The Menu Bar stores many Photoshop commands. It appears just beneath the title bar and works like the menus you have encountered in other Windows-based programs.

All open documents appear in a document window. You can move the document window by clicking and dragging on the title bar of the active window.

The toolbox usually floats on the left side of the screen. It contains many tools that can help you edit your images. You will notice that one of the tools looks like a button that's pushed in. That's because it's currently selected. You will always see one tool selected in the toolbox. The easiest way to select a tool is to click on it, but you can also use keyboard shortcuts to access these tools. If you're not sure what the icon for a tool represents, simply move your cursor over it (without clicking) and a tool tip will appear with the tool's name and its keyboard shortcut. If you'd like Photoshop to display the name of the tool that's currently selected, click on the right-facing triangle on the status bar (at the bottom of the screen) and select Current Tool. Photoshop will then show the name of the tool in the status bar.

Unlike the buttons on toolbars in Microsoft programs, the buttons in Photoshop's toolbox are not shortcuts to commands that you could also access from the Menu Bar. (In Microsoft Word, for example, you can click on the Print button to print, but you could also choose the Print command from the File command on the Menu Bar.) In Photoshop, the tools in the toolbox cannot be accessed through any menu commands. The figure to the right displays the tools covered in this document along with their keyboard shortcuts. (Unlike other Windows-based programs, you need only type the letter for the keyboard shortcut on the keyboard; no other keys are necessary.) With a few exceptions, the remaining tools will be covered in Intermediate Editing.

Please note that clicking on the button to Jump to ImageReady will load a new program (covered in our ImageReady class), which is used for producing web graphics; be prepared for a slow loading process if you click on this space!

For each tool, you'll see a corresponding Options Bar beneath the Menu Bar at the top of your screen. The Options bar is context-sensitive, which means that it will display different options depending on the tool you have selected from the toolbox. On the far left of the options bar, you'll see a button displaying the icon for the current tool; clicking on the drop-down arrow next to it will display a list of tool presets. If you want to confine your options to those for the Current Tool Only, check the box at the bottom left of the window. To quickly reset all the tools to their defaults, click on the right-facing triangle button and choose Reset All Tools. (You can also access these choices on the Tool Presets palette.)

The floating palettes may appear anywhere on your screen when you open Photoshop. If you'd like to see the floating palettes in their default arrangement, choose the Window command from the menu bar, then select Reset Palette Locations from the Workspace submenu. As their name suggests, these palettes can be moved around. By clicking and dragging on the blue title bars for the palettes, you can move them into different positions. Just like document windows, the palettes have control buttons so that you can minimize or close them. You can also resize them by clicking and dragging on the borders of the palettes.

On each palette, you will see several tabs. By clicking on the name of a tab, you can bring that palette "forward" (like a Rolodex card). The various tabs present a variety of features you may want to use in editing your images. For the purposes of this class, we'll focus on the Navigator, Color and Swatches palettes. If you'd like to get some of the other tabs out of your way, you can do so using the Palette Well in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. (If you don't see the palette well, set your monitor's resolution to at least 800 x 600 pixels; Photoshop recommends an optimal setting of 1024 x 768 pixels). The palette well stores individual tabs that you don't need to access very often so that they're not taking up room on your desktop. To move a tab into the well, click on the tab name, drag it over the palette well, then drop it. Note that you can only drag individual tabs into the well; you cannot drag whole palettes. To access a palette in the well, simply click on its tab name. If you no longer want a palette to be housed in the well, either click and drag it out or use the Reset Palette Locations command.

Inside the palette well is an alternative to the File, Open menu command called the File Browser. Here you can view thumbnails of the files in any directory you select (even if you haven't saved a preview image with the file). You can also see the file size for each document. As you begin to use Photoshop more often, you may find this palette a useful tool for organizing various versions of your files. To exit the File Browser palette, click on its title.

To create a new image in Photoshop, go to the File menu and select New. Type in a Name for the file. If you'd like to use a standard size (such as a sheet of paper or a monitor size), you can select it from the Preset Size drop-down menu. If you'd like to use a different set of dimensions, set the units first (in pixels, inches, centimeters, etc.), then type in the desired width and height.

You are also asked for the Resolution. The value you choose here should be determined by what you want to do with the image. On-screen viewing for web graphics looks fine at 72 pixels/inch. Most printers operate at 300 or 600 pixels/inch. Images such as book covers that you will print on top quality printers will require 1200 pixels/inch. Of course, the greater the resolution, the greater the file size will be.

