to a basic gradient. Adjust their color and then define if they are solid or transparent. Note that any custom you make can be saved as a preset.

Let us consider a camera on a white background as an illustration; the background has an active selection around it, which can be used to enclose the gradient when it is added. You can click and drag the cursor to draw out a start point and an endpoint that the gradient will follow.

As you release the mouse, the current gradient will be applied and it will fill the active selection around the camera. The default gradient type is Linear, which means the gradient travels on a straight path from the start color to the end color.

If needed, you can change the gradient type you are using from default to any other type such as radial, angles, reflected, and diamond gradients. Their blend mode and opacity can be adjusted and reversed, and the transparency and the Dither options can also be turned off or on.

WORKING WITH COLOR PICKER This is a tool that gives you a small-eyedropper cursor in such a way that when you click on a photo, it will pick the color beneath the cursor position and make it the active foreground just as its name indicates.

Anytime you want to use a color picker, you have to choose whether the samples will be a singlepixel or a 3 x 3 average or 5 x 5-pixel area to create an average when it samples color; it can sample across all layers or a single layer.

DRAWING MULTIPLE SHAPES Photoshop provides you with the custom shape tool to select from several predefined shapes and add them as vector shapes on a new layer. Select the color and layer style from the style picker. Also, you may choose either it’s of a fixed size or unconstrained. Immediately you’re done with the settings, draw out the selected shape on your photo; you can click and drag from the corner outward or from the center to draw the shape from the cursor position; when you release the mouse button, the shape will be filled with your chosen color. You can add text as well, and fix it to a particular path or shape. PENCIL TOOL The pencil tool has been programmed to act just like a real-world pencil, it is a hard-edged tool that has several preset pencil tip shapes to draw with. In the settings, you can as well select Size, Opacity, and Blend Mode for your pencil strokes along with the desired color. You can then start to use your mouse to sketch and draw with the pencil as you want to. It is either you draw directly over an existing image or you create a new layer and draw on it to preserve the version of the original one.

CHAPTER NINE SIMPLE MAKEOVER CROPPING, RESIZING, AND STRAIGHTENING IMAGES At times, you may have too many objects in the surroundings of a picture and you feel like focusing on the main image, or the complete image is too big and you want to make it smaller, or the image is bent or not completely straight to the extent that you need to straighten it, all of them are easy tasks. Let’s go deeper into how to go about each of them

CROPPING AWAY WITH THE CROP TOOL To crop out irrelevant objects that surround your image, you need the service of the crop tool. Simply move to the tool palette and select the crop tool; it’s the fourth icon when you count from the top. It looks like two crossed squares. Simply start from any corner you want to keep and drag the box to cover the other areas you want to keep, thereby making the area you do not want anymore to fall outside the box. It may seem difficult at the first trial or maybe you are unable to get the exact size. If you find it difficult to get the exact size, no qualms, you can adjust the box size by making use of the drag-handles that are on each corner. Once you’re done, press the Enter key on your keyboard to complete the cropping process.

RESIZING AN IMAGE To resize an image, go to the Image Menu and choose the Image size option or click on Cmd + Alt + I as the shortcut on your keyboard.

Once you click on the Image Size, a dialog box will pop up, check the box beside Resample image and open the drop-down options panel below it to choose your preferred Resampling Mode

Now, to resize the image, under the pixel’s dimensions panel, click in the Width box and enter the Width that you want your image to be, you may use 800 pixels as that will be an ideal size for uploading on the website, as you change the width, the height will change automatically to make the aspect ratio the same. Once you’re done with that, press Ok and your image will be resized.

Changing the Canvas size The canvas size is the exact workspace, which is the visible area of the image. You can either increase or reduce the canvas size; increasing the canvas size adds space around the sides of the image while reducing it amounts to cropping the image. To change the canvas size, go to the Image menu and choose Canvas Size; you may prefer to use the shortcut by pressing Cmd + Alt + C.

The dialog box will appear; at the top of the dialog box, you will see the current size containing the current width and height of the canvas; below it is the New Size menu, here, type your new desired width in the Width box, click on the drop-down arrow next to the box to choose the unit you want, either pixels, inches or otherwise; type your desired height in the Height box and select your preferred unit as well.

If you want a relative width and height, check the Relative box; if not, enter the different values you want.

NOTE: enter positive values in the width and height boxes to increase the canvas size, and negative values to decrease it. To proceed, go to the Anchor option; this determines the area where the increase/decrease takes place, whether from the top, side, center or otherwise, thereby, determining how the image will appear inside the canvas. By default, the image is located at the center, and the increase or decrease in size takes place around the canvas. You can change the anchor point by clicking on the surrounding Arrows in the box below to determine where you want the effect to take place.

There will be a warning notice that you are about to cut out part of the image, simply ignore it. Once you’re done with that, click on the OK option.

EDITING IN QUICK MODE There are several methods to edit your image, which in turn makes your image look great. Let’s examine the Quick mode method of editing:

FIXING SMALL IMPERFECTIONS WITH TOOL Let us start from the Quick Mode workspace. I will be using an image of a pier that needs editing to make it look great.

If you take a close look at the image above, you’ll notice a black spot on it at the top right, identified with the arrow. The presence of the large black spot is not making the image look perfect, let’s get to remove it following

these simple steps: Navigate to the toolbar and select one of the Healing Brush Tools.

Having selected it, you are good to use it to paint directly on the blemish and then work out what you want to fill it with by examining the area around it. The best options Spot Healing Brush Tool employs for any type of blemish are Proximity Match and ContentAware.

RETOUCHING WITH THE HEALING BRUSH TOOL With the Healing Brush Tool, you will be able to select an area to be the clone source by clicking on a clean part of the image, which is very next to the blemish. The selected area will then clone over the blemish as you paint over it without any interruption, making it blend with the clone source area. You may want to alter the brush size for full effectiveness, you can do that with the help of the Size Slider in the tool options panel

You can also press the parentheses on your keyboard; pressing the left parenthesis will reduce the size, and pressing the right parenthesis will increase the size. Doing this allows you to clone accurately.

Looking at the image now, you will perceive that the blemish has been removed. Let us try to make the image look more attractive; to do this, layers would have been the best option but are not available in the Quick mode. The simplest way to affect the image is to navigate to Adjustment from the taskbar.

Inside the Adjustment panel, select Smart Fix and choose from the many options. Hover on each of them to see a preview of how the effect will be when you apply it to your photo. Once you get a preferred option, click on it to apply.

Let us proceed and flip to Exposure Adjustment, where you can choose how bright or dark you want your image to be. You can as well hover on the several options to see a preview of the effects if applied, or you can simply use the slider to directly adjust the brightness of the image to suit your taste.

The best option that controls the lighting of your image is the Lighting control panel, which comprises Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights. You can adjust each of them by clicking on each one after the other and adjusting with the slider as desired for more refined and subtle control of the tonal options.

The intensity and color of your image can be controlled in the Color Panel. Raise the Saturation higher or use Vibrance to increase the most crushed color first. Hues will let you shift the entire color palette for a fantastic color effect if you want.

