Since I’m taking Photoshop for Photographers during my Fall 2010 semester (at AAU) I may as well share with you the little tidbits from class when I am able! Enjoy this little overview of Photoshop tools (Note: The lessons we use are related to Adobe Photoshop CS4. At the time of this posting I am using version CS3, and I find these lessons are compatible with that version. The tools may have different locations, but they work just the same and are all available.) This text is directly copied from our module notes (minus the little things about what we will/won’t be doing for class.) Please refrain from copy-pasting this to your own sites. Just refer to this link via your own blogs/sites/feeds instead. I’m sharing this with you because I am excited to pass on this vital information, and had I been in class I’d have written this down myself anyway. Enjoy and good luck…hopefully this aids you in your creativity.
The tools in the Tools panel are grouped together in certain arrangements.
The top five are the Selection Tools because they allow you to either select different areas of your image, or move a selection once you have created it. In addition to actual selection tools designed to make selections, these include the Move tool (V), the Crop tool (C), and the Slice tools.
The Info & Measurement tools allow for the sampling of color values and the measurement of different aspects of the image.
The next group of eight is the Painting Tools. These allow you to change the color or tone of pixels and most do so through a brush interface (i.e., you use the mouse to “paint” strokes in your image to change the color of the pixels). Retouching tools such as the Clone Stamp and the Healing Brush are grouped in with the painting tools. There are a couple of exceptions to the brush stroke metaphor, such as the Gradient tool, the Red-Eye tool, and the Patch tool, but it does apply to most tools in this section.
The next four are the Vector Tools. This is where Photoshop overlaps a little with Adobe Illustrator. Of these tools, the one you’ll be using most often initially is probably the Type tool. Later, once you get more experienced, you may have need of the Pen tool in order to create very precise outlines called Paths. Paths can be turned into selections and selections into masks. And masks are very useful for photographic work in Photoshop.
The two 3D tools are for working with 3D artwork and these only appear in the Extended version of Photoshop CS4.
The last two are the Navigation Tools. These tools don’t actually let you do anything to your image, but they do provide a way to zoom in and move around within an open image file. These tools can also be accessed from the Application Bar at the top of the screen.
Other Tool Panel Features
Under the main tools are the Foreground and Background color swatches. If you are using the Brush tool (B), for example, it will apply whatever color is in the foreground swatch. The curved, double-headed arrow next to them exchanges the two colors (X), and the mini black/white swatches reset the colors to the default (D). The default colors are black in the foreground and white in the background when an image layer is active. This is reversed if a layer mask or an alpha channel is active.
Below the color swatches is an icon that will toggle between Standard Selection Mode and Quick Mask Mode.
The Move Tool is used for moving the contents of an active selection or the currently selected layer (or layers if several are grouped or linked together).
The Marquee Tools are used for making rectangular or elliptical selections of specific areas within the image. The Single Row and Single Column marquees make a selection that is one pixel wide or high throughout the entire width or length of the image. These latter two tools are used mainly for web production and not for photography.
The Lasso Tools are used for making selections of specific areas within the image. The standard Lasso allows for free form selections; the Polygonal Lasso creates straight-sided polygon shapes; and the Magnetic Lasso will snap to an existing edge when there is sufficient contrast between the edge and the surrounding area.
The Quick Selection Tool (CS3 and later) you can “paint” a selection using an adjustable round brush tip. As you drag over an area, the selection expands outward and automatically finds and follows defined edges in the image. Once the initial selection has been made, the tool automatically switches to add mode, allowing you to continue dragging over areas to add to the selection.
The Magic Wand makes selections based on the color of the pixel you click on. It has an adjustable Tolerance setting that controls the range of tonal values that are selected.
The Crop Tool is used to crop the image. If the file is comprised of layers, the cropped areas can either be deleted or hidden (and later restored).
The Slice and Slice Select Tool are for preparing web graphics. They are used to divide a layout design into separate image “slices” that can each be optimized with different JPEG, GIF, or PNG compression and color reduction settings.
The Eyedropper lets you obtain useful information about the color and tonal values in an image. The Color Sampler Toollets you track color and density values of important areas in your image throughout the editing process. The Ruler Tool lets you calculate distances and angles. The Count Tool (Photoshop Extended versions only) is for creating an accurate count of specified items in the image. The Note Tool is used to place non-printing notes or comments directly in the image file. These are useful if you are working on a project within a workgroup or with other people.
