Adobe Photoshop is the most important piece of software for a designer. Not because it does amazing things but instead because it provides a basis for understanding how most design software works. The method in which photoshop uses layers, applies filters and lets a user manipulate pixels is one of the most important things a designer can understand. It is because of this that we will be going over photoshop and most of its functionality piece by piece.

The Window menu

• The Window menu can be found all the way to the right on the top menu bar. Basically put the window menu houses all of photoshop’s palettes. A palette is essentially a mini window that houses certain tools in Photoshop. for example the character palette houses tools for changing fonts, font size, etc. The Layer palette is by far the most important to understand because this metaphor will be repeated throught out most design software.

The File menu

• The File menu is pretty much self explanatory. New opens a new document and open allows you to locate a previous document on your computer or network. Sidenote Browse, in this menu, lets you locate images with Adobe’s Bridge app which is pretty awesome but alas that is a different tutorial for a different day.
• Let’s go back to the New command. This launches a new window which lets the user customize their document. This window lets the user pick the width, height, dots per inch, as well as color mode. The width and height of your document can be picked in many different ways however most projects will probably be in pixels, inches, or picas. We will only cover pixels and inches for now. A pixel is a tiny square that makes up a digital image when you zoom in on a digital picture you can start to see them easily. Almost all projects on screen i.e. tv, computer, or kiosk will be done in pixels since this will be the easiest and most accurate for that medium. Sometime you may be creating something that isn’t for screen such as a design that will be going to print, this is where it is important to use inches. Using inches will let you determine an exact size for your image so that it fits on paper stock that you are using for your project. Last but not least there is color mode. The two main color modes you will be using are RGB (Red Green Blue) and CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow and Black), RGB is the color mode you would use with something that is going to be on a screen, computer or TV. CMYK is what you would use for a print project. Using the correct color mode will ensure that your projects look correct and consistent on any medium.

The Edit Menu

• The edit menu should be self explanatory. This contains undo, redo, copy, paste, cut etc. Be sure to memorize the key command here, they will safe your life, literally…while not literally but be sure you know them! Two important command in this menu are Fill (option/alt+backspace) and Free transform apple or ctrl+T. The fill command will fill a layer or selection with a color, and the free Transform will allow you to scale or rotate a layer or selection. Be sure to hold down shift while transforming something to keep its correct aspect ratio, try it, you’ll see what i mean.

The Tools Palette

• This palette will be where most image manipulation takes place. The best way to understand this palette is to simply bring an image into photoshop and play around with each and every tool here. (Tip hold the mouse over a tool to see its name and see its key command, key commands are really freaken important just trust me.)
• The Selection Tool(top left)(key command M) This tool simply put lets you select a part of an image. Thats it.
• The Move tool(Top Right)(key command V) This tool lets you move images and layers around. (Tip- make a selection of and image and then click the move tool and move it. The selected part of the image will move around while everything else stays put.)
• The Text tool(It looks like a big T)(key command…you guessed it… T) Click this tool and click on your photoshop document. This will let you type text into your document. Use the character palette to control the text once it is in your document.
• Set Foreground Color/Set Background Color(The two solid colors at the bottom of the toolbar)(Key command X) Double Clicking on this tool lets you choose a color, such as for text, or for a fill. Make a selection then select a color and got to Edit>Fill. That color will be placed in the selection.

The Layers Palette

• The first thing you will see in this palette is a layer called Background in italics. Double Click on it to unlock this layer. Now it is editable. But we aren’t going to edit that. Create a new layer, to do this click on the little square icon with a page curl on it at the bottom of the Layer Palette. This will create a new layer. Double click on the words layer 1 to give it a name. (Always name your layers it is extremely important to do this so that when you are working on a project with 100’s of layers yout will know what controls what.) On your new layer create a selection and fill it in. Now double click on the layer in the layer palette. This will bring up the effects window. Check any of the effects to add them to your layer. For now we will ad every designers’ favorite and most over used effect…The Drop Shadow. Check Drop Shadow and click on the words Drop Shadow to get the controls for this effect. Play around with the sliders to see how they affect this layer. (Design Tip- Don’t overuse drop shadows or glows. These are both popular and awesome effects that add life and pop to designs but they should only be used in moderation and subtly.)

Conclusion

• We will end Part 1 here. Hopefully this has given you a good primer into how to use the basic tools in photoshop. The single most important thing to understand about photoshop is that you need to play with the program. That is the only way to figure out how everything in this great program works.
• In Part 2 we will be covering the Layer Palette more, The Image menu, The Crop Tool, The Clone Stamp Tool, The eye dropper tool, and the history palette.