The Balance Panel offers you options to shift your color Temperature from cold to warm, while the Tint allows you to add either an increasingly green color cast or a magenta cast to aid you in offsetting any inconsistency or contradiction in your original image.

Lastly, you can use the Sharpen panel to apply different levels of sharpness to your image, but be careful not to overdo it as it can create artifacts and halos as the contrast increases and bright unwanted highlights around the area of high contrast in your photo.

QUICK MODE AUTO MODE There are a lot of Auto features you can use to improve your image; they can be accessed under the Enhance menu, but they are quite wide and they do not give accurate fitness, thus, you have no precise control over the outcome; if at all you want to exercise some more control over them, there are some things to put in place. Let us look at those things.

AUTO SMART TONE Navigate to the Enhance menu, and click on Auto Smart Tone (Shift + cmd + T)

An active panel will appear in which you can drag the cursor around the grid. Each grid corner shows a possible outcome that can be attained by shifting the cursor further in that direction. Continue moving till you get the desired result.

AUTO COLOR CORRECTION

Navigate to the Enhance menu once again and click on Adjust Color Correction.

Here, you have the Adjust curve, where you can adjust the Midtones, Highlights, and Shadows of your image. It also includes some preset styles that you can select from to enhance the color of your image and also sliders for manual adjustment.

AUTO HAZE REMOVAL Another enhancement option with a light touch is the Haze Removal tool. To use it, simply move to the Enhance menu, then select Haze Removal (Shift + Cmd + Z).

The effect may be too strong/sharp, but there are sliders to adjust the strength/intensity of Haze reduction that you desire apply including the sensitivity of the Haze detection.

CLONING WITH THE CLONE STAMP TOOL Clone Stamp is also known as Clone Brush; it remains an accurate and suitable way to retouch an image; it helps to remove unwanted objects, such as skin blemishes, dust, dirt, and other irrelevant objects from your pictures. Though there is a recent development, which brought Healing tool and Content-Aware Fill, yet Clone Stamp remains the best tool for removing unwanted dirt because it employs manual process and gives an excellent result, though it is time taking. Let’s quickly examine a photo of a sports motor, with a good shot, but with unwanted objects in the surrounding.

Taking a good look at the image, you will realize that there are flags and some other dirt in the foreground, which are a bit distracting, and would have a better appearance if absent. To eliminate the flags and unwanted objects from the shot, the Clone Stamp tool is the suitest tool to use. Follow these steps to remove the unwanted objects: Navigate to the toolbar and chose Clone Stamp Tool; a dialog box will pop up, requiring you to set the brush size and hardness. Set the size between 80-100 pixels, set the brush hardness between 025%, and go back to your image.

Ensure you tick the Aligned option, which means that the sampling area will be moving as your brush moves, if not, the clone stamp will be sampling the same area repeatedly until you change it.

Click the area next to the object you want to remove. For this illustration, click the grass area that is next to the flag, then press the Alt key. The command you made will bring a small target icon. The area under this target is the sample to be used as the starting point of the cloning, then left-click to confirm it as your sample area.

You can now begin to move the cursor over the flag, with the level of your target area from the last step. It is displayed as overwhelming, such that you will see what is about to clone the flag. Continue to click and drag your mouse down the pole, and the grass next to it will clone over it, removing the pole.

You can then proceed to select another target sample area to the right side of the flag and also clone grass from that side too over the remaining area of the flag. Also check, perhaps there is any repeated area that stands out as being cloned, if you find any, select a new target area and clone in some new grass to have the same pattern occurring.

You may now navigate to the second flag on the left side and make a new sample clone over the pole just the same way you did with the first flag.

Let’s perfect it by sampling the mud area to the left side and then clone it over the remaining top part of the flag.

Finally, we can now move further to remove the telephone line from the top of the shot using the same technique

and pattern used to remove the flags The inconsistent nature of some particles across the frame will be kind of useful in sampling the area directly above the unwanted telephone line and thereafter clone the sample on top of it. As previously discussed, select the sample area and drag your mouse over the object you want to remove, thereby making the sample area clone over the target object.

After the completion, judge the result and check if you can see any repeating patterns that still give the game away, then simply clone over such areas over the offending repeated parts with random grass or other areas as necessary.

ZEROING IN ON THE SPOT HEALING BRUSH TOOL Removing skin blemishes may be a challenge, but the Spot Healing Brush tool is effective at removing such, though it can also create some issues during the process; do not worry, let me show you easy ways of getting the most from your Spot Healing Brush tool: Here is an image of a pretty lady, but with acne on her face. The goal here is to retouch the acnes without clear indication because almost all other areas are clean. As discussed earlier, the most suitable choice for this type of issue is the Spot Healing Brush tool. Now, let’s get to work.

For non-destructive adjustment, make a new layer above the main image and name it “Retouch”, any work or adjustment made will be shown on this layer, then select the Spot Healing Brush from the toolbar. Set the Brush Hardness to about 75 pixels and tick the Sample All Layers option.

Click on the new “Retouch” layer to make it active, so that any cloned pixels will be added to the “Retouch” layer only, thereby, preserving the original image in the “Background” layer under it. In as much you have checked Sample All Layers, Pixel data from the main still be patched on the new layer.

As you begin to brush over the blemishes by starting from her eyebrow, the outcome may be somehow blurry, and the healing process may also remove parts of the brow. In another way, if you navigate to the Options Menu in the top left of the screen and select Lighten, you will be more accurate in the healing.

Try to undo what you have earlier done and try the tool; setting your Lighten mode active, you will perceive that the darker blemishes are removed, but more of the hair part is left untouched. The Lighten Mode focuses on the darker pixels of the blemish, not the lighter pixels of the hair.

You may now proceed to focus on the darker blemish pixels (the acnes) on the face to get them cleared.

Now, If you view the “retouch” layer on its own, you will notice you have successfully cloned new pixel data on this layer and preserve the original image under it with a non-destructive edit

REPOSITIONING WITH THE CONTENT-AWARE MOVE TOOL As a result of advancements in technology, Photoshop has moved further in respect of the Content-Aware move

tool introduction, which has now been split into Content-Aware Fill and Content-Aware Move tools. The Content-Aware Move Tool is used to select a particular object in the background and move it to a new area in the image. The Content-Aware should automatically fill in the area that you moved the object from.

Content-Aware move tool is not used often unless the object you want to move is on virtually plain ground, whichever case, it is simpler to use the Clone Stamp tool but some users find the Content-Aware Move tool more useful. The Content-Aware Fill tool is very helpful such that you can use it to fill selected areas of an image with other surrounding parts of the image Select the area of the image you want to remove. For this illustration, I’ll be using the Magic Wand tool.

Then right-click within the selection and choose the Content-Aware Fill option.

Then navigate to the Select menu and click on Modify, then next to expand. You can then enlarge

the selection area by a fair amount. Considering this picture, 12 pixels should be alright, once you’re done entering the number you want, click OK

Then expect a short pause as Photoshop analyzes the image and fills the blank areas with the texture derived from the content of the immediate surrounding area.

