Adobe Photoshop
is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Systems for Windows and OS X.
Photoshop was created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, it has become the de facto industry standard in raster graphics editing, such that the terms "photoshopping" and "photoshop contest" were born. It can edit and compose raster images in multiple layers and supports masks, alpha compositing and several color models including RGB, CMYK, Lab color space (with capital L), spot color and duotone. Photoshop has vast support for graphic file formats but also uses its own PSD and PSB file formats which support all the aforementioned features. In addition to raster graphics, it has limited abilities to edit or render text, vector graphics (especially through clipping path), 3D graphics and video. Photoshop's featureset can be expanded by Photoshop plug-ins, programs developed and distributed independently of Photoshop that can run inside it and offer new or enhanced features.
Photoshop's naming scheme was initially based on version numbers. However, on October 2004, following the introduction of Creative Suitebranding, each new version of Photoshop was designated with "CS" plus a number; e.g. the eighth major version of Photoshop was Photoshop CS and the ninth major version was Photoshop CS2. Photoshop CS3 through CS6 were also distributed in two different editions: Standard and Extended. In June 2013, with the introduction of Creative Cloudbranding, Photoshop's licensing scheme was changed to that ofsoftware as a service and the "CS" suffixes were replaced with "CC". Historically, Photoshop was bundled with additional software such asAdobe ImageReady, Adobe Fireworks, Adobe Bridge, Adobe Device Central and Adobe Camera RAW.
Alongside Photoshop, Adobe also develops and publishes Photoshop Elements, Photoshop Lightroom, Photoshop Express and Photoshop Touch. Collectively, they are branded as "The Adobe Photoshop Family"
Early history
In 1987, Thomas Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan, began writing a program on his Macintosh Plus to display grayscale images on a monochrome display. This program, called Display, caught the attention of his brother John Knoll, an Industrial Light & Magic employee, who recommended that Thomas turn it into a full-fledged image editing program. Thomas took a six-month break from his studies in 1988 to collaborate with his brother on the program. Thomas renamed the program ImagePro, but the name was already taken.[8] Later that year, Thomas renamed his program Photoshop and worked out a short-term deal with scanner manufacturer Barneyscan to distribute copies of the program with a slide scanner; a "total of about 200 copies of Photoshop were shipped" this way.[9]
During this time, John traveled to Silicon Valley and gave a demonstration of the program to engineers at Apple and Russell Brown, art director at Adobe. Both showings were successful, and Adobe decided to purchase the license to distribute in September 1988.[8] While John worked on plug-ins in California, Thomas remained in Ann Arbor writing code. Photoshop 1.0 was released on 19 February 1990 for Macintosh exclusively. The Barneyscan version included advanced color editing features that were stripped from the first Adobe shipped version. The handling of color slowly improved with each release from Adobe and Photoshop quickly became the industry standard in digital color editing. At the time Photoshop 1.0 was released, digital retouching on dedicated high end systems, such as the SciTex, cost around $300 an hour for basic photo retouching.
File format
Photoshop files have default file extension as .PSD, which stands for "Photoshop Document." A PSD file stores an image with support for most imaging options available in Photoshop. These include layers with masks, transparency, text, alpha channels and spot colors, clipping paths, and duotone settings. This is in contrast to many other file formats (e.g. .JPG or .GIF) that restrict content to provide streamlined, predictable functionality. A PSD file has a maximum height and width of 30,000 pixels, and a length limit of 2 Gigabytes.
Photoshop files sometimes have the file extension .PSB, which stands for "Photoshop Big" (also known as "large document format"). A PSB file extends the PSD file format, increasing the maximum height and width to 300,000 pixels and the length limit to around 4 Exabytes. The dimension limit was apparently chosen arbitrarily by Adobe, not based on computer arithmetic constraints (it is not close to a power of two, as is 30,000) but for ease of software testing. PSD and PSB formats are documented.[12]
Because of Photoshop's popularity, PSD files are widely used and supported to some extent by most competing software. The .PSD file format can be exported to and from Adobe's other apps like Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro, and After Effects, to make professional standard DVDs and provide non-linear editing and special effects services, such as backgrounds, textures, and so on, for television, film, and the web. Photoshop's primary strength is as a pixel-based image editor, unlike vector-based image editors. Photoshop also enables vector graphics editing through its Paths, Pen tools, Shape tools, Shape Layers, Type tools, Import command, and Smart Object functions. These tools and commands are convenient to combine pixel-based and vector-based images in one Photoshop document, because it may not be necessary to use more than one program. To create very complex vector graphics with numerous shapes and colors, it may be easier to use software that was created primarily for that purpose, such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDRAW. Photoshop's non-destructive Smart Objects can also import complex vector shapes.
