How To Use Photoshop

Here are some more tutorials for beginners on how to use Photoshop.
People starting from scratch or with very little knowledge of Photoshop should begin with the how to start section and then work their way through these pages.

Crop Tool
The Crop Tool can be used trim down an image
to rotate it and to increase its canvas size.



Curves
When learning how to use Photoshop, Curves is the most useful of the functions for adjusting tones and colour corrections in images.


Brushes
The Brush Tool has an armoury of adjustments,
in size, shape, texture and the way it can apply
the colour


Pixels
Digital images are made up of pixels, small squares of digital information with a colour value.
It's useful to understand a little of how pixels work and their relationship with resolution.


Retouching
The Healing Brushes and Patch Tool are very powerful tools in cleaning up images, repairing sections and giving images a face-lift.


Blur Filters
Blur can be used to create motion or zoom.
Blur can create a softness or replicate the effect from an out of focus lens.


Color Settings
Colour management is not a subject for beginners but in due course it is extremely important for consistent image quality.
However, a few essential settings can be put in immediately.


Text and Text Effects
By learning how to use Photoshop text can give tremendous scope to creative use of graphics.
Effects can be put on text, all sorts of techniques can be applied and there is text justification.


Filters
Filters are both essential and fun.
They can create a subtle improvement or
a dramatic graphic effect.


Hue and Saturation
Hue & Saturation is a powerful facility for making
a large shift in colour.
The saturation or richness of colour of the whole image or individual colours can be adjusted.
Black and white images can also be toned.


Full Screen Mode
Full Screen Mode is a useful feature for displaying an image on a plain screen without so many distractions.


Black and White
There are a number of ways of converting a colour image to black and white. A click conversion via the Grayscale option usually gives a poor result.
A quality conversion requires a bit more work.


Photoshop In A Day
Learn all of Photoshop with these easy-to-follow tutorials. Masses of creative and technical knowledge to take users from beginner to advanced levels.


Quick Tips
A number of short tips useful in many situations.


Blending Modes
Blending modes control how a layer or part of an image reacts to the image below it.
They can help blending images together and create more impact.


History Brush
Make a mistake or change your mind and through the list of past actions in the History palette, you can move back to a previous position.
Used to its full potential, the History function has definite time-machine qualities.


Sharpening
Scanning film, some digital capture and resizing an image all introduce a degree of softness into the pixels.
This needs to be recognized, then an image needs to be sharpened the correct amount and at the right time.


Bringing Out Detail
An image might appear to have little detail in the shadows and little in some highlights, but it is likely to be there hidden under the surface.
There are ways of recovering this detail.


Making Photoshop Shape
All about making Photoshop shapes, starting with basic shapes and expanding to more creative designs.