LIGHTENING AND DARKENING WITH DODGE AND BURN TOOLS Dodging and Burning are essential parts of photo editing; dodging is the process of lightening an image at the darkroom stage by reducing the photograph print exposure that exists in that particular area, while Burning is the exact opposite of dodging, it is the process of making an image darker by exposing the parts of the image for long to the print. Taking a white and black image as a sample, the image is low in contrast, let us make use of the dodge and burn principle to create more life into it. We selectively add brightness and contrast to produce a better image: Open the image you want to adjust with the dodge and burn tools. In this case, I selected a black and white image that is low in contrast to exercise the effectiveness of the dodge and burn procedure.

This specific process is a destructive one, and thus, there is a need for a duplicate layer. Begin by pressing Cmd + J to make the duplicate layer and name it “dodge”; it is on this layer you will start the “dodging” process.

Quickly move to the Toolbar and select the Dodge Tool from the Dodge and Burn fly-out panel. Then proceed and click on the Context menu above and choose the Range Button in which there will be a drop-down menu; from the menu, choose Highlight; this means it’ll affect the brightest of the tones in the image.

Set the Exposure Value as 10%, select the Enable airbrush button, and tick the Protect Tones box, which means that the dodge effect can be added slowly and tones and other details cannot be erased with one click.

Next, choose Soft Round Brush, which you will be using to apply the effect. The size to be taken should correspond with the resolution of the image you are working with. Simply set the Hardness Value to be 0%.

Gently move the mouse and simultaneously click and drag over the lighter area and highlights in the image. You will perceive that with each move of the brush, the tones are getting lighter and brighter. Keep working over the nose, cheeks, beards, and eyes.

The level to which you will lighten the areas of the image wholly depends on your taste. After performing some additional brightening as desired, you will see the difference from the image you began work with.

At this very stage, you may wish to conclude it and save it as done. Nevertheless, we have just covered one aspect of the Dodge and Burn technique. At this level, let us apply the burn effect to the image and give it a name.

Click on the “Dodge” layer to check if it is still active, then press Cmd + J to duplicate it. Click on the new layer and give it the name “Burn”. You can keep working in the previous layer to any extent you want, we simply duplicated it to work with the tools separately and then compare the effects to see the differences.

On the new layer, navigate to the Toolbar, and this time around, select the Burn Tool from the Dodge and Burn fly-out panel. For the Burn tool settings, select Shadows under the Range Value, and set the Exposure Value as 5% or thereabout. As you are about to apply the burn effect, one needs to be careful and clever in its application.

Proceed to start painting over the darker areas of the face, such as under the eyes, nose, and the shadow at the right side of the face. The aim of this is to darken existing dark areas to increase the tonal range between them and the highlights.

Perhaps the brush size is required, you can make the size of the brush larger or smaller by pressing

the bracket key on your keyboard. This key, “]” will increase the brush size, while this key, “[’’ will decrease the brush size.

You can as well go to the Context menu to change the Range Value to Mid-Tones, which will grant you access to the tonal values that sit between the highlight and shadows area.

With that, we have successfully used the dodge(lighten) and burn (Darken) tools in the key areas to lift the original low-contrast image. The image is brighter compared to the original one, with dodge and burn tools, doing what sets of contrasts and brightness could not do.

SMUDGING AWAY ROUGH SPOT The Smudge Tool helps you to spread the pixels of your photo across the screen for a creative effect. You can adjust the brush type and set the size and strength of the effect like that of sharpening and blurring. The fingerpainting button adds color to your smudged pixels.

SOFTENING WITH THE BLUR TOOL The Blur Tool is used for adding a blurry effect to a particular area of a photo. Open the image you want to apply the effect on, go to the toolbar and click on the blur tool, represented with a teardrop icon. Under the settings, select a Brush type and set its Size and Strength values for either an intense or slight blurring of the subject. The higher the value, the higher the effect on the image.

THE SHARPEN TOOL The Sharpen Tool is used to give an image a sharper appearance. You can make use of the Sharpen Tool in sharpening your image; it is a target method of adding sharpness to your image. Select your desired Brush type and adjust the Size and Strength values to get your desired effects.

When sharpening your image, be very cautious not to overdo or outdo it and thus destroy the image. Ensure that the Protect Detail button is ticked as shown above, and then you can start to apply the sharpening effect by painting over the area you want to sharpen with the brush.

You can also use the Smart Sharpen option to sharpen an image; go to the Filter menu, select the Sharpen option and choose Smart Sharpen. The dialog box will pop up; select the preview option as you want; you can set Amount to about 150% to start, for the Radius, it depends on how wide the area you want to sharpen is, but usually, you can choose 1, or 2. Note that while sharpening an image, there is the tendency for noise; on the Smart Sharpen dialog box, there is a slider to control the noise level, set it as desired after sharpening to control the effect.

THE SPONGE TOOL The Sponge Tool is an easy-to-use tool used for adding targeted Saturation (color intensity) or Desaturation to an image. You might want to saturate a particular part of the image to draw focus to it. Desaturating an image greys out the parts you desaturate. Under the settings, you get to choose which of the actions you want to perform, either saturate (increase color intensity) or desaturate (reduce color intensity), control the size, including the flow of the effect you want to make. You will also need to set the type of Brush you want to use to apply the effect, the brush tip, and other brush options. Open the image you want to sponge

Go to the toolbar and select the Sponge Tool

In the Tool Options, click on the drop-down arrow to select a Brush type from the preset; adjust the size of the brush tip to your preference (large and soft brushes are advisable for a larger area, while smaller brushes are best for small objects or specific areas in an image). Select the Flow rate (speed) with the slider or the text box. It is advisable to set the flow rate around 10%. Then, proceed to paint carefully over the areas you want to Saturate or Desaturate. Continue to brush

the areas to increase the level of the effects you are applying. If you’re desaturating, for example, as you keep brushing the areas, they begin to grey out, as shown below.

REPLACING A COLOR WITH ANOTHER Replacing one color with another in Photoshop is a very tasking work to do; there is a certain selection that can be used alongside the Hue and Saturation controls, with this, an individual color of an object can be replaced with another color without stress. I’ll be illustrating this using a yellow taxi chassis in a shot and replacing it with the Red color, follow me

My starting point will be to select the object with the Magic Wand Tool, which is the fittest tool for selecting large areas of the same color. I’ll set the Tolerance level to about 24-30, as it will be able to pick out the chassis without much problem.

If you wish to add a bit, you can make use of the Magic Wand Tool because that is the area where it functions most; simply click on an area that has mid-tones for the whole area you want to select and you will later realize that the Magic Wand Tool will select the areas that surround it.

The size of the selection depends on the setting of the tolerance. You can add more areas of selection by holding down the Shift key on your keyboard, then carefully click on the areas around your start point of selection. Perhaps Magic Wand chooses some parts of the background you don’t want to be affected, you can undo it by pressing Ctrl + Z (Cmd + Z on Mac) and select again with much care; if it keeps reoccurring, you can simply reduce the tolerance settings. After you have successfully selected all the areas of choice with Magic Wand Tool, you can then complete the selection process with the Lasso Tool. Go to the toolbar and select the Lasso Tool. In the options, adjust the Feather to Zero, which will produce a sharp-edged selection. Alternatively, you can also make use of the selection Lasso tool to select the object.