Plugins
Main article: Photoshop plugin
Photoshop functionality can be extended by add-on programs called Photoshop plugins (or plug-ins). Adobe creates some plugins, such as Adobe Camera Raw, but third-party companies develop most plugins, according to Adobe's specifications. Some are free and some are commercial software. Most plugins work with only Photoshop or Photoshop-compatible hosts, but a few can also be run as standalone applications.
There are various types of plugins, such as filter, export, import, selection, color correction, and automation. The most popular plugins are the filter plugins (also known as a 8bf plugins), available under the Filter menu in Photoshop. Filter plugins can either modify the current image or create content. Below are some popular types of plugins, and some well-known companies associated with them:
· Color correction plugins (Alien Skin Software, Nik Software, OnOne Software, Topaz Labs Software, The Plugin Site, etc.)
· Special effects plugins (Alien Skin Software, Auto FX Software, AV Bros., Flaming Pear Software, etc.)
· 3D effects plugins (Andromeda Software, Strata, etc.)
Adobe Camera Raw (also known as ACR and Camera Raw) is a special plugin, supplied free by Adobe, used primarily to read and process raw image files so that the resultant images can be processed by Photoshop.[24] It can also be used from within Adobe Bridge.
Tools
Upon loading Photoshop, a sidebar with a variety of tools with multiple image-editing functions appears to the left of the screen. These tools typically fall under the categories of drawing; painting; measuring and navigation; selection;typing; and retouching.Some tools contain a small triangle in the bottom right of the toolbox icon. These can be expanded to reveal similar tools.While newer versions of Photoshop are updated to include new tools and features, several recurring tools that exist in most versions are discussed below.
Pen Tool
Photoshop includes a few versions of the pen tool. The pen tool creates precise paths that can be manipulated using anchor points.The free form pen tool allows the user to draw paths freehand, and with the magnetic pen tool, the drawn path attaches closely to outlines of objects in an image, which is useful for isolating them from a background.
Measuring and navigation
The eyedropper tool selects a color from an area of the image that is clicked, and samples it for future use. The handtool navigates an image by moving it in any direction, and the zoom tool enlarges the part of an image that is clicked on, allowing for a closer view.
Selection
Selection tools are used to select all or any part of a picture to perform cut, copy, edit, or retouching operations.
Rectangular Marquee Tool (M)
Use this tool to make selections on your image, in a rectangular shape. This changes the area of your image that is affected by other tools or actions to be within the defined shape. Holding the [Shift] key while dragging your selection, restricts the shape to a perfect square. Holding the [Alt] key while dragging sets the center of the rectangle to where your cursor started.
Move Tool (V)
Use this tool to, well, move things. Usually you use it to move a Layer around after it has been placed. Hold the [Shift] key to limit the movements to vertical/horizontal.
Polygon Lasso Tool (L)
Ok, this should be the Lasso Tool, but I use the Polygon Lasso a lot more often. Use this to draw selections in whatever shape you would like. 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.
Magic Wand Tool (W)
Use this to select a color range. It will select the block of color, 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 (C)
The Crop Tool works similarly to the Rectangular Marquee tool (see above if you have no short-term memory). 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. Not permanently, you can still undo.
Slice Tool (K)
This is used mostly for building websites, or splitting up one image into smaller ones when saving out. It’s kind of an advanced tool, and since you’re in here for the basics, we’ll kind of skip over it. Kinda makes you mad I made you read all that for nothing, huh?
Healing Brush Tool (J)
This is a really useful tool. Mildly advanced. You can use this tool to repair scratches and specs and stuff like that on images. It works like the Brush tool (see below). 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, at the end, it averages the information, so it blends.
Brush Tool (B)
This is one of the first tools ever. It’s what Photoshop is based off of. Well, not really, but it’s pretty basic. It paints one your image, in whatever color you have selected, and whatever size you have selected. There’s a lot of options for it, but this is basic, so you don’t get to learn them. Ha.
Clone Stamp Tool (S)
This is very similar to the Healing Brush Tool (see above). 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. When you learn to use both of these tools together in perfect harmony, you will be a Photoshop MASTA! Not really, it’s just less irritating.