You will also be asked what Mode you want to work in. Most of the time, you will want to leave the mode at the default (RGB), since it is the standard monitor color mode and all Photoshop operations work in RGB. Another important color mode is CMYK, which is the standard color mode for color printing. You will learn more about Color Modes and how to change them in Image Correction.

Finally, you will need to select the Contents of your new document window. This choice will determine the canvas color of your new document. We suggest that you start with White; you may also choose to select the Background Color, which will fill your canvas with the background color currently displayed in the toolbox. The Transparent option is most useful for web graphics; we will discuss transparent graphics in the Web Graphics class.

To open an existing file in Photoshop, go to the File menu and select Open. Find the file in the Open dialog box, making sure that you know what type of file you are looking for (jpg, gif, psd, tif, etc.). You can also use the File Browser palette to locate your document. If you lose track of an open document window, use the Window menu command and choose the Documents option to see a list of open documents.

To save a file for the first time in Photoshop, go to the File menu and select Save or Save as. In the Save as dialog box, choose the type of file that you want to save an image as (jpg, psd, tif, etc). Then, choose the location as you normally would. If you want to change the file type of a pre-existing image, then you may need to choose Save a Copy instead of Save as. To learn more about file types, see the documents Image Correction and Web Graphics.

Before using the painting tools to touch up an image, try them on a blank document to see what they do. To use the painting tools, first select the tool from the toolbox or with its keyboard shortcut. Then position your mouse over the document window and click and drag where you want the paint to appear.

Brush

By clicking on the Brush drop-down arrow, you'll see an array of brush shapes and sizes; use the scroll bar to see more choices. As you position your cursor over the various brush options, you'll see a tool tip telling you the brush's type and its size in pixels. To select a brush, click on it. When you've made your selection, click on the drop-down arrow (it will be white) to close the window and begin painting. If you find a brush with a shape you like but it's not the right size, use the Master Diameter slider bar at the top of the dialog box to adjust the diameter in pixels.

Blending Mode

The blending mode determines how the paint you put down reacts with the colors (pixels) already in the image. The Normal mode works exactly like applying paint to a canvas in the real world. The other blending modes change the way your paint color interacts with your image. For the purposes of this class, you'll want to make sure your blending modes are set to Normal; otherwise you may get some surprising effects. Blending modes are discussed further in Intermediate Editing.

Opacity

Opacity is the degree of coverage you get when working with the painting tools. Opacity works on a scale of 0 to 100. If the Opacity is 100%, then the paint will cover everything underneath it; if it's lower than 100%, you will be able to see some of the paint on your canvas through your paint color. You can control the Opacity by clicking on the right-facing arrow and sliding the cursor to the appropriate setting, or by selecting the number in the box and typing a number from 0 to 100, then hitting Enter.

The Brush places soft-edged strokes of paint on your image. The brushes for the Brush tool include both hard-edged and soft-edged options.

Flow

The Flow setting controls how quickly paint is applied by the Brush tool. Use the slider bar to adjust it.

Airbrush option

The Airbrush tool is the digital equivalent of the artist's airbrush, letting you apply a gradual build-up of color to an area without leaving obvious edges to your paint strokes. For that reason, it's an excellent tool for camouflaging changes that you make to images. To use the Airbrush option with the Brush tool, click on its button on the Options bar. Because the Airbrush is an anti-aliased tool like the Paintbrush, you can select soft-edged brushes to use with it. Unlike either the Paintbrush or the Pencil, though, the Airbrush will increase the intensity of your foreground color as you hold your mouse button in place. If you click and hold your mouse in place, you will see the color begin to seep out beyond the original brush size.

The Pencil shares a space in the toolbox with the Brush tool. You can access it either by clicking and holding down on that space with your mouse to select the Pencil, or by using the <Shift> key on your keyboard while pressing the keyboard shortcut (B) for the tool. The Pencil leaves aliased pixels in the foreground color whenever it is clicked or dragged in the image. Aliasing leaves a jagged boundary to your paint strokes; anti-aliasing (such as you can see with the Brush tool) is a means of smoothing out this jagged boundary by putting in pixels that will blend the foreground color with the canvas color. Since the Pencil is an aliased tool, you can only select hard-edged brushes in conjunction with it.