Hold down the Shift key to add more areas to your selection once again. If at all you want to remove any selection area, such as rind or core, you can do the subtraction by holding down the Alt key and then go around those areas with Lasso Tool.

After you are done with the selection of all the bits you want to replace, navigate to the Select menu and then click on the Save Selection option for later use; this will ease you of the stress of repeating the selection if at all you want to do something else with it.

To progress, there are several numbers of filters we can use at this stage; the most excellent way to change the color of the selected area is the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness option, located in the Adjustment option in the Image menu.

Three options are available under the Hue and Saturation setting. Leave the Lightness slider untouched to preserve the brightness of the object; afterward, you can then experiment by moving the Saturation and Hue sliders around till you get your desired color. As you move the Hue slider, the color begins to shift through the spectrum of colors; once you get your desired color, move to the Saturation slider and make subtle adjustments to adjust the color intensity till you get your desired look.

If you do not like the result, you can clear the selection by pressing Shift + Ctrl + Z (Shift +Cmd+Z on Mac), but if you are delighted with the result, go to the File menu and click on Save. In the dialog box, enter the name you want to save it with, select the Location of storage, then choose the File Format you want to save it with. You may save the final image as a PSD file or any other format as desired. The selection may also be saved as an Embedded File as well.

CHAPTER TEN PLAYING WITH FILTERS, EFFECTS, STYLES, AND MORE HAVING FUN WITH FILTERS One of Photoshop’s most powerful effects is Filters; if you understand how to use them properly, they can increase the quality and artistic effects of your images; it can even distort them in many ways which may be very tedious and time-consuming. Note that there is a unique feature for each filter that you can adjust and manipulate before you apply them; you can as well combine the effects of two filters by applying them one after another, but the result effects depend on the order by which you apply the filter. For instance, running a Blur effect, followed by increasing Noise will give you a blurry image with sharp dots; but, if you reverse the actions, it will result in fuzzy dots. You can arrange filters in any order, thus, there is no specific limit to the different ways of application and combination.

APPLYING FILTERS Using a filter is such an easy task, simply go to the Filter menu and select whichever filter you want. Some will be applied immediately as you click them, while some have to be filled in before you can apply them. Follow the tips below in using filters: If you are applying a filter to part of your image, simply use a Selection tool to select the desired portion before running the filter. 2. Hold the Alt key as you drag to see the real-time preview of the effects. 3. If there is the availability of the preview window, you can drag the preview image to view different portions of it. You may employ the + and – button to zoom in and out. 4. You can apply a filter to individual color channels and you may apply it to layer masks as well.

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WORKING IN THE FILTER GALLERY The Filter Gallery is a quick preview of how filter or filter combinations will look like before you apply them to your image. Almost all filters can be accessed in the Filter Gallery, but some cannot, such as “Render Filter”; you can simply apply such by choosing them from the Filter Menu.

Let us quickly examine a different part of the Filter Gallery Window and its functions: Real-time preview: it displays how the list of filters will look like on your image. You may use control in the lower-left increase or decrease the preview size. Available Filters: you have to expand the folder and reveal the filters inside by simply clicking on the triangle that is next to each folder icon. Filter options: this deals with the settings control of the filter you are using. Note that you can only adjust the filter you have selected. List of filters: you can use the list of filters to arrange the filters you are applying in the order you want to apply them. Dragging a filter up and down in the list changes its order. You may hide a filter effect in the list by clicking once on the Eye icon and also show a filter effect by clicking the Eye icon again. Click on the page icon located at the bottom side to add another filter to the list. The trash icon is also located at the bottom to remove a selected filter from the list.

FADING A FILTER Fading is used to change the opacity of the filter that has been applied by clicking on the Fade command from the Edit menu; you can as well change the opacity and blending mode of the filter effect. It serves the same function as that of the blending mode and opacity of the image layer, except for the original image that displays through instead of the below layer, therefore, if you fade a filter to 0 percent (%) opacity, you will be having the original image, but if it is 100 percent (%) opacity, you will be seeing the full effect of the filter you applied.

MIXING UP WITH BLENDING MODE Blend mode is a way for a layer to blend or interact with the layer below it. When you blend a filter, the effect you get is dependent on the contents of the original layer and the filters you applied to it. Blending mode controls how the filter’s results are blended with the image; it compares the contents of two layers and applies changes based on their contents.

APPLYING BLENDING MODE TO A FILTER Select an image for the background and another image that you want to blend into the first. Automatically, you’ll be having two different layers. 2. Go to the Layer menu, select Layer Styles, then click on Blending Options

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3. There will be a pop-up menu containing different Blending Modes, hover on each of them to have a preview of how it will look when applied.

Looking at the options above, you’ll notice that they’re grouped in various categories; each category has similar functions, but each mode has its specific function. The first group generally affects the overall darkness of the image and is referred to as Darken Blend Modes. The second group called Lighten modes affects the overall brightness of the image. The third section is called Contrast modes, which affects both the lightness and darkness of the image, the fourth group enables you to create inverted effects and are referred to as Comparative modes, and the last section called Composite modes addresses the colors of the image. 4. Make use of the options, one from each section to achieve your desired photo

USING PHOTOMERGE With the help of Photomerge, you can take several shots and knit them seamlessly together to create a special wide panorama that may stretch from horizon to horizon if needed. After you have taken the first shot, the camera will display the edge of that super-command on the monitor so that it can match up the position of features in successive shots, thereby creating a long continuous photo, displayed in a panoramic scene. When you finish it well, the result can be very amazing and stunning, but attaining a satisfactory and attractive result is not very easy. Let us use this

five-shot sequence as an illustration

After you have gotten your panorama pictures from your camera into a preferred folder on your computer, it simply means you are ready to fire up Photoshop and knit them together into a panorama because that is just the first thing you need to do. Search for those files (images) in your hard drive and get them all open in Photoshop, then go to the Window menu and click on Arrange to view them all at once in their various arrangement, simply to have a glance at the last minutes' exposure view.

Inside your Photoshop, Photomerge is located in the File menu under Automate alongside the other automatic processes. Once you locate it, click on it

Within your Photomerge Window, there are various offers and several options with which you can arrange your panoramic shot; the Auto option will work well for our selected landscape panorama. Simply click on add Add Open Files Button to get your five-shot added to the Photomerge List, check the Blend Images Together and Vignette Removal boxes as shown below, and also check the Content-Aware Fill Transparent Areas box in an attempt to fill blank areas with the Content-Aware tool.

Then proceed to click on the OK button, located at the top-right side. Instantly as you click on it, the merging process will commence and it will be completed automatically.

It may take some time to complete the merging process, most especially if the PC is too slow or the images selected are very large files. After the panorama has been completed, you will be seeing some areas of the program that need to warp the pictures to correct the perspective. At this point, the Content-Aware tool will be attempting to add something that looks a bit like sky and sea, which depends on how well the fill works. You can crop out these areas if you desire.

At the same time, you may use the Crop Tool to straighten out any slight slope or tilt in your horizon, but perhaps, you may not need it. The result is always wonderful after the merging process just like you can see in the picture below.