History Brush Tool (H)
This tool works just like the Brush Tool (see above) 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)
This is the anti-Brush tool. It works like an eraser (duh) 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 color you have selected.
Gradient Tool (G)
You can use this to make a gradiation of colors. Gradiation doesn’t appear to be a word, but it makes sense anyway. It creates a blending of your foreground color and background color when you click and drag it. Like a gradient.
Blur Tool (R)
The Blur tool is cool. It makes things blurry. Click and drag to make things blurry. The more you click and drag, the blurrier things get.
Dodge Tool (O)
This tool isn’t as crappy as the car brand. It’s actually used to lighten whatever area you use it on. As long as it is not absolute black. Absolute black won’t lighten.
Path Selection Tool (A)
You use this tool when working with paths. Since this is all about the basics, I won’t go into details. It’s related to the Pen Tool (see below) though.
Horizontal Type Tool (T)
It makes type. Or text. Or whatever you want to call it. 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. Just play around, it’s fairly straight-forward.
Pen Tool (P)
I mentioned this tool above. It’s for creating paths, in which you would use the Path Selection Tool to select the path. Paths can be used in a few different ways, mostly to create clipping paths, or to create selections. 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)
By default it draws a Shape Layer in the form of a rectangle. It fills the rectangle with whatever foreground color you have selected. It’s pretty complicated, don’t hurt yourself with this one.
Notes Tool (N)
Like post-it notes, but digital. You can use this tool to add small little note boxes to your image. These are useful if you’re very forgetful or if you’re sharing your Photoshop file with someone else. I’m pretty sure it only works with .PSD files.
Eyedropper Tool (I)
This tool works by changing your foreground color to whatever color you click on. Holding the [Alt] key will change your background color.
Hand Tool (T)
You can really make short work of your job with the Hand Tool. It’s for moving your entire image within a window. So if you’re 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. You can get to this tool at any time when using any other tool by pressing and holding the [Spacebar].
Zoom Tool (Z)
Pretty obvious what this tool does. It allows you to zoom into your image. Don’t be dumb, it doesn’t actually change the size 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.
Video Editing
In Adobe CS5 Extended edition, video editing is comprehensive and efficient with a broad compatibility of video file formats such as MOV, AVI, MPEG-4, and FLV formats and easy workflow. Using simple combination of keys video layers can easily be modified, with other features such as adding text and the creation of animations using single images.
3D Extrusion
With the Extended version of Photoshop CS5, 2D elements of an artwork can easily become three-dimensional with the click of a button. Extrusions of texts, an available library of materials for three-dimensional, and even wrapping two-dimensional images around 3D geometry.
Mobile integration
Third-party plugins have also been added to the most recent version of Photoshop where technologies such as the iPadhave integrated the software with different types of applications. Applications like the Adobe Eazel painting app allows the user to easily create paintings with their fingertips and use an array of different paint from dry to wet in order to create rich color blending.
Camera Raw
With the Camera Raw plug-in, RAW images can be processed without the use of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, along with other image file formats such as JPEGs, TIFFs, or PNGs. The plug-in allows users to remove noise without the side-effect of over-sharpening, add grain, and even perform post-crop vignetting.
3D Printing Tools
Requiring Photoshop version 14.1, users can now create and edit designs for 3D printing. After downloading 3D photo models from numerous online services, users can add color, adjust the shape or rotate the angles. Artists can also design 3D models from scratch.
Color Replacement Tool
The Color Replacement Tool allows you to change the color, while maintaining the highlights and shadows of the original image, of pieces of the image. By selecting Brushs and right clicking, the Color Replacement Tool is the third option down. What is important to note with this tool is the foreground color. The foreground color is what will be applied when painting along the chosen part of the image with the Color Replacement Tool.
Cultural impact
Main article: Photoshopping
Photoshop and derivatives such as Photoshopped (or just Shopped) have become verbs that are sometimes used to refer to images edited by Photoshop,or any image manipulating program. Such derivatives are discouraged by Adoz because, in order to maintain validity and protect the trademark from becoming generic, trademarks must be used as proper nouns.