The Options bar for the Pencil tool also offers an Auto Erase feature. When you have selected this option by checking the box next to Auto Erase, you'll notice that placing your cursor in an area where you have already painted with the foreground color at 100% opacity will prompt the Pencil tool to paint in the background color (which is the way the Eraser tool applies paint to your canvas).

Despite its name, when you paint with the Eraser tool, you are really painting in the background color. The drop-down menu in the Eraser's Options bar lets you select which painting tool the eraser will mimic. The default is Brush, meaning that the eraser covers your canvas like the Brush tool; you even have the same options as the Brush tool. You may also choose to make the Eraser imitate the Pencil tool or a Block, which does not allow you to control brushes or opacity. The final option available on the Eraser Options palette, Erase to History, will be covered in Intermediate Editing. For now, leave this option unchecked.

The Background Eraser and Magic Eraser, which share the Eraser's space in the toolbox, replace the background of your image with transparency. Since these tools are most useful for editing images for use on the web, they will be covered in Web Graphics.

Near the bottom of the toolbox, Photoshop displays the Foreground and Background colors. You can swap the two colors by clicking on the double arrow to the right and directly above them in the toolbox, or by pressing <X> on the keyboard. You can change the two colors to the default setting of black (foreground) and white (background) by clicking on the icon to the lower left of the colors or by pressing <D>.

How can you change the foreground and background colors? One method is to simply click inside the foreground or background color box on the toolbox. A single-click brings up the Color Picker. With Photoshop's default settings, you should see a bullet in the radio button next to H. (If you don't, click on that radio button so that your screen will match the example in the handout.) This turns the slider into a Hue Selection slider, which means that you can use the slider to select the hue (color) you want. In the middle of the window, you'll see a thin spectrum. Click and drag the slider bar to navigate to the color you wish to use. If you need to constrain your color choices to only web-safe colors, check the box for Only Web Colors before proceeding. (For more information on web-safe colors, see Web Authoring: Graphics [iid09].)

Once you've selected a color, you can then choose a shade; you'll be able to select anything from the palest shade of that color to near-black, as well as pure white and pure black. To choose a shade, click with your cursor in the large selection area on the left side of the window. The color contained in the circular marker is the one Photoshop thinks you've selected. (Your anticipated new color will also display to the left of the OK button, in the upper rectangle. The lower rectangle reflects your previous color choice.) Once you've completed your color selection, click on the OK button to apply your changes to the foreground or background color.

As a general rule of thumb, the upper-left corner of the color selection area always contains pure white while the lower-left and -right corners always contain pure black. The upper-right corner always contains whichever hue you've selected from the slider. An easy way to select a shade of gray is to drag your cursor up and down the left edge of the color selection area. This always picks a neutral gray. If you're looking for pure white, a quick trick is to set all the values next to the CMYK settings at the bottom right to 0%.

The Color palette offers another method for changing your foreground and background colors. First, select either the foreground color or background color box from the icons in the upper left-hand corner. Second, position your cursor over the spectrum at the bottom of the palette (your cursor will look like an eyedropper) and click to select a color. You can then drag the arrows or enter numbers in the text fields to change the balance of red, green, and blue in the color (if you're in RGB mode). Any change you make in the palette is immediately reflected in the foreground and background color displays in the palette and in the toolbox. Note that pure white and black are readily available at the far right of the spectrum at the bottom of the palette.

The Swatches palette offers a variety of pre-mixed colors. Each of the swatches in the default palette has a name; position your cursor over a swatch to see the tool tip. Clicking on a swatch changes the foreground color while holding down the <Ctrl> key while you click changes the background color. Your selection is immediately reflected in the foreground or background color window in your toolbox.

To add your current foreground color to the Swatches palette, use the "New" button at the bottom of the palette (the icon looks like a piece of paper with the corner folded upward). Your current foreground color will be added to the bottom of the palette. If you'd like to give your swatch a name, right-click on its space on the palette and select Rename Swatch . To get rid of a swatch you no longer want, right-click on it and select Delete Swatch.

The Marquee tools are the most basic of the selection tools. They are located in the upper left corner of the toolbox. You'll notice that there are four different options for the Marquee tool: Rectangular, Elliptical, Single Row, and Single Column. The Rectangular Marquee selects a square or rectangular area, and the elliptical marquee a circular or elliptical one. The Row and Column Marquee tools allow you to make a selection one pixel tall or one pixel wide. To select the desired Marquee tool, click and hold down with your mouse button on the Marquee space in the toolbox, then slide your mouse to select the appropriate tool.

