Photoshop 7 Course Structure

Working in Photoshop

Environment Palettes Tools & Options Status bar Preferences History & Undo Preset Manager Rulers – Guides - Grids Workspace Screen modes

Document handling Document windows New view Page set up Save options File info Image size & Canvas Integrated image browser

File types Gif – bitmap / greyscale / index colours Jpg Png Tiff – PC / MAC Psd Eps/Dcs – ASCII / Binary Bmp Pdf

Palettes Tools Options Navigator / info History / Actions / Tool presets Colour / Swatches / Styles Character / Paragraph Layers / Channels Brushes

General Concepts Pixels / mm / points / picas 1 inch = 72 pixels = 2,54 cm = 6 picas 1 cm = 28,3 pixels = 0,393 inch = 2,358 picas Image size and resolution DPI = Pixel Dimensions divided by Image Size, in inches. Image depth number of colours in the image Interpolation & resampling Transparency

General Concepts (2) Anti-Aliasing & dithering Blending & Blending modes: blending colour + base colour = result colour Raster & Vector images – rasterizing or “pixilation” Raster images are comprised of individual pixels. Vector images are comprised of line segments and anchor points (scale well) Kerning & Tracking Gamma: represents the contrast in the mid-tones of an image.

Colour aspects Using colour palette Using colour picker / eyedropper Colour swatches / maps / tables Hue / Saturation / Light – HSB model Colour modes: RGB : Additive color = add visible wavelengths of light to arrive at a color CMYK : Subtractive color = based on wavelengths of light that are reflected back to the human eye Gray scale : up to 256 shades of gray Indexed : refers to positions on a color look-up table. L*a*b color provides standard color descriptions. Gamut Colour depth 8 / 24 bits Colour Management Calibration means adjusting the monitor, software, and printer to produce expected results in any color mode.

The toolbox

The toolbox (1) Info / Navigator Tools for selections Rectangular / elliptical Lasso / polygonal lasso / magnetic lasso Magic wand Retouching Healing brush / Patch tool Painting Brush / pencil Clone / Pattern stamp Paint Bucket / Gradient

The toolbox (2) Focus Blur / Sharpen Smudge Erasing tools Eraser / background eraser / magic eraser Transforming Crop tool Move tool Adjustment Dodge / exposure (tonal) Sponge (colour) Typing tools

The toolbox (3) Pen tool Drawing tools Rectangle tool Ellipse tool Polygon tool Line tool Custom shape tool Colour Eye dropper Colour sampler Measure tool Hand tool Zoom tool

Basic skills

Zooming With zoom tool With navigator With shortcuts

Making Selections With selection tools / combinations with Shift & Alt Marquee Lasso Magic wand New - Add to - Subtract from - Intersect with Feather / anti-aliasing With Quick mask With Masks Colour selections Changing selections invert / modify transforming selections Saving / loading / exchanging selections

Transforming Images Resizing / resolution / resampling Cropping / Trimming Canvas Flipping / Rotating Scaling / Skewing Image extracts Image Liquify Moving in combination with ctrl & shift

Filling effects Filling Foreground and background colour Patterns Gradients & custom gradients Edit Fill Edit Paste into Edit Copy merged Edit Stroke

Image adjustments Adjustments with basic tools Image modes Levels Colour balance HSL levels Replacing colours Inverting / Threshold Gradient map Variations

Working with layers Layer aspects Visibility / Locking Background Write / link Opacity / Fill / Blending modes Layer sets Creating layers / renaming / copying / deleting / moving / merging Transferring layers between # files Using Layer styles Fill / adjustments layers Use & selection of layers (in combination with Alt & Ctrl keys)

Working with Text Type layers = vector objects Type tool Type Mask tool Text options Anti aliasing Shadow Paragraph and character settings Rasterising text Specifics Warped text Text boxes

Masks Channels RGB channels CMYK channels Alpha channels Quick mask mode Creating masks / layer masks Manipulating masks

Painting Painting tools Option bar Blending applies to all painting tools Airbrush available for all tools Using brushes the brush palette hard-edged soft-edged Anti-aliased edges Pencil tool ideally for B/W, bitmap images no anti-aliasing Paintbrush tool soft edges, smooth, blended colour always anti-aliased

Filters Sharpening Rendering Blurring Pixilation Texture Strokes Specific stand-alone filters Extracting Pattern Maker Liquify

Exercises

Exercises (1) Soft Asterix Grasp those balloons Show me the path 3D sphere Feathered edges Blurry borders Thunder & lightning Extract it A button for my website We want blood

Exercises (2) Create fire X files Smooth it ! Make some sound Grid line patterns Blend them together Red eye fever Just retouch it Text on a curve

Exercises (3) Photo text The good old days Give it a glow

Shortcuts & tips

Shortcuts & tips (1) F to cycle through # modes Ctrl + - to zoom in & out / Ctrl % Ctrl z : undo Ctrl F6 : switch between files Tab to hide palettes 2x click in a workspace to open document I = Eyedropper ; T = Text ; B = Brush ; P = Pen ; M = Marquee; L = Lasso ; W = Magic Wand ; E = Erase ; I = Eyedropper; V = move ; S : Stamp ; C = Crop Alt + tool to switch

Shortcuts & tips (2) Ctrl + click on a layer to select Ctrl key to move layers Ctrl + J to copy layer Alt + Move to duplicate Shft + Backspace is Edit Fill Shft + File Close to close all open windows Alt + File New to open new file with previous dimensions

Shortcuts & tips (3) Shft key to keep proportions Shft key to draw straight lines 2x click on zoom icon for actual pixels Ctrl + H to hide marching ants Ctrl D to de-select Ctrl Z to undo Ctrl U HSL

Resources

Help

Newsgroups alt.graphics.photoshop comp.graphics.apps.photoshop

Internet Sites

Discussion Lists / Newsgroups

Advanced Course

Customization aspects Preset manager Brushes Swatches Patterns Custom shapes

Importing / exporting aspects PDF to PSD File automate / Import

Working with actions

Plug-ins

Specifics Contact Sheet (Miniature) Picture package

Web specifics Save for the web Web Gallery Transparent gifs Working with slices and slices tool Exchange with ImageReady

Colour Management & Colour modes Duo / Index /... Image mode / colour table Image retouching / colour correction

Tools – enhanced & unplugged Paths Slice tool Erase / Brush to History plus Artistic effect Using tool presets – f.i. of tools without any options

Channels & Masks By using save selection By using channels pallet Loading selections From pallet From selection/load From another image Alpha channels / Composite channels / spot channels Calculations / Combining 2 channels Multi-channel mode

Layers Layers styles / Scale / Global light Grouping / Clipping Layer sets (pass through) Matting layers

Blending Unplugged Specifies how info from two sources is combined Accessible through layers palette or options bar Blending modes: Normal, Dissolve, Darken, Multiply, Color Burn, Lighten, Screen, Color Dodge, Linear Dodge, Overlay, Soft Light, Hard Light, Vivid Light, Linear Light, Pin Light, Difference, Exclusion, Hue, Saturation, Color, and Luminosity.

Paths Creating path layers (vector shapes) Different tools Pen tool Freeform pen tool Path selection tools Path editing tools Magnetic pen tool Editing anchor points, line segments & curves

Paths (2) Specific use Creating a path from a Text Converting selections into paths and vice versa Transforming paths Applying outline or colour to paths Managing paths Saving, deleting, duplicating Showing/hiding Aligning and distributing paths

Levels Values and tones of an image Presented as a histogram: Shadows left Middle tones middle High tones right

Printing Print Setup Print preview output options colour management Proof setup