The Spot Healing Brush is designed for quickly removing small specks and dust spots, such as sensor dust on digital camera shots. The Healing Brush is similar to the Clone Stamp tool in that it allows you to sample another part of the image and then apply that cloned sample elsewhere. Unlike the Clone Stamp, it preserves the color and shading of the destination area. In terms of the underlying concept, the Patch Tool is similar to the Healing Brush but is based on selections and is used for dealing with large areas that need to be patched. The Red Eye Tool is for quickly fixing that vexing phenomenon of red-eye.
The Brush Tool allows you to apply “brush strokes” of color or tonality to your image. As with all of the painting tools, a large variety of brush tips are available to use, including the ability to create customized brush tips. The Pencil Tool lets you do the same thing except it only offers hard-edged, jagged “brushes” whereas the brush allows you more choice in how to configure your brush tip. The Color Replacement Tool lets you paint over an area and change the color of that area to a determined source color.
The Clone Stamp is used to clone or copy image data from one part of the image and then place it down elsewhere in the image. The Pattern Stamp lets you brush in a predefined pattern on your image.
The History Brush is a wonderful tool that allows you to selectively revert your image by painting in what it looked like in a past state. Think of it as an Undo command applied with a brush. This tools works in conjunction with the History Panel. The Art History Brush does the same thing, but lets you add “artsy” styling to the brush strokes so you can create “paintings” from your photos. Although that may sound good if that is the type of work you want to do, the features offered in Corel Painter will provide a more satisfying “painterly” experience.
The Erasers are used to erase pixels. Of these, the most useful is the Background Eraser, which does a pretty good job at erasing a background, but letting you keep a foreground object. The Magic Eraser is a 1-click version of the Background Eraser, but it only works on backgrounds that are very different in color and tone from areas you want to keep.
The Gradient Tool is used to create gradients from one color to another color, or composed of several colors. For photographic purposes, gradients can be used in masks to create subtle transitions between layers or adjustment layers. The Paint Bucket Tool is used to fill a region with color. Depending on the settings, which are similar to those of the Magic Wand, it decides on how much of an area to fill by measuring the pixel you click on.
The Blur and Sharpen tools do just what they say, allowing you to brush in blurriness or sharpness with a brush. This is a destructive process, however, and needs to be used with caution, if at all. The Smudge tool treats your image as if it were wet oil paints, and lets you smudge the detail. Not very useful for photographic images, but lots of fun if you want to turn a photo into an oil painting or try your hand at the digital version of finger painting.
The Dodge and Burn tools are based on traditional photographic darkroom practices and they enable you to use a brush to lighten (dodge) and darken (burn) specific image areas. Though these tools received a much needed upgrade in how they apply their lightening and darkening effects in Photoshop CS4, they still affect the actual image pixels, which is a destructive way of applying a simple tonal change. As we shall see in the course of this class, there are better techniques to use for such adjustments that are both flexible and non-destructive. In most cases, the best way to apply such tonal corrections is to use adjustment layers, or the Adjustment Brush in Adobe Camera Raw. The Sponge tool lets you brush on increased or decreased color saturation. As with the Dodge and Burn tools, there are better ways to accomplish such a change.
Pen Tools, Path Selection Tools and Shape Tools are all part of Photoshop’s vector capabilities. The Pen Tools are used to create and edit precise vector paths. Paths are useful for making very accurate knockouts and selections. The Path Selection Tools are used for editing vector paths after they have been created. The Shape Toolscreate basic shapes that are vector-based.
The Type Tools let you add text to your images in either a horizontal or vertical orientation. When using the first two type tools, text is always created as a new layer of editable text. With the Type Mask tools it is created as a selection. Once the selection is created the text is no longer editable.
The 3D Tools are new to Photoshop CS4 and only are available in the Extended version of the program.
The Hand, Rotate View and Zoom Tools are used to move around through the image and zoom in or out. These can also be accessed in the Application Bar near the top of the screen. The Rotate Viewtool is new to Photoshop CS4 and requires that “Enable Open GL Drawing” be turned on in the Performance section of the Preferences. This is a feature that uses the GPU (graphics processing unit) of your video card to handle screen redraws instead of the computer’s main processor. In order for this preference to be turned on and these features be available, your video card must contain a GPU that supports Open GL with enough RAM to support these Photoshop functions.