Marquee Options

The set of four buttons on the Options bar for the Rectangular and Elliptical Marquee tools determine the way your selection tool will function. For now, make sure that the button furthest to the left is selected. We'll cover the other options in Selection Techniques.

The Feather option will blur the edges around your selection to create a smooth transition along selection lines. You can set this feature between 0 and 250 pixels. A setting of 0 will apply no feathering to the edges of your selection, while a setting of 250 will apply a lot of feathering to your selection. Beware that if you have selected an area that is not at least equal to the Feather setting in terms of length or width, Photoshop will warn you that "No pixels are more than 50% selected." Should you see this message, you should decrease the feathering on the selection tool and try your selection again.

The Anti-aliased option is only available for the Elliptical Marquee tool. When checked on, this feature will smooth the edges of your selection area, rather than making them look jagged, as having aliased edges would do. You may not be able to see the effects of feathering or anti-aliasing until you move, cut or paste your selection. (See the section "Working with Selections" for more details on using the Move tool with selections.)

By setting the Style to Normal, you can use the Marquee tool to select an area of any size; simply click and drag in your document window to select an area. In addition, you can use the Marquee tool to select a fixed size by choosing Fixed Size from the Style menu. Type in the width and height in pixels of your selection. Click anywhere on the image to make the selection lines appear, then click and drag to move the selection to the appropriate location. Fixed Aspect Ratio maintains set proportions to your selection area while giving you flexibility as to the actual width or height of your selection.

Tips for using the Marquee Tools

If you know the keyboard shortcuts, you can also access some advanced options for using these tools.

Using the Lasso tools, you can draw a selection of any shape you wish, but this tool does require a steady hand and a sharp eye. There are three modes for the Lasso tool: Freehand, Polygonal and Magnetic. Like the Elliptical Marquee tool, all three of these tools allow feathering and anti-aliasing.

Freehand mode works like a pencil to trace the selection as you click and drag with the mouse; release the mouse button or reach the starting point to close the selection. The Polygonal mode allows you to create straight-sided selections of any size and shape by clicking at each corner of the polygonal selection area, then double-clicking to close the selection. Alternatively, watch for the Origin point icon (a polygonal lasso with an O) and click at the end of your lasso selection to close it when you're finished.

The Magnetic mode hugs the selection area, anticipating the points you'd like to select even if you simply drag your mouse, without clicking, along the edges of your selection area (You can also set points manually by clicking with your mouse button.) Close the selection area by double-clicking. You can set the Width to stay within very few pixels of the line you're tracing for an image with soft edges or at a higher value for an image with well-defined edges. Edge Contrast controls the tool's sensitivity to edges in the image (a high setting will detect only areas that sharply contrast with their surroundings), and Frequency determines how often Photoshop will set down points as it traces the borders of your selection area. Generally, when you're trying to select an area with intricate edges and subtle shading, you'll want a low Width setting (under 5), a low Edge Contrast setting (10-20%), and a high Frequency setting (100 is the maximum). The Pen Pressure option is only useful if you have a stylus and tablet.

Tips for using the Lasso Tools

The Magic Wand tool selects pixels that are close to each other in color. You can specify how precisely matched the pixels will be by typing in a number from 0 to 255 in the Tolerance field of the Options bar. The tolerance setting will determine how similar the pixels in the image must be to the pixels you clicked on in order to be included in your selection area. If the tolerance is set to 0, the Magic Wand only picks up pixels next to the pixel on which you clicked and identical to it in color. If you set the tolerance to 255, it selects the entire image. Obviously, the ideal tolerance for your selections is probably somewhere in between. The Contiguous option can be checked on or off to give you additional flexibility in your selection. For example, if you're trying to select the sky from your image, checking on the Contiguous feature will select only the blue pixels that are touching each other in the image. If you uncheck this feature, the Magic Wand will select all the blue pixels in your image, regardless of whether they're touching the point where you clicked your cursor (and including, perhaps, some pixels that aren't part of the sky).

