Basics of Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems.

Photoshop files have default file extension as .PSD, which stands for “Photoshop Document.” A PSD file stores an image with support for most imaging options available in Photoshop. These include layers with masks, color spaces, ICC profiles, CMYK Mode (used for commercial printing), transparency, text, alpha channels and spot colors, clipping paths, and duotone settings. This is in contrast to many other file formats (e.g. .JPG or .GIF) that restrict content to provide streamlined, predictable functionality. A PSD file has a maximum height and width of 30,000 pixels, and a length limit of 2 Gigabytes.

Starting Photoshop

To start Photoshop from the Windows Start menu, choose Start→All Programs→Adobe Photoshop Alternatively, you can double-click the Adobe Photoshop  desktop shortcut to start the program.

Creating a New Document

To create a new document in Photoshop, select File > New from the Menu Bar.

A dialog box will appear such as the one shown below:

A. Document Name – Set the document name here (optional). B. Presets – Choose a document size from a list of presets.C. Document Dimensions – Set the width and height of the document here.D. Document Units – Set the units of the dimensions of the document. Pixels should be your typical choice for any work you’re displaying on the web or on a monitor.E. Resolution – Set the Resolution of the document. Resolution typically means the number of dots (or pixels) per inch. In printing, you typically want a high value here (300 or higher), which will also increase the documents size. However, for web based work, or on-screen work, 72 is the default resolution.F. Color Mode – Set the color mode of the document. Unless you are doing special printing, you typically will be working with RGB Color (Red/Green/Blue).

G. Background Contents – Set up the background for your document.

The dialog shown above would create an 800x600px document with a white background. The document name would be “Document Name”, and the resolution would be perfect for on-screen work.

The Work Area

Upon first glance, Photoshop can be a big and scary place. Let’s break the Work Area into smaller components to make things easier to understand:

A. Menu Bar – An organized menu area categorized by the type of task being handled.B. Options Bar – Contains options for the currently selected tool.C. Tool Bar – Contains a wide selection of available tools in Photoshop, as well as the Foreground Color, Background Color, and other features.D. Document Window – The Containing Window of a document being worked on inside of Photoshop.E. Active Image Area – The Document Window contains the Active Image Area (Shown in White above). This is the area an artist works in.

F. Navigator – A small version of the current documents active image area. Used for navigating large images, or when zoomed in.

G. Color Palette – A palette used to select foreground and background colors for painting / drawing with.

H. History – Constantly updating record of previous changes made inside of a document. Can be used to reverse steps taken (Undo).

I. Layers – If Photoshop were a giant cheeseburger, layers would be the toppings & condiments. Layers in Photoshop allow you to work on a single canvas, letting some things appear above or below others.

This is just a glance of what the innards of Photoshop are like. We’ll cover everything in more detail in subsequent lessons.

 

Saving and Closing a Photoshop Document

To save a Photoshop Document, select File > Save from the Menu Bar. When saving, be sure to enter a file name you will recognize, and also select “Photoshop (*.PSD)” as the format. Doing so will ensure that the document will retain it’s Photoshop Document Attributes and Layer Data so that you may work with it later.