Welcome to our Free Photoshop Resources Section.

We also offer hands on Photoshop Courses in Brighton, Sussex, led by experienced photographers, graphic designers and web-designers. However these tutorials, how-tos and tips will help you to get started!

You can work through these sections one by one, or just dip in to individual sections for a reminder.

Let’s kick off with a look at the Photoshop CS4 workspace:

When you first open Adobe Photoshop the work area below is revealed.

It contains:

• The Menu bar at the top of the desktop
• The Tool options bar immediately below the Menu bar
• The Toolbox floats on the lef
• Any open document appears in its own window
• Any open palettes float on the right.

You will not use all of the palettes often, when you know which ones you need the most often you can close the rest and save your workspace the way you like it. From the Menu choose:

• Window> Workspace> Save Workspace.

To return to the Photoshop default layout. From the Menu choose:

• Window>Workspace>Reset Palette Locations.

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Posted by Heather Buckley in Photoshop Training on February 21st, 2007 | No Comments »

Looking for a training course on Photoshop? We offer beginners to advanced workshops in Brighton, Sussex.

Options / Brushes (across the top of the screen)

• Select a new brush size/type for the tool in current use
• Make a new brush using options
• Used in conjunction with tools, provides modifiers for tool operation

Navigator

• Magnify or de-magnify using big and small hill icons (uses fast, pre-calculated magnifications)
• Move viewing area by dragging navigator rectangle
• Precisely adjust magnification using slider, or type in using zoom value field

Info

• Width and height of selections
• RGB and CMYK values
• Measurements when measuring tool selected
• X and Y positions of cursor

Colours

• Use sliders to modify foreground or background colours (select the appropriate square in the palette)
• Pick a colour from the blended picker below the sliders (cursor becomes an eyedropper)

Swatches

• Get a new colour for foreground (click swatch) or background (ALT-click swatch)
• Store a new, sampled, foreground colour in an empty area (cursor becomes paint bucket)
• Delete a colour using CTRL-click

History

• Move backward and forward through the changes made in the document
• Create a snapshot/s of a current satisfactory state as a place to come back to

Actions

• Record a series of modifications that can be played back on many different images (effects, scan corrections etc)
• Assign a particular command or set of commands to a function key as a personalised shortcut

Layers

Consider layers as sheets of acetate layered one upon another

• Each layer can have its own opacity setting
• Each layer can show only the selected part of its image by using layer masking
• The way in which layers combine with each other can be altered
• Layers may be locked to each other so that they can be moved in perfect registration

Channels

• Channels are the areas in which photoshop stores image information
• The information relates, in the first place, to the RGB  or CMYK channels that comprise the image
• Other images may be stored in the channels, most often these are the masks used

Paths

• The pen tool produces paths which are stored in the paths palette
• Paths may be created from selections and vice versa
• Path options provides ways in which the path may be incorporated into an image

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Posted by Heather Buckley in Photoshop Training on October 30th, 2007 | No Comments »