CHAPTER ELEVEN THE CAMERA RAW EDITOR The Adobe Camera RAW is software that allows you to import photos make quick and lovely edits to them in a non-destructive way, that is, you can easily get back the original image after an edit if you want. The Adobe Camera RAW is used to adjust brightness and exposure, crop and sharpen images, and a lot more. Raw images are the images yet to be processed (that is why they’re called ‘Raw’) after being created in the digital camera. They contain all the original image data and physical information from the scene, thereby, making it easy to recover any detail you need, provided you find some missing. For example, it is possible to have an image like this

Taking a proper look through the image, you’ll notice the cloud and sea areas have some background colors wanting to find expression, but could not, maybe due to its overexposure; you will notice that generally in the image if you take a closer look at it. With few edits in the Camera Raw, you can get a livelier image below

Images that are underexposed can also be edited to get bring out the hidden details, thereby, giving a clearer picture. It is important to note that Raw files are large. After editing in Camera Raw, you cannot save it in a Camera Raw format, but, you can save it in other image formats.

HOW TO OPEN FILES IN THE CAMERA RAW INTERFACE Opening a Raw file in Photoshop is similar to how you open every other image, just that the file opens in the Camera Raw interface and not the main Photoshop workspace. Go to the location where you stored your Raw file, double-click on the file’s icon, Photoshop will be opened, then the image will be opened in the Camera Raw interface; if Photoshop is already opened, the image will directly open in the Camera Raw interface. You can alternatively right-click the file, click on Open With, then choose Adobe Photoshop to enter the Camera Raw interface.

GETTING FAMILIAR WITH THE CAMERA RAW EDITOR Once the Camera Raw interface opens, here is what it looks like

On the right side, there are different panels, which I will discuss one after the other.

THE EDIT PANEL This is the first panel on the right side. It contains other options, such as Basic, Curve, Detail, and more as seen above. Basic Clicking on the Basic options helps you to access options you can use to adjust the White Balance, Temperature, Tint, Exposure, Highlight, and more, with each having its slider. Move the sliders back and forth until you get your desired image

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Exposure controls basic highlights and helps you discover overexposed areas. Recovery helps you to recover highlight detail Fill Light helps you recover shadow detail Blacks control shadow areas Brightness allows you to adjust basic mid-tones. Adjust it till it looks good to you Contrast applies basic ‘S’ contrast curve Clarity provides a mid-tone contrast boost with mild sharpening Vibrance boosts low saturated colors Saturation boosts the entire intensity

Curve The Curve Panel helps you fine-tune the tonal scale using curves. Once you click on Curves, a graphical area that shows the histogram for your image appears, with some options and their sliders under it.

As you move the sliders to make adjustments, the diagonal line changes shape to fit into the adjustments you’re making

Detail In detail, there are four control sliders you can use to adjust Sharpening, reduce noise, and color noise reduction

✓

Amount controls how strong you want the effect to be

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Radius refers to how many pixels are affected by the sharpening

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Detail enables you to control the halo effect seen in sharpened images

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Masking lets you create an edge mask to control what gets sharpened and what should not be sharpened. Color Mixer: selects between HSL (Hue, Saturation, and Luminance) and Color to work on different hues in your image

Color Grading: used to precisely adjust hues in Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights with the color wheel. Optics: removes distortion, vignette effect, or chromatic aberration. Geometry: here, you adjust different types of perspective and level corrections. Effects: adds grain or a vignette using the sliders. Calibration: click on Process Version and select Process from the drop-down menu, then use the sliders to make the adjustments. Still, on the right side, there is a panel containing different commands, which are the Crop and Rotate, Spot Removal, Adjustment Brush, Graduated Filter (used to make a selection using parallel lines), Radial Filter (used to

make a selection using an ellipse), Red-Eye effect (to remove red-eye or pet eye in an image), Snapshot (creates and saves different edited versions of your image), and lastly, the Preset option (used to browse through presets).

Preview option Click on the Preview option to have a preview of the applied edits. It enables you to compare the before edit and after edit images.

Filmstrip, Sort, and Filter Towards the lower part of the interface, under the preview is another group containing three options.

The first is Filmstrip, which is where your image is displayed once you open Camera Raw; it is also mostly used when you’re working with portraits; the second option is used to sort images, based on the day of capture, File Name, and more; and lastly, the Filter icon, which you can use to filter photos. Other Controls On the lower right side, you will see another panel containing a group of commands, which are the Zoom tool, Hand tool, Eyedropper, and Gridlines.

THE BOTTOM BUTTONS Still under the Camera Raw interface, at the lower right corner are three buttons; these are referred to as the Bottom Buttons.

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Open Object Button: with this button, you can select another editor, such as Photoshop, to open your image and perfect your edit. Cancel (Reset): perhaps after editing, you aren’t satisfied with your result, simply press the Cancel button. To reset, simultaneously hold down the Alt (Option on Mac) key and click the Cancel button. Done: this button saves your edits as a set of data and then associates it with the original image. Remember this is a non-destructive edit as I earlier mentioned, so you can go back to make more adjustments or you can decide to remove all the previous edits if you don’t like the outcome, then you get your original photo, without any damage.

CHAPTER TWELVE INDISPENSABLE TIPS AND TRICKS AWESOME TIPS AND TRICKS YOU NEED TO KNOW Adobe Photoshop users prefer their photos to look fantastic and that certain parts of their images look great. That is not a problem if you can get yourself familiar with the right tool and how to use them very well, as such will be helpful to fast-track your editing work. Let me quickly take you through awesome tips and tricks that I found helpful in my photo editing work: (1) Bird’s eye view: this helps you to view images with a huge dimension in a matter of seconds to avoid zooming in and zooming out again and again. To use it, Simply hold down the letter H on your keyboard, then click and drag, and a little rectangular view box will appear.

Simply drag the rectangular box to the side of the image you want to view, for a thoroughly zoomedin result; with the little box, which is called bird’s eye, you can zoom in anywhere in an image. Here’s my result below after using this feature on the image above

(2) Overscroll: Overscroll helps you to move your workspace around in Photoshop instead of making Photoshop fill the whole screen so that you can work in the middle of the screen. Go to the Edit menu, towards the down part of the drop-down options, choose Preferences

From the options, select Tools. As soon as you click on Tool, there will be a popup menu, from there, check the Overscroll box

Once you do that, you will be able to see the whole image and navigate it into the middle and any other part of the workspace. Its function is to help your workspace not to be locked

(3) Photoshop Search: It is quite understandable when you forget a specific tool, but it will be too bothersome if you forget its location as well; this is where Photoshop search comes to be of help. Swing to the top right of the Photoshop main Window. You will see a search icon, click on it to search anything, not only tools, but also other essentials, such as Tutorial, and more

(4) Blend layer mode: The Blend mode is a powerful tool, provided you know how to use it. You can use the blend mode to set gray, use the slider below to remove the darker or lighter pixels. You can apply the blending mode to the image with the use of the blank adjustment layer. You can apply any blend mode option from the blend mode drop-down options. Simply click on the Adjustment Layer, and choose Curve, for example, and it will affect the layer.

You can also click on multiply, which will make it darker.

Add more contrast, but in sort of a more subtle way to brighten the screen up.