Magazines
Before any type of print media is published, whether it is a magazine, newspaper, or even novel, it is likely the case that Photoshop has been used to enhance and clean up the imagery on many if not all of the pages. Magazines use Photoshop and many of its tools in order to enhance the imagery and text in their publications. Many Health and Beauty Magazines employ in-house designers to retouch photos of models to enhance their beauty. They add finishing touches to the imagery by using tools that balance color and add drop shadows, among other edits.[
Photoshop disasters
For comedic effect, some websites publish so-called Photoshop disasters, that is, pictures that contain obvious Photoshop mistakes. Those mistakes range from missing limbs to overdone photo retouching on fashion models.
Photoshop contest
Main article: Photoshop contest
A Photoshop contest (or "photochop contest") is an online game in which someone posts an image, and other people manipulate the image using a raster graphics editor such as Photoshop.
Photoshop Touch
Photoshop Touch is an application designed specifically for tablets and touchscreen devices. It includes many of the features of the personal computer version, including layers, selection tools, adjustments, and filters. Edited files can be synced with Adobe Creative Cloud. Photoshop touch is currently available on iOS and Android. There are two iOS versions—one designed for iPad and the other for iPhone and iPod touch; both require iOS 5.0 or later. Android versions can be installed on any Android handset (4.0 and up) and tablets (3.1 and up).
Photoshop was created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, it has become the de facto industry standard in raster graphics editing, such that the terms "photoshopping" and "photoshop contest" were born. It can edit and compose raster images in multiple layers and supports masks, alpha compositing and several color models including RGB, CMYK, Lab color space (with capital L), spot color and duotone. Photoshop has vast support for graphic file formats but also uses its own PSD and PSB file formats which support all the aforementioned features. In addition to raster graphics, it has limited abilities to edit or render text, vector graphics (especially through clipping path), 3D graphics and video. Photoshop's featureset can be expanded by Photoshop plug-ins, programs developed and distributed independently of Photoshop that can run inside it and offer new or enhanced features.
Photoshop's naming scheme was initially based on version numbers. However, on October 2004, following the introduction of Creative Suitebranding, each new version of Photoshop was designated with "CS" plus a number; e.g. the eighth major version of Photoshop was Photoshop CS and the ninth major version was Photoshop CS2. Photoshop CS3 through CS6 were also distributed in two different editions: Standard and Extended. In June 2013, with the introduction of Creative Cloudbranding, Photoshop's licensing scheme was changed to that ofsoftware as a service and the "CS" suffixes were replaced with "CC". Historically, Photoshop was bundled with additional software such asAdobe ImageReady, Adobe Fireworks, Adobe Bridge, Adobe Device Central and Adobe Camera RAW.
Alongside Photoshop, Adobe also develops and publishes Photoshop Elements, Photoshop Lightroom, Photoshop Express and Photoshop Touch. Collectively, they are branded as "The Adobe Photoshop Family"
Early history
In 1987, Thomas Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan, began writing a program on his Macintosh Plus to display grayscale images on a monochrome display. This program, called Display, caught the attention of his brother John Knoll, an Industrial Light & Magic employee, who recommended that Thomas turn it into a full-fledged image editing program. Thomas took a six-month break from his studies in 1988 to collaborate with his brother on the program. Thomas renamed the program ImagePro, but the name was already taken.[8] Later that year, Thomas renamed his program Photoshop and worked out a short-term deal with scanner manufacturer Barneyscan to distribute copies of the program with a slide scanner; a "total of about 200 copies of Photoshop were shipped" this way.[9]
During this time, John traveled to Silicon Valley and gave a demonstration of the program to engineers at Apple and Russell Brown, art director at Adobe. Both showings were successful, and Adobe decided to purchase the license to distribute in September 1988.[8] While John worked on plug-ins in California, Thomas remained in Ann Arbor writing code. Photoshop 1.0 was released on 19 February 1990 for Macintosh exclusively. The Barneyscan version included advanced color editing features that were stripped from the first Adobe shipped version. The handling of color slowly improved with each release from Adobe and Photoshop quickly became the industry standard in digital color editing. At the time Photoshop 1.0 was released, digital retouching on dedicated high end systems, such as the SciTex, cost around $300 an hour for basic photo retouching.
File format
Photoshop files have default file extension as .PSD, which stands for "Photoshop Document." A PSD file stores an image with support for most imaging options available in Photoshop. These include layers with masks, transparency, text, alpha channels and spot colors, clipping paths, and duotone settings. This is in contrast to many other file formats (e.g. .JPG or .GIF) that restrict content to provide streamlined, predictable functionality. A PSD file has a maximum height and width of 30,000 pixels, and a length limit of 2 Gigabytes.
