This tutorial is all about the basics. Yes, basics you heard me. I mean you saw what I typed. Some of you may not need this tutorial at all, but this is just showing the way to those who doesn’t. But you are still welcomed to give advices on this tutorial and I will add them and credit you as well!
Warning: this tutorial will be
a little
heavy with words and images.
In future, the tutorials would probably be not this heavy as they would be more specific instead of being general, as I’m trying to get the basics out of the way and that we could move on with more advanced stuffs.
If you do not have Photoshop do not fret, I have the solution for you.
I have 2 sources that allow you to download Photoshop CS 4 from either one. Do note that this version of CS 4 is a portable one, meaning that you can use it anywhere. You can just place the file in a thumbdrive (the minimum size for your thumbdrive has to be 1GB to be on the safe side) and bring it everywhere. Its portable for a reason anyway.
Spoiler: WARNING PLEASE READ
DO NOT DOWNLOAD AND USE THIS PHOTOSHOP IF YOU HAVE ANOTHER PHOTOSHOP INSTALLED.
You will risk your originally installed Photoshop to lose its activation and you will need to either crack it again if you are a pirate or you will have to key in your serial code again. Also, you will risk losing all your installed brushes, actions, filters or plug-ins that you have load onto your Photoshop.
I recently had this experience as I was testing out whether the portable version of PS that I have is still working, so that you guys can have it. I have to re-install my stuffs back when I realised my mistake. But I had the portable version tested out by someone, thanks to Ultimatespoon. You guys are able to use it as well. Rejoice people. Rejoice!
Before we start about Photoshop, you need to know the difference between .JPEG file and .PNG file formats and also other commonly known file formats for image.
JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
It’s a lossy compression method, which means your image will suffer generational degradation after repeated editing and saving. .jpg or .jpeg files does not support transparent backgrounds, if you wish to have a transparent background you would have to use other file formats to save.
GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)
It’s suitable for storing graphics with relatively few colours as its limitations are an 8-bit palette or 256 colours and a single transparent colour. If you were to save a normal image with a colourful content in .gif format, your image will suffer from a heavy loss of colours and maybe quality.
BMP (Bitmap)
Or also known as Windows Bitmap, it is normally handled within the Microsoft Windows OS. BMP files are uncompressed, are usually large in size but they are also lossless.
PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
PNG file format was created as a free open-source alternative to GIF; it supports 8 bit palette images (with optional transparency for all palette colours), 24 bit truecolour (16 million colours) or 48 bit truecolour with and without alpha channel. It is well-suited to storing images during editing process because of its lossless compression.
JPEG vs PNG
For JPG files even if it was at the highest quality setting, the image will still be compressed and change the look of your image, if only slightly. It is not an ideal medium for typography, crisp lines, or photographs with sharp edges, as they are often blurred or smeared out by anti-aliasing.
With PNG file format, you can save your images without having to worry about the quality of your image degrading every time you save it.
Spoiler: Examples of a saved image in different fille formats
Example of a high quality setting for .jpg photograph.
Example of an image saved in .gif format.
Now lets move on to Photoshop!
Alright, if you have downloaded the file that I have shared and would like to know more about the features that I’m going to explain a little, please open the program.
Did you see your Photoshop is a little tad bit empty? Especially on the right hand side? Whereas mine has colours, text settings and layers box.
Don’t worry, its normal to be this empty when you first started using PS. To change it, simply go to “Window” at the top of the menu bar beside “Help”. You will see a bunch of words that may be a little alien to you, but no fret you will learn them eventually.
For my style of work, I prefer to set the boxes like you see in the image, Colour settings, Text/Character settings, Layers/Paths settings. (I think its the norm to set it this way, but you can customize it!)
To set these “boxes” into place, simply just go to Window like I mentioned, and click on the ones you want to display. For instance, you can click on “Character” and it would display a box next to the boxes panel, you can drag it into the box panel and your Character window would be set into place in the panel. You could always adjust the height of these boxes to whichever height you prefer.
Click on Window to get started.