You can sort the brightness of the image a little bit or darken the image a little bit, whatever you want to do, you can do it with the blank adjustment layer.

A more detailed explanation of blend modes is in chapter 10. (5) Sprint loaded move tool: While using any tool, to switch to the Move tool, simply hold down the Ctrl key.

As soon as you are done with the move tool, release the Ctrl key and you will immediately return to the original tool.

(6) Converting the Background layer: You can quickly convert the background layer to an editable layer by simply double-clicking on the eye-like icon in the layers panel as shown below, then perform the edits you desire to make.

(7) Painting a selection: You can paint a selection using the Quick Selection Tool icon; just simply double-click on it.

Ensure you tick the Selected Area box, then choose a suitable color; for this case, I will be choosing the green color.

Press Ok to activate the Quick Mask mode and simply paint the green mist all over what you want to select to make a big soft edge selection that you can blend in with your image.

Tap letter Q to quickly enter into Quick Selection mode, and it will make it more bluish or more purplish, and then we have gotten painting selection with Quick Selection.

(8) Quickly hide layers: In case you want to focus on one layer, but other ones are in the way disturbing your work on the desired layer, no qualm, just do these: Hold down the Alt key and click on the Eyeball icon of the layer you want to isolate. When you want them back again, click on the Alt key and you will see them again.

(9) Creating multiple Stroke Effects on Text. Why settle for a single stroke when there are two or three? Double-click the text layer to apply a Stroke layer effect. Press the Plus icon to add another Stroke. You can add as many as you wish.

(10)

Warping Text in Photoshop: Select your text layer and the Type tool. Check the Type tools bar and you will locate a T icon with a curved line under it. Tap the T icon to see the built-in text arcs and bends.

(11)

Creating a Rain texture: Another effect that can be added to an image is the rain effect, and you might love to have it on your image; there is rain texture that can help you achieve that. Rain dropping adds some drama to your image though, at times, nature may not permit you to have a picture under rain naturally and as a result, you have to make artificial rain by yourself. To achieve that, Duplicate the Background layer by clicking on Ctrl + J (Cmd + J on Mac) Set the Foreground and Background colors as black and white respectively by simply pressing the letter D on your keyboard Add extra Canvas space around the image as discussed in an earlier chapter Create a new blank layer and fill it with black by pressing Alt + Backspace (Option + Delete on Mac); this command fills the layer with your Foreground color, which is black. Then add noise by choosing the Add Noise option, located in Noise in the Filter menu. A dialog box will pop up, simply drag the Amount slider very well to the right side to increase the noise. At the bottom side, check the Monochromatic box, then click on OK Increase the contrast, then add a slanted Motion Blur filter to the noise, located in the Blur option in the Filter menu; with this, you will get some rain movement and direction.

(12) Making a guide in Photoshop You can create a guide in the Photoshop workspace, simply by: Clicking and dragging the side ruler. However, if you do not see any ruler, you can command the ruler by pressing Ctrl + R.

(13) Making use of Blur Gallery Add more ginger to your photos via background blurring. Follow these steps to achieve that Duplicate your image and move to the Filter menu. Then go to Blur Gallery and next to Field Blue. Set the blur slider as you desire and then mask out your subject, so it won’t blur along with the background.

(14)

Changing Brush’s Flow Rate Are you encountering any trouble in blending the shadows? That is when Brush rate flow comes to play an important role. Select the brush and check the uppermost part of the toolbar. The slider will appear, lower the brush stroke from the slider. Then the passing of each brush will slowly build up color, which will be accurate for shading and lighting.

(15)

Copying layer from document to document: Select the layer you want to copy; probably I want to grab the Adjustment Layer here, press Ctrl + C to copy.

Go to another layer that happens to be the recipient and press Ctrl+V to paste it. (16) Straightening Viewpoint This helps in straightening one’s work; if you are doing complete photography, you have to straighten up some photos. To straighten an image, open the image to be straigthened

Select the layer and move to the Filter menu, then click on Camera Raw Filter.

And proceed to click on a little tool, which is called the transform tool, and choose guided, which will guide you in drawing lines of areas that need to be straightened.

Draw the line right from the top of the paper and bottom of the paper, and both sides of the image to be a straight line across; leave the remaining for camera roll to straighten them.

Then take another line for both sides; both sides should be a vertical straight line up and down, leave it for camera roll to straighten them out.

Now you can proceed to use the crop tool selected from the toolbar to trim it down

After all this, you should have a wonderful and straightened out work

(17) Changing any color Changing whatever color quickly should not be a problem with the use of the Color replacement brush Color Replacement brush can be seen when you click on the brush icon. It can be used in conjunction with color sampling mode, where a majority of users prefer to choose contiguous sampling and set the tolerance at 30.

Simply pick a foreground color; for this case, I want to turn the brown crab into a blue-colored crab.

Once you click on your preferred color, you have to ensure that the Plus icon goes over the area you want to change the color, thereby, taking effect on those areas of the image. The crab’s body color changes as I move the Plus icon.

The easiest and quickest means to change the color of anything, even the intricate objects is this.

(18) Middle Gray Eyedropper: The Gray eyedropper is used to locate an area of your photo that should be neutral gray. Examine the image below, you will perceive that the color has a heavy green cast.

To use the eyedropper, Click on the Eyedropper tool and shade the heavy area that is direct to sunlight, which will diffuse light and give white balance.

After you have clicked on the area, you will see that the whole image is adjusted to make sure it does not have the green color cast anymore.

In essence, the Middle Gray Eyedropper may be likened to be a great time-saver when it comes to bringing out the neutral gray in an image.

CONCLUSION After thoroughly going through this powerful Adobe Photoshop user manual, you must have understood the essence of Photoshop to the immediate environment and how to manipulate its tools to your best advantage. At this level, you must not be ignorant of how to apply multiple non-destructive editing to an image by duplicating the layers, which is a means of keeping the original image and carrying out the editing process on a separate layer and then modify them independently and accordingly. Also, you should be able to blend different layers, mask areas of an image to protect it from editing level down to pixel level. Wish you the very best moment as you explore with Adobe Photoshop.

