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 »

Adobe Photoshop has some great tools to put a portfolio on the web…

For a really comprehensive course covering how to create web graphics with Photoshop, check out our Photoshop for Web Graphics course in Brighton, Sussex.

The Metadata Tab

1. Open Adobe Bridge (or File Browser in older versions) and navigate to the folder of images that you want to include in your Gallery.
2. Select an image and view the metadata tab. Some fields have a pencil next to them which means the fields are editable. Fill in the description (this will be the caption on the Web Page). Fill in the credits for the image.
3. Check the apply (tick) box at the bottom of the window to apply the custom fields to the image they will now be attached to the image and travel with it.

Working With your Photoshop Gallery

Note – to use this feature in Photoshop CS4 you will need to download the Optional Plugins from the Adobe website

1. Choose  Tools> Photoshop> Web Photo Gallery in Adobe Bridge (in CS2 use Automate> Web Photo Gallery from the file browser’s menu) and select a style.
2. The preview is visible on the right – some options are not available for certain styles. Fill in your email address. The Source Images section is where you choose the images and decide where to save the gallery.
3. To choose a folder, select an entire folder of images to be processed or Selected individual Images From File Browser (Or Bridge) You need to do this before opening the Web Photo Gallery dialog box.
4. Hold down Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) and click on your chosen images to select them.
5. Click on Destination and either create or select a folder to save the gallery.

Naming your Photoshop Gallery

1. Under options, you will see a drop down menu.
2. Choose Banner. This is where you will enter the title of the gallery and personal information.

Select your Compression Settings

1. Select “Large Images” from the drop down menu
2. You can choose the default or increase the size if you wish. There is a slider that says “File size.” This sets the jpg compression. Moving the slider to the right will increase quality, but it will take longer for images to download.If you are unsure, a setting of 5 is a compromise between high qulity and fast loading.

Security Settings

This allows you to watermark your images.

1. Choose “Security” from the drop down menu.
2. Select “custom text” can type in any message you like for a watermark.
3. Choose the font size and placement of the watermark.
4. Select a color and opacity. If unsure use White and opacity 38%.
5. Hit OK.

When Photoshop has finished, it launches your gallery in your browser.

Upload Your Photoshop Gallery To The Web

You will need to find a web hosting company if you don’t already have one. You can then upload all the files in your chosen folder (the one we exported to) to the internet via FTP.

There are many easy-to-use ftp programs available such as cuteFTP for windows or Fetch for Mac.

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Posted by Heather Buckley in Photoshop Training on November 11th, 2009 | No Comments »

The first thing that you will need to do is to have the image in front of you, so before you do anything else make sure that you have the opened the image.

Learn a range of ways to improve the impact of your pictures on one of our workshops for beginners or advanced.

After you have it open create an adjustment layer but do not make any adjustments, only click O.K. When you have done this then choose the layer adjustment mode and then multiply. This will cause your image to get much darker as its density becomes greater. If you feel that this is not enough then you can always redo this again until you are satisfied.

If however you find it too dark then you can make it lighter by sliding your opacity bar to the left until you are happy. When you have achieved the effects that you require you can now repaint the second adjustment layer parts that you wish to alter with your paintbrush.

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Posted by Heather Buckley in Photoshop Training on April 20th, 2009 | No Comments »

Learn a range of tips to improve your images on our beginner’s Adobe Photoshop course in Brighton, Sussex.

This is an easy, quick and effective technique to get rid of any red eye you may encounter whilst working in photoshop:

Next to the dodge and burn tools there is a button called the sponge tool,

Firstly select this option and then set the desaturation level to about 50% or, if you prefer, another percentage, although 50 is the safest.

What you then need to do is to select the correct sized brush, this should be about as large as your figure’s pupil, but make sure that it is no bigger.

Then, after you have done this, all that remains to be done is to simply click on the pupil of your subject until you are satisfied that the red eye is sufficiently gone.

And there you have it, a simple and easy way to reduce red eye.

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Posted by Heather Buckley in Photoshop Training on March 25th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Below are a few quick tips on how to make photoshop easier. Check out about our Photoshop workshops to learn more.

The Reset Button

If you have ever been in a situation, and if you haven’t you probably will one day, where you’ve tweaked and twiddled with your settings so much that you’ve completely lost track of your original settings?

Despite all seeming lost, however, salvation is never far from hand in the form of the reset button. When you select a tool, regardless of which one it is, the reset button is the first one in the row of options, at the top left hand side of the screen. When you click on this icon, you will be given two options: these are to either reset all your tools or just the one you are using.
With the reset button at your side you need never again fear getting hopelessly lost and feel free to muddle about with the settings as much as you like.

A Straight Line

Drawing a straight line with a pencil or brush is not as easy as one might expect, however here are some tips that might help achieve this more easily.
One of the best pieces of advice I can give you is to hold down shift when you try to draw your line. That way the computer will have any marks you make become a straight line relative to your original point. To help you get a feel of how this works it is perhaps worthwhile just to practice with it for a few minutes, pressing and releasing the shift button randomly and making different movements with your mouse. (However bare in mind that you can only use this method if your line only goes vertically or horizontally.)
An alternative method that you can use, one which is not just restricted to going up and down, is called the point to point method. You do this by instead of drawing the line by dragging you mouse where you want the line to appear you, as well as holding shift, click where you want your line to end and begin, leaving the computer to fill in the blanks.