The Paint Bucket shares a space with the Gradient Tools (covered in Intermediate Editing ) and can be accessed by using the <Shift> key in conjunction with the tool's keyboard shortcut (G). The Paint Bucket is usually used for filling a selection (or the entire image) with the foreground color. In the Paint Bucket options bar, you can set the Blending mode, Opacity, and the Contents of the bucket. The Tolerance setting controls the extent to which the paint bucket will fill the selected area: for example, a low tolerance setting will only fill pixels that are very close in color to the ones you clicked on.

Because the tolerance feature of the Paint Bucket tool can sometimes limit its effectiveness, you may find that the Fill command on the Edit menu is a better method. When you choose the Fill command, you'll see a dialog box that asks you to choose the Contents of the fill (you can choose from some familiar options, including the foreground color, background color, black, white, and gray), the Opacity of the fill color, and the Blending Mode. Press OK to apply your choices and fill your selection.

The Eyedropper changes your foreground or background color to a color you pick from your image. Select this tool from the toolbox, then click on a color in the image to make that color your foreground color; <Ctrl> -click to make the color the background color. You can control your sample size in the Eyedropper Options dialog box. A Point Sample picks up the actual color of the pixel selected, while a 3 by 3 Average or 5 by 5 Average gives you the numerical average of the colors around the pixel you clicked on. The last two options give a more natural look if you will be filling a sizeable area with the sample you've selected.

The Move tool lets you move a selected area to another part of the image or to another image altogether. When a selection area is active, clicking and dragging it with the Move tool will move the selection to a new location, leaving a "hole" in the selection's original location. To copy a selected area (so that you don't leave a hole), hold down the <Alt> key as you move it. For more flexibility in moving a selection, you can also use the arrow keys on your keyboard. Using an arrow key will move your selection one pixel at a time; holding the <Shift> key while you tap an arrow key will move the selection 10 pixels at a time.

This tool "zooms in" on an area that you need to see in great detail or to "zooms out" from an image to get a greater sense of perspective. To use the tool, select it from the toolbox and click on the area of the image you'd like to magnify. If you'd like, you can also click and drag out a rectangular area of the image that you'd like to magnify. You may use the Zoom tool repeatedly to increase your magnification up to a maximum level of 1600% (you can see the magnification level in the title bar for the document window). To zoom back out, use the Zoom Out button on the Options bar or enter a number directly into the magnification level box on the status bar. Alternatively, double-click on the Zoom tool in the toolbox to return to a 100% view of your document window.

Checking on the Resize Windows to Fit feature in the Zoom options bar will resize your document window to display the area you've selected for magnification. If the feature is not checked on, your document window will remain the same size as you increase or decrease magnification. Checking on the Ignore Palettes feature in conjunction with Resize Windows to Fit will enlarge your document window so that it may be partially obscured by your floating palettes. The Actual Pixels button changes the magnification to 100%. Fit on Screen sets the magnification of your image to the maximum magnification without necessitating scrollbars. Print Size displays a preview of your image based on its print resolution.

Another option for viewing your image at various magnifications is to use the Navigator Palette. You can access this palette by clicking on the Navigator tab on the top floating palette (or by choosing Show Navigator from the Window menu). In the bottom left-hand corner, you'll see the magnification at which you're currently viewing your image in the document window. You can change that magnification by using the slider bar across the bottom of the palette; sliding left decreases the magnification and sliding right increases it. The red square indicates the area of your image that's currently displayed in your document window. To change the viewing area, simply click and drag on the red square: the Hand tool will allow you to change position in the image.

The Hand tool enables you to move quickly from one part of a large image to another, whether you're working in the Navigator palette or with the document window itself. By clicking and dragging on your image with the Hand tool, you can move around within your document viewing area. Keep in mind that the Hand tool will only allow you to move around in your document window if you're not able to see the entire image at once; if there are no scroll bars visible on your document border, you won't need to use the Hand tool. Like the Zoom tool, the Hand tool offers buttons to quickly change your display options.

The three Screen Mode options near the bottom of the toolbox allow you to change the background to your image's document window. Standard Screen Mode shows the document window at its current viewing magnification with the document window's title bar visible. The second option, Full Screen Mode with Menu Bar, centers your document window against a 50% gray background, eliminates the title bar for the document window and application and removes the taskbar at the bottom of your screen. Full Screen Mode displays your document window against a black background without the menus. The second two modes provide convenient ways to preview what your finished product might look like. If you'd like to temporarily hide your palettes and toolbox to enhance your view of the image, press the <Tab> key. Press it again to restore them.