Do bear in mind, not all windows can be displayed at the panel, which is why the settings that I have is the commonly displayed theme. You can always do the trial and error method to see which of the windows would suit you best to display.
Incidentally, I've added Brushes to my Window Panel as well, its located at the Colour Swatches' side.
Tools! We'll now proceed with tools and its functions in Photoshop. The letters that are bracketed lik "(M)" shows the shortcuts for each tool that I will be briefly explaining. Don't worry if the position of the icons is different from what is being shown, they all have the same function to be used.
The circled part of the image shows a small arrow right? Normally those icons are changeable, which you can just press and hold on the icon and it would pop out a menu to allow you to change to whichever tool you prefer.
Spoiler: Tools Area
Rectangular Marquee Tool(M) - Making selections on your image, in a rectangular shape. If you were to press and hold on to the icon at the tools area, you will be able to choose Rectangular, Ellipse, Single Row or Single Column for selection. You can also press and hold your [Shift] button when using the Rectangular or Ellipse tool to get a perfect rectangle or a perfect circle.
Move Tool (V) - To move your layer/image.
Lasso Tool - To draw selection in whatever form that you would like to draw in. To close the selection, either click on the beginning point (you’ll see the cursor change when you’re on it), or just double-click. When holding the [Ctrl] key, you’ll see the cursor change, and the next time you click, it will close your selection. Its good to use this tool when you need to render an image that has weird shapes that is hard for PS to select it automatically for you.
Magic Wand Tool (W) - Use this to select a colour range. It will select the block of colour, or transparency, based on wherever you click. In the Options Bar at the top, you can change the Tolerance to make your selections more/less precise.
Crop Tool © - Works similarly to the Rectangular Marquee tool. The difference is when you press the [Enter/Return] key, it crops your image to the size of the box. Any information that was on the outside of the box is now gone. You can always undo it if you don't like the size that you have cropped out.
Brush Tool (B) - Paints one your image, in whatever colour you have selected, and whatever size you have selected. You can download brushes and append them into your brush manager.
Healing Brush Tool (J) - You can use this tool to repair scratches and specs and stuff like that on images. It works like the Brush tool. You choose your cursor size, then holding the [Alt] key, you select a nice/clean area of your image. Let go of the [Alt] key and paint over the bad area. It basically copies the info from the first area to the second, in the form of the Brush tool. Only, that it averages the information, so it blends.
Clone Stamp Tool (S) - This is very similar to the Healing Brush Tool. You use it the exact same way, except this tool doesn’t blend at the end. It’s a direct copy of the information from the first selected area to the second.
History Brush Tool - This tool works just like the Brush Tool except the information that it paints with is from the original state of your image. If you go Window>History, you can see the History Palette. The History Brush tool paints with the information from whatever History state is selected.
Eraser Tool (E) - It works like an eraser and erases whatever information wherever you click and drag it. If you’re on a Layer, it will erase the information transparent. If you are on the background layer, it erases with whatever secondary colour you have selected.
Gradient Tool (G) - You can use this to make a gradiation of colours. It creates a blending of your foreground colour and background colour when you click and drag it. Like a gradient.
Blur Tool ® - Blurs your image. Click and drag to make things blurry. The more you click and drag, the blurrier things get.
Dodge Tool - Used to lighten whatever area you use it on. Absolute black won’t lighten.
Horizontal Type Tool (T) - It makes text. You can click a single point, and start typing right away, or you can click and drag to make a bounding box of where your text/type goes. There’s a lot of options for the Type Tool.
Path Selection Tool (A) - Used to select the path. Paths can be used in a few different ways, mostly to create clipping paths, or to create selections.
Pen Tool (P) - Used for creating paths, in which you would use the Path Selection Tool to select the path. You use the tool by clicking to add a point. If you click and drag, it will change the shape of your path, allowing you to bend and shape the path for accurate selections and such.
Rectangle Tool (U) - Draws a Shape Layer in the form of a rectangle. It fills the rectangle with whatever foreground colour you have selected. You can choose to draw Ellipse, Custom shape, or Lines, when you press and hold the icon for awhile. Or you can choose it from the top when you have selected the tool to use.
