PREPARED BY: HAFIZ POTTER

© P&P SYNTECH ORGANISATION, 2008.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

INTRODUCTION TO PHOTOSHOP
Adobe Photoshop, produced by Adobe System Incorporated is used for digital
photography editing. Most UTP students use it as a software to prepare
Promotion & Publication designs such as flyers, posters, pamphlets, banners,
buntings, program books, nametags, desktop wallpapers and so on. The basic
concept that one has to get to know about Photoshop is “layer by layer”.

Imagine, if you’re doing a design manually, you have a piece of paper. Then, you
paste a photo on it using glue. After that, you paste a phrase of words on it using
glue, also. Now, you have three layers. One is the background layer (paper), the
second layer (photo) and the third layer (words).

GETTING TO KNOW THE BASICS OF PHOTOSHOP

Remember, the three important basic things you usually use in Adobe Photoshop
are:
a) Tool palette (editing purposes)
b) Navigation panel (zoom in – zoom out)
c) History panel (undo – redo)
d) Layer panel (Important)
PREPARED BY: HAFIZ POTTER
© P&P SYNTECH ORGANISATION, 2008.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

MODULE 1
GETTING TO KNOW THE CONCEPT OF USING ADOBE PHOTOSHOP

Getting to know the Tool Pallete

1. Move tool Move layers

2. Marquee tool Select layers
3. Lasso tool Select layers
4. Magic wand tool Select layers
5. Crop Take a portion of a layer
6. Slice tool Set boundaries
7. Healing brush tool Heal images
8. Brush tool Pick a shape
9. Clone Stamp tool Clone images
10. History Brush tool A layer of brush on top of a brush
11. Eraser tool Erase layers/images
12. Paint Bucket tool Pick color
13. Blur tool Blur images
14. Dodge tool Low-opacity brush on top of images
15. Pen tool Draw shapes
16. Type tool Type in words
17. Path Selection tool Select and move layers along a path
18. Shape tool Pick a shape
19. Note Set notes
20. Eyedropper tool Pick a color
21. Hand tool
22. Zoom tool Zoom in – Zoom out
23. Foreground color Pick a color or two

NOTE : Click and hold on each tools, new tools related to it will be displayed.
PREPARED BY: HAFIZ POTTER
© P&P SYNTECH ORGANISATION, 2008.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Loading the Document Window & Setting the Background Color.

1. Load the program by clicking Adobe Photoshop.

2. Go to File > New (or simply Ctrl+N) and the following box is displayed.
3. Click on Preset and a list of paper sizes are displayed. Simply click on any
that interests you.
NOTE: You can also key in the width and the height manually.
The recommended resolution is 150 (setting it below 150
will make your piecework quality low in resolution)

4. Click on the Background Contents and choose any that suits your
requirements (Recommended: Transparent).
5. Click OK.
NOTE: The document window is loaded.
6. Click on the Foreground color, click on the desired color.
7. Click on Paint Bucket tool, and then click on the document window.
NOTE: a) The background is now colored.
b) Color gradient is possible by clicking and hold on the
Paint Bucket tool, and then click on the gradient tool.
PREPARED BY: HAFIZ POTTER
© P&P SYNTECH ORGANISATION, 2008.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Editing, Cropping, Selecting & Inserting Fragments of Photo into Documents

1. Open the folder that contains the image file. Drag the image file into
Photoshop.
NOTE: The image appears in Photoshop as another document window.
2. Click on the Crop tool, select on the desired fragment of the picture, and press
enter.
NOTE: The same effect can be done using Marquee tool, but it will
require more actions.
3. Right click on the Background layer (Layer Panel), click Duplicate Layer.
4. Click on the Healing Brush tool, alt+click on the picture which you would like
to define as a source point, so that you can repair the image.
5. Click on the fragment of image which you want to repair.
6. Click on the Move tool, next click on the image and drag it into the desired
document window.

Exploring the Brush tool & the Clone Stamp tool

1. Open a new file.

2. Click on the Brush tool.
3. Click on an icon below the Layer Menu for more option (See figure below)

4. Click on the icon as shown in the figure above. A list of brush collections will
be displayed.
5. Click on the desired collection, and click OK.
PREPARED BY: HAFIZ POTTER
© P&P SYNTECH ORGANISATION, 2008.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

6. Click any of the collections, adjust the size by adjusting the Master Diameter.
7. Click on the Document Window.
Note : The selected brush will be displayed on the Document Window
as a new layer.
8. Click on the Clone Stamp tool, alt+click on the layer which you would like to
clone.
9. Click and drag all over the Document Window until you’re satisfied with the
results.
.
Inserting Characters and Words & Exploring the Shape tool

1. Click on the Type tool, click on any part of the Document Window, and type in
the desired characters.
2. Click on the characters, select all the characters, and click on the Foreground
Color to change the font color. Refer to the following figure for a clearer view.

3. Click and hold on the Shape tool, click on any desired shape, next click on the
Document Window and drag it according to your desire.
4. Click and hold on the Shape tool, click on Custom Shape tool. The concept for
this tool is more or less the same as the Brush tool, so please refer to the Brush
tool.
PREPARED BY: HAFIZ POTTER
© P&P SYNTECH ORGANISATION, 2008.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

EXTRA TIP: Exploring History Brush Tool & Dodge Tool

The concept of this tool is more or less the same as the Brush tool.

1. Click on the layer which you have created by using brush tool.
2. Click on the History Brush Tool.
3. Right click on the document window, and another window will appear.
4. Double click on any brush collection that interests you.
5. Click on the layer which you have created by using brush tool.
6. Click on the dodge tool.
7. Right click on the document window, and another window will appear.
8. Double click on any of the collections that interests you.
9. Click on the document window.

Saving Your Design

1. Click File > Save As > Save.

Note: There are a few file formats you need to know.

FORMAT PURPOSE
*.psd You can still easily edit using Photoshop
*.jpg Smaller in size, suitable for computer with low RAM (for preview), but it
would not be easy to edit (merged)
*.gif & Usually used when you design has no background (transparent
*.png background), but it would not be easy to edit (merged)

CONCLUSION
Congratulations! You’ve grabbed the basic concept of Adobe Photoshop. However, you
need to keep on practicing, and stay tuned with us. We’ll bring you lots more about
Photoshop that would make you craving to know more.