Photoshop files sometimes have the file extension .PSB, which stands for "Photoshop Big" (also known as "large document format"). A PSB file extends the PSD file format, increasing the maximum height and width to 300,000 pixels and the length limit to around 4 Exabytes. The dimension limit was apparently chosen arbitrarily by Adobe, not based on computer arithmetic constraints (it is not close to a power of two, as is 30,000) but for ease of software testing. PSD and PSB formats are documented.[12]
Because of Photoshop's popularity, PSD files are widely used and supported to some extent by most competing software. The .PSD file format can be exported to and from Adobe's other apps like Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro, and After Effects, to make professional standard DVDs and provide non-linear editing and special effects services, such as backgrounds, textures, and so on, for television, film, and the web. Photoshop's primary strength is as a pixel-based image editor, unlike vector-based image editors. Photoshop also enables vector graphics editing through its Paths, Pen tools, Shape tools, Shape Layers, Type tools, Import command, and Smart Object functions. These tools and commands are convenient to combine pixel-based and vector-based images in one Photoshop document, because it may not be necessary to use more than one program. To create very complex vector graphics with numerous shapes and colors, it may be easier to use software that was created primarily for that purpose, such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDRAW. Photoshop's non-destructive Smart Objects can also import complex vector shapes.
Plugins
Main article: Photoshop plugin
Photoshop functionality can be extended by add-on programs called Photoshop plugins (or plug-ins). Adobe creates some plugins, such as Adobe Camera Raw, but third-party companies develop most plugins, according to Adobe's specifications. Some are free and some are commercial software. Most plugins work with only Photoshop or Photoshop-compatible hosts, but a few can also be run as standalone applications.
There are various types of plugins, such as filter, export, import, selection, color correction, and automation. The most popular plugins are the filter plugins (also known as a 8bf plugins), available under the Filter menu in Photoshop. Filter plugins can either modify the current image or create content. Below are some popular types of plugins, and some well-known companies associated with them:
· Color correction plugins (Alien Skin Software, Nik Software, OnOne Software, Topaz Labs Software, The Plugin Site, etc.)
· Special effects plugins (Alien Skin Software, Auto FX Software, AV Bros., Flaming Pear Software, etc.)
· 3D effects plugins (Andromeda Software, Strata, etc.)
Adobe Camera Raw (also known as ACR and Camera Raw) is a special plugin, supplied free by Adobe, used primarily to read and process raw image files so that the resultant images can be processed by Photoshop.[24] It can also be used from within Adobe Bridge.
Tools
Upon loading Photoshop, a sidebar with a variety of tools with multiple image-editing functions appears to the left of the screen. These tools typically fall under the categories of drawing; painting; measuring and navigation; selection;typing; and retouching.Some tools contain a small triangle in the bottom right of the toolbox icon. These can be expanded to reveal similar tools.While newer versions of Photoshop are updated to include new tools and features, several recurring tools that exist in most versions are discussed below.
Pen Tool
Photoshop includes a few versions of the pen tool. The pen tool creates precise paths that can be manipulated using anchor points.The free form pen tool allows the user to draw paths freehand, and with the magnetic pen tool, the drawn path attaches closely to outlines of objects in an image, which is useful for isolating them from a background.
Measuring and navigation
The eyedropper tool selects a color from an area of the image that is clicked, and samples it for future use. The handtool navigates an image by moving it in any direction, and the zoom tool enlarges the part of an image that is clicked on, allowing for a closer view.
Selection
Selection tools are used to select all or any part of a picture to perform cut, copy, edit, or retouching operations.
Rectangular Marquee Tool (M)
Use this tool to make selections on your image, in a rectangular shape. This changes the area of your image that is affected by other tools or actions to be within the defined shape. Holding the [Shift] key while dragging your selection, restricts the shape to a perfect square. Holding the [Alt] key while dragging sets the center of the rectangle to where your cursor started.
Move Tool (V)
Use this tool to, well, move things. Usually you use it to move a Layer around after it has been placed. Hold the [Shift] key to limit the movements to vertical/horizontal.
Polygon Lasso Tool (L)
Ok, this should be the Lasso Tool, but I use the Polygon Lasso a lot more often. Use this to draw selections in whatever shape you would like. 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.