Switching From One Document To Another.

It is not uncommon, when using Photoshop, for images and documents to pile up and can quickly become a burden or unmanageable. Never fear though, with these tips you should soon by finding it easier.
One way Photoshop tries to help you manage with the document load is by having what is called a “photo bin.” What this does it to display thumbnail pictures of any documents that you may have open. This then allows you to more easily decipher which document you are looking for. The photo bin can be found at the bottom of the editor window.
Another method is to hold the “ctrl” and tab key at the same time, much like in windows, were the buttons are shift and tab, Photoshop will cycle through any open documents, and, if you press shift also, you will cycle the other way.

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Posted by Heather Buckley in Photoshop Training on March 16th, 2009 | No Comments »

Want to learn more about Photoshop – we offer a comprehensive range of courses including an Adobe Photoshop for Web Graphics workshop.

Upgrading Photoshop is expensive and some may wonder if it is worth upgrading to Adobe Photoshop CS4. If you’ve been trying to determine whether to upgrade to Photoshop CS4 look first at the new features listed on the official adobe Photoshop site. One great new feature the use GPU and OpenGL acceleration (to ordinary people this means Photoshop should be much quicker). A GPU is dedicated to calculations needed for graphics. OpenGL tells your GPU what it is working with and how to manipulate it. It will make your Graphics Card do some of the work your central processing system used to do.

To make use of the new GPU accelerations, your graphics card must have a minimum of 128 MB of memory and support OpenGL 2.0 along with something called Shader Model 3.0. If you’re not sure if you’ve got all these, Photoshop CS4 can tell you.

• Go to Edit >> Preferences >> Performance and look for the check box for “GPU Settings.”

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• If your GPU qualifies, the model will be listed and the box will be checked.
• If this area is blank, Photoshop doesn’t think your system has what it takes.
• If you think you do have a GPU that is up to the task, make sure your video driver is updated.

With GPU acceleration enabled, the experience of using Photoshop is greatly improved. Now when you zoom in and out, the size of everything changes evenly smoothly and, the view remains sharp at all magnification ratios. When you zoom above 500% you can now turn on a pixel grid view that outlines single pixels so you can see what you are editing.

If you hold down the H key (active the hand tool) then left mouse click on your image you can activate the “Bird’s Eye View” feature to show you where you are at. The view will zoom out to display you the total image and a bounding box appears centered where you clicked, move your mouse around and the box will follow. Let go and the image will zoom back into the scale you were at previously but at the new location. These tools are smooth and fast.

Holding down the space bar allows you to “flick” scroll the image with your mouse, by clicking and dragging in the direction you want to scroll and the image.

If you’re already using Photoshop and wish to upgrade to CS4 and your graphics card doesn’t support this feature, get a new graphics card.

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Posted by Heather Buckley in Photoshop Training on February 24th, 2009 | No Comments »

The eyedropper is an important basic tool in Photoshop. The Eyedropper can be used to pick out colour in an image, change foreground and background colours. Learn how to use all the Photoshop tools on our Photoshop Course in Brighton, Sussex.

Shaped like a pipette, it is an excellent tool for colour matching purposes when you have difficulty in finding the right colour, the eye-dropper tool allows you to alter the prominent colour so that it has a shade that is identical to colour on the canvas.

To change the foreground color, click with the eyedropper on the desired colour anywhere in the current image, or in any other open image, active or not. To change the background color, Alt-click, with the eyedropper, on the desired colour in any open window.

The keyboard shortcut for the eyedropper tool is I.

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Posted by Heather Buckley in Photoshop Training on February 27th, 2007 | No Comments »

Simple Greyscale masks in Photoshop

Firstly masks cannot be added to the background layer. So to start playing with masks you will need to duplicate the background. You can then add a layer mask to the duplicated background layer. Masks will be covered in our courses on Photoshop for Beginners or more in depth in our Advanced Adobe Photoshop training course in Brighton, Sussex.

Doing this simple masking exercise you will begin to understand about masks, how to edit them, which bits allow the underlying image to show through (white will reveal) and which bits of the mask will mask (black will mask) and how to use a semi transparent mask (50% grey for example)

In this exercise we will make add 50% transparency frame to an image by using a mask.

1. Open an image

2. Duplicate the background (easiest way right click on layer and select duplicate layer)

diagram 1

3. Select all of the background (click on background layer and use Ctrl A) and fill it with solid white (Edit>Fill>Use:White), we will be revealing this white layer through the image.

4. The simplest way to add a layer mask is to choose the Add Layer Mask Icon from the bottom of the Layers window (highlighted with red in diagram 2).

diagram 2

NOTE: If you have no active selection (as in this case), this will produce a mask with a white fill (nothing masked).  If you have a portion of your image selected the selection will be set as white (revealed), with the rest of the layer mask filled with black (masked).

5. Click on the mask in the layers panel see diagram 3

6. With the mask selected (not the image) -  Using the rectangular marquee tool draw a rectangle approximately 1cm from the edge of your image and choose SELECT>INVERSE

7. With the mask (white rectangle to right of image) still selected fill the selected area of mask with 50% grey. Choose EDIT>FILL>50% Grey
8. You should now be able to see 50% of the image through the mask around the edge.

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Posted by Heather Buckley in Photoshop Training on October 28th, 2009 | 1 Comment »