Eyedropper Tool (I) - This tool works by changing your foreground colour to whatever colour you click on. Holding the [Alt] key will change your background colour.
Hand Tool (T) - Used for moving your entire image within a window. If your image is zoomed in and your image area is larger than the window, you can use the Hand Tool to navigate around your image. Just click and drag.
Zoom Tool (Z) - Zooms in and out of your image. Hold the [Alt] key to zoom out. Holding the [Shift] key will zoom all of the windows you have open at the same time. Double-click on the Zoom Tool in the palette to go back to 100% view.
Foreground and Background Colour Boxes - Foreground (at the front) and Background (at the back). Click on either one to bring up the colour select dialog box.
Quick Mask Mode (Q) - Everything you cover with your reddish “masking tape” will be protected from whatever it is you’re going to do with the image. The idea is that Photoshop will “select” everything except what you have painted in red.Once you’ve painted over all the places you want “protected”, simply click the Quick Mask button again, or type [q] on your keyboard. Everything except what you just painted over will be encircled by marching ants indicating it’s been selected.
Source: Here
In regards with the Brush Tool, you can always install unique brushes into the photoshop and use them.
Notice that when you first open up your Brushes Presets its a little empty right? The ones that you see in the image are brushes that I have downloaded. If you do not wish to install any external brushes yet, you could always append or choose a new set of brushes that is by default within Photoshop.
Before I show you how you can do that, take a look at the Brush tab.
It allows you to set whatever settings to your selected brush and then go crazy with painting on your canvas! You can change the brush direction, angle, the spacing in between each brush painted when you paint your canvas, etc. I'm not gonna elaborate on the settings, it would be better for you to go experiment it yourself. You'll learn it anyway.
To get the long menu that you see in the image, just follow the instructions on the image.
Point #2 shows the list of assorted brushes right? You can select any one of the brushes and it would pop out a message that asks you whether you want to replace your current brush selections or append them. I would suggest you to append them, so that you could still have your basic brushes ready to be used at any time.
If you look at #3, the Preset Manager, when you click on it, it would pop out a window of the Preset Manager. From there you can load your external brushes that you have downloaded and append it to your current selection of brushes. There is a small arrow in a circle too, it shows the long menu list in #2. Its the same thing again. You could even save your current selection of brushes that has all appended brushes together in a set. Just click on any brush to select it and then you will see "Save Set.." from there you can save your entire set of brushes and use it anywhere if you were to change Photoshop. When you're done adding and stuffs, just press Done and you're done!
Here is a list of websites that allows you to download photoshop brushes. Do note that photoshop brushes file format are ".ABR".
Brusheezy
QBrushes
DeviantArt, for this site you have to search through its search engine as its a art social media platform. It consists of all kinds of art and files for users.
BrushLovers
That is all for now!
Thanks for sticking to the end and reading it, I know it is a little dry.. Nah scratch that, it is bloody dry. In future, the tutorials will not be so torturous to read it anymore, maybe it would have some videos to demonstrate how it would work or something but not always. This tutorial is just an introduction to Photoshop and its functions that are commonly used. There are more functions that I have not explained, The post is already long as it is, and I do not want to torture you (and me) anymore. The chosen tools and functions will be explained accordingly suited to whichever tutorial that I will be showing to you guys.
Tutorial #2 would be introducing you to layers, and how you can create your own image/background and mix it up with Photoscape. I will not be showing you the Photoscape tutorial, as Gobee129 has already did it before. I would just briefly show you how it could be done and thats it. Its fairly simple anyway.
Thanks for reading! Do give your feedback and comments for all tutorials :3 I would greatly appreciate it. But no flaming please, I do not need get any flame after spending so much effort into compiling all the stuffs together.
Also, give suggestions on what kind of tutorials that you would like to see in the future as well.. I will try my best to get the resources for it and show it to you guys
For your sanity and mine, please do not quote this long ass post. Point it out or quote that particular part you want to ask about.