INDEX 3 3D, viii, 26, 29, 35, 101, 132 3D Menu, 18 A Active Image, 22 Actual Pixels option, 20 ADDING LAYER MASK, 87 Adjust Levels Auto, 118 ADJUSTING THE COLOR OF AN IMAGE, 95 Adjustment layer, ix, 75, 92, 101, 154 Adjustment Layer, 35, 76, 92, 93, 94, 95, 101, 155 ADJUSTMENT LAYER COMBINATION, 97 Adjustments, 14, 99, 102, 118, 154 ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOLBOX, 23 Adobe RGB (1998), 116 Amount, 201, 224, 237 ANATOMY OF PHOTOSHOP MAIN INTERFACE, 10 Anti-aliasing, 132 APPLYING BLENDING MODE TO A FILTER, 212 APPLYING FILTERS, 209 Artistic, 18 AUTO COLOR CORRECTION, 180 Auto Contrast, 14 AUTO HAZE REMOVAL, 181 Auto Selection tool, 68 AUTO SMART TONE, 179 Auto Tone, 14 Auto-Hide Layers for Performance, 19 AWESOME TIPS AND TRICKS YOU NEED TO KNOW, 228 B Background Eraser tool, 69 BACKGROUND ERASER TOOL, 143 Balance Panel, 178 Baseline, 126 Basic, 70, 221 Basic Edit, 70 Bicubic, 111, 112 Bicubic Sharper, 112 Bicubic Smoother, 112 Bilinear, 112 Bird’s eye views, 228 Blacks, 222 Blend layer mode, 231 Blur tool, 69 Blur Tool, 199 BMP, 54, 55 Border, 146, 147 BOTTOM BUTTONS, 226 Cancel, 227 Done, 227 Open Object Button, 227 Brightness, 222 Brightness slider in Camera Raw, 94 Brush tool, 69, 85 BURN TOOLS, 192 C CALIBRATING YOUR MONITOR, 118 Calibration, 225 CAMERA RAW EDITOR, 219, 220 Cancel button, 65 Canvas size, 14 Changing any color, 243 Changing Brush’s Flow Rate, 239 Changing the Canvas size, 170 CHOOSING A COLOR WORKSPACE, 117 CHOOSING A RESOLUTION FOR PRINT OR ONSCREEN, 105 CHOOSING EITHER SINGLE OR DOUBLE COLUMN TOOLBAR, 23 Clarity, 222 CLARITY, 154 Clone Stamp tool, 69 CLONING WITH THE CLONE STAMP TOOL, 181 CMYK Color Mode, 114

COLOR, 154, 161, 165, 180, 203 Color Adjustment, 117 Color Balance command, 118 Color Edit, 71 Color Grading, 225 Color Mixer, 224 COLOR PICKER, 165 Color Picker tool, 70 Color replacement brush, 243 Color Replacement tool, 69 Color Settings, 114 COLORIZING A PHOTO, 155 COMPRESSING FILE FORMATS, 57 CONCLUSION, 248 Content-Aware Move tool, 70 CONTENT-AWARE MOVE TOOL, 190 CONTEXTUAL MENU, 66 Contract, 146, 149 Contrast, 222 CONTRAST, 154 Contrast slider in Camera Raw, 14 CONVERTING BACKGROUND TO A LAYER, 76 Converting Smart Objects to Standard Pixels, 41 Converting the Background layer, 233 Cookie Cutter tool, 70 Copying layer from document to document, 239 CORRECTING CONTRAST, COLOR, AND CLARITY, 154 CREATING A NEW LAYER FROM THE SCRATCH, 77 Creating a Rain texture, 237 Creating multiple stroke Effects on Text, 236 CREATING PARAGRAPH TYPE, 127 Crop tool, 67, 70 CROP TOOLS, 26, 168 CROPPING AWAY WITH CROP TOOL, 168 CROPPING IMAGES, 168 Curve, 221, 222, 231 Custom Shape tool, 70 D DARKENING WITH DODGE AND BURN TOOLS, 192 DEFINE SELECTION, 136 Deleting and Clearing States from the History Panel, 62 Deselect, 17 Deselect Layers, 17 Detail, 68, 201, 221, 223, 224 Detail Smart Brush tool, 68 Dictionary, 126 Distort, 18 Document Details, 22 Document Window, 21 DODGE TOOLS, 192 DRAWING, 161 DRAWING MULTIPLE SHAPES, 166 DRAWING TOOLS, 30, 161, 166 E Edit Menu, 12, 35 EDIT PANEL IN CAMERA RAW EDITOR, 221 EDITING IN QUICK MODE, 173 Effects, 225 EFFECTS, 209 Effects option in Camera Raw, 71 ELIMINATING WITH THE ERASER TOOLS, 142 Elliptical Marquee tool, 68 ELLIPTICAL SELECTIONS, 136 Eraser tool, 69, 142, 143 EXAMINING THE IMAGE WINDOW, 63 Expand, 146, 148, 149 Exposure, 73, 118, 176, 194, 197, 221, 222 Exposure command, 118 Eye tool, 67, 68 F Fade, 13 FADING A FILTER, 212 Fauxbold and Italics, 126 Feather, 146, 149, 151, 205 Feathering A Selection, 149 File Menu, 10, 215

Fill Light, 222 Filmstrip, 226 Filter, 17, 18, 108, 201, 209, 210, 211, 225, 226, 237, 238, 240 Filter Gallery, 18, 211 Filter Menu, 17, 210 FILTERS, 209 FINDING YOUR BEARING IN THE GUIDED MODE, 70 FIXING SMALL IMPERFECTION WITH TOOL, 173 FORMAT CHARACTER PANEL, 125 Fun Edit, 71 G Geometry, 225 GETTING FAMILIAR WITH COLOR, 112 GETTING FAMILIAR WITH THE CAMERA RAW EDITOR, 220 GETTING FAMILIAR WITH THE HOME SCREEN, 5 GETTING TO KNOW LAYER, 74 GIF, 10, 44, 46, 47, 48 Gradient tool, 69, 150 Gradient tools, 162 Ground Plane Shadow Catcher, 19 H Hand tool, 67 HAVING FUN WITH FILTERS, 209 Healing Brush tool, 68 HIDDEN TOOLBAR’S TOOL, 29 HOW TO CALIBRATE A MONITOR, 119 HOW TO CHANGE IMAGE RESOLUTION, 103 HOW TO DOWNLOAD ADOBE PHOTOSHOP, 2 HOW TO INSTALL ADOBE PHOTOSHOP, 2 HOW TO OPEN FILES IN THE CAMERA RAW INTERFACE, 220 HOW TO RESAMPLE AN IMAGE, 111 Hue and Saturation command, 118 I Image display, 65 Image Menu, 13, 64, 169 Image Menu Bar, 64 Image Rotation, 15 Image size, 14, 169 Image Window Resize Toggle, 65 IMPORTING IMAGES, 39 Impressionist Brush tool, 69 Inactive Padding Area, 65 INDEX, 249 INDISPENSABLE TIPS AND TRICKS, 228 INTRODUCING ADJUSTMENT LAYER, 92 INTRODUCTION, ix INTRODUCTION TO ADOBE PHOTOSHOP, 1 Inverse, 17 J JPEG, 44, 49, 50, 51, 57 K Kerning, 126 KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS, 152 L Lasso tool, 68, 136, 205 LAUNCHING INTO PHOTO EDITOR, 7 Layer Mask, 16, 89, 131 Layer Menu, 15 Layer Option, 23, 43, 131 Layer Palette, 23, 155 Layer Properties, 16 LAYERS, 74 Layers delete button, 76 Leading, 126 Levels command, 118 LIGHTENING WITH DODGE AND BURN TOOLS, 192 Lightroom Photos, 6 Liquify, 18 M

Magic Eraser tool, 69 MAGIC ERASER TOOL, 145 Magic Wand tool, 68, 142, 191 Magnetic Lasso Tool, 68 Making a guide in Photoshop, 238 MAKING AND MODIFYING SELECTION, 136 Making use of Blur Gallery, 238 MAKING USE OF THE TYPE TOOL, 123 Masking, 224 MASKING WITH TYPE, 129 MEASUREMENT TOOLS, 26 Menu Bar, 10 Menu Button, 64 Middle Gray Eyedropper, 245 MIXING UP WITH BLENDING MODE, 212 MODIFY YOUR SELECTION, 140 Move tool, 23, 67, 70, 127, 190, 232 MOVING TOOLS, 25 MULTICOLOR GRADIENT, 162 N Navigation Control, 65 NAVIGATION TOOLS, 32 Nearest Neighbor, 112 New Layer Group, 76 New Layer Link, 76 New Shape from Layer, 19 NewMesh from Grayscale, 19 O Open character, 132 OPENING AND SAVING IMAGE WITH PURPOSE, 35 OPENING CLOSED EYES, 157 OPENING FILE FROM ADOBE BRIDGE, 37 Optics, 225 Other Controls in the Camera Raw interface, 226 Overscroll, 229 P PAINT BUCKET, 161 Paint Bucket tool, 69, 150, 161 PAINTING, 161 Painting a selection, 233 PAINTING TOOLS, 27 Palettes, 22 Panel Menu, 126 paragraph panel, 132 PASTING IMAGES, 39 Pattern Stamp tool, 69 Pattern tool, 69 Pencil tool, 70 PENCIL TOOL, 166 Perspective Crop tool, 70 PHOTO SHARING PROVIDERS, 58 PHOTOMERGE, 214 Photomerge Edit, 73 Photoshop Search, 230 Pixel layer, 74 PNG, 44, 51, 52, 57 Pointer Coordinates, 65 Polygonal Lasso tool, 68 POLYGONAL LASSO TOOL, 139 POWER OF PHOTOSHOP COMPOSITION, 78 PREFACE, viii Preview option, 226 Print size, 20 ProPhoto RGB, 115, 116, 117 PSD, 27, 39, 44, 45, 46, 92, 207 Q QUICK MODE AUTO MODE, 179 Quick Selection tool, 67, 68, 84 Quickly hide layers, 235 QuickMask Toggle, 65 R Radius, 31, 146, 151, 201, 224 Recompose tool, 70

Recovery, 222 Rectangular Marquee tool, 67 RECTANGULAR SELECTIONS, 136 Refine Selection Brush tool, 68 REFINING THE EDGE OF A SELECTION, 145 Render Settings, 19 REPLACING A COLOR WITH ANOTHER, 203 REPOSITIONING WITH THE CONTENT-AWARE MOVE TOOL, 190 RESAMPLING, 107 Reselect, 17 RESIZING AN IMAGE, 169 RESIZING IMAGES, 168 RETOUCHING TOOLS, 27, 174 RETOUCHING WITH THE HEALING BRUSH TOOL, 174 Reverting to a Previous State of an Image, 62 Reverting to the Last Saved, 62 RGB Color Mode, 113 RGB Working Space, 115 Ruler, 20, 27, 65 Rulers, 22 S Saturation, 76, 95, 96, 113, 118, 177, 202, 203, 206, 207, 222, 224 SAVING FILES FOR THE WEB, 56 SAVING FILES IN DIFFERENT FILE FORMATS, 44 SAVING FILES IN GIF FORMAT, 46 SAVING FILES IN JPEG FORMAT, 49 SAVING FILES IN PNG FORMAT, 51 SAVING FILES IN PSD FORMAT, 45 SAVING FILES IN TIFF FORMAT, 53 Search and Share, 22 Select Menu, 16, 191 Selection Brush tool, 68 SELECTION TOOLS, 25 SETTING PREFERENCES FOR SAVING FILES, 56 SHAPE TOOL, 128 SHARING A PHOTO, 58 Sharpen, 18, 29, 69, 108, 178, 200, 201 Sharpen tool, 69 Sharpen Tool, 29, 200 SIMPLE MAKEOVER, 168 SLICE TOOLS, 26 Smart Brush tool, 68 Smart Objects, 16, 41, 43 Smooth, 146, 148 Smudge Tool, 199 SMUDGING AWAY ROUGH SPOT, 199 Snap Object to Ground Plane, 19 SOFTENING WITH THE BLUR TOOL, 199 Sort, 226 Special Edit, 73 SPLASHING ON COLOR WITH THE PAINT BUCKET, 161 SPONGE TOOL, 202 SPOT HEALING BRUSH, 187 Spot Healing Brush tool, 67, 68, 187 Sprint loaded move tool, 232 sRGB, 115, 116, 117 Status Area, 65 Step Backward, 13 Step Forward, 13 Straighten tool, 67, 70 STRAIGHTENING IMAGES, 168 Straightening Viewpoint, 240 STUDYING YOUR PATH AROUND THE LAYER PANEL AND SELECTING MENUS, 75 STYLES, 209 STYLIZING AND WARPING TYPE, 132 T Text Direction, 132 Text layer, 74 The Black and White Edit, 71 THE ERASER TOOL, 142 The Help Menu, 21 THE HISTORY PANEL, 60 The Save As Command, 44 The Save Command, 44 THE SHARPEN TOOL, 200 The Window Menu, 20 TIFF, 44, 53, 54 Title Bar, 64

Tool Options Bar, 21 Toolbar or Palette, 22 TOOLBOX IN THE EXPERT MODE, 67 TOOLBOX IN THE QUICK MODE, 67 Tools in the Draw Group of the Expert Mode Toolbox, 69 Tools in the Enhance Group of the Expert Mode Toolbox, 68 Tools in the Modify Group of the Expert Mode Toolbox, 70 Tools in the Select Group of the Expert Mode Toolbox, 67 Tools in the View Group of the Expert Mode Toolbox, 67 TOOLTIPS, 58 TRANSFORMING LAYER, 78 Type tool, 67, 70, 124, 236 TYPE TOOL, 123 TYPES OF LAYERS, 74 TYPING TOOLS, 30 U UNDERSTANDING IMAGE DIMENSIONS, 106 UNDERSTANDING MENUS APPEARANCE, 32 UNDERSTANDING RESOLUTION, 103 UNDERSTANDING TYPE BASIC, 123 Units Menu, 65 USING BRIGHTNESS AND ADJUSTMENT, 154 USING LAYER VIA COPY AND LAYER VIA CUT, 82 USING THE TEXT ON SHAPE TOOL, 128 V Vectors layer, 75 Vibrance, 118, 177, 222 Vibrance command, 118 View Menu, 19 W Warp Text, 132, 134 WARPING AN IMAGE, 134 Warping Text in Photoshop, 236 WARPING YOUR TYPE, 133, 135 WHAT IS ADOBE PHOTOSHOP, 1 WHAT’S NEW IN ADOBE PHOTOSHOP 2021, 1 WORKING IN THE FILTER GALLERY Available Filters, 211 Filter options, 211 List of filters, 211 Real-time preview, 211 WORKING IN THE FILTER GALLERY., 210 Working Space, 115 WORKING WITH COLOR PICKER, 165 WORKING WITH LAYERS, 74 WORKING WITH MULTICOLOR GRADIENT, 162 WORKING WITH PIXELS, 102 WORKING WITH TYPE TOOL, 123 WORKING WIZARDLY WITH THE MAGIC WAND, 140 Z Zoom Button, 65 Zoom In, 20 Zoom Out, 20 Zoom tool, 67