Magic Wand Tool (W)
Use this to select a color range. It will select the block of color, 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 (C)
The Crop Tool works similarly to the Rectangular Marquee tool (see above if you have no short-term memory). 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. Not permanently, you can still undo.
Slice Tool (K)
This is used mostly for building websites, or splitting up one image into smaller ones when saving out. It’s kind of an advanced tool, and since you’re in here for the basics, we’ll kind of skip over it. Kinda makes you mad I made you read all that for nothing, huh?
Healing Brush Tool (J)
This is a really useful tool. Mildly advanced. You can use this tool to repair scratches and specs and stuff like that on images. It works like the Brush tool (see below). 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, at the end, it averages the information, so it blends.
Brush Tool (B)
This is one of the first tools ever. It’s what Photoshop is based off of. Well, not really, but it’s pretty basic. It paints one your image, in whatever color you have selected, and whatever size you have selected. There’s a lot of options for it, but this is basic, so you don’t get to learn them. Ha.
Clone Stamp Tool (S)
This is very similar to the Healing Brush Tool (see above). 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. When you learn to use both of these tools together in perfect harmony, you will be a Photoshop MASTA! Not really, it’s just less irritating.
History Brush Tool (H)
This tool works just like the Brush Tool (see above) 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)
This is the anti-Brush tool. It works like an eraser (duh) 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 color you have selected.
Gradient Tool (G)
You can use this to make a gradiation of colors. Gradiation doesn’t appear to be a word, but it makes sense anyway. It creates a blending of your foreground color and background color when you click and drag it. Like a gradient.
Blur Tool (R)
The Blur tool is cool. It makes things blurry. Click and drag to make things blurry. The more you click and drag, the blurrier things get.
Dodge Tool (O)
This tool isn’t as crappy as the car brand. It’s actually used to lighten whatever area you use it on. As long as it is not absolute black. Absolute black won’t lighten.
Path Selection Tool (A)
You use this tool when working with paths. Since this is all about the basics, I won’t go into details. It’s related to the Pen Tool (see below) though.
Horizontal Type Tool (T)
It makes type. Or text. Or whatever you want to call it. 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. Just play around, it’s fairly straight-forward.
Pen Tool (P)
I mentioned this tool above. It’s for creating paths, in which you would use the Path Selection Tool to select the path. Paths can be used in a few different ways, mostly to create clipping paths, or to create selections. 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)
By default it draws a Shape Layer in the form of a rectangle. It fills the rectangle with whatever foreground color you have selected. It’s pretty complicated, don’t hurt yourself with this one.
Notes Tool (N)
Like post-it notes, but digital. You can use this tool to add small little note boxes to your image. These are useful if you’re very forgetful or if you’re sharing your Photoshop file with someone else. I’m pretty sure it only works with .PSD files.
Eyedropper Tool (I)
This tool works by changing your foreground color to whatever color you click on. Holding the [Alt] key will change your background color.
Hand Tool (T)
You can really make short work of your job with the Hand Tool. It’s for moving your entire image within a window. So if you’re 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. You can get to this tool at any time when using any other tool by pressing and holding the [Spacebar].
Zoom Tool (Z)
Pretty obvious what this tool does. It allows you to zoom into your image. Don’t be dumb, it doesn’t actually change the size 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.
Video Editing
In Adobe CS5 Extended edition, video editing is comprehensive and efficient with a broad compatibility of video file formats such as MOV, AVI, MPEG-4, and FLV formats and easy workflow. Using simple combination of keys video layers can easily be modified, with other features such as adding text and the creation of animations using single images.
3D Extrusion
With the Extended version of Photoshop CS5, 2D elements of an artwork can easily become three-dimensional with the click of a button. Extrusions of texts, an available library of materials for three-dimensional, and even wrapping two-dimensional images around 3D geometry.
Mobile integration
Third-party plugins have also been added to the most recent version of Photoshop where technologies such as the iPadhave integrated the software with different types of applications. Applications like the Adobe Eazel painting app allows the user to easily create paintings with their fingertips and use an array of different paint from dry to wet in order to create rich color blending.
Camera Raw
With the Camera Raw plug-in, RAW images can be processed without the use of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, along with other image file formats such as JPEGs, TIFFs, or PNGs. The plug-in allows users to remove noise without the side-effect of over-sharpening, add grain, and even perform post-crop vignetting.
3D Printing Tools
Requiring Photoshop version 14.1, users can now create and edit designs for 3D printing. After downloading 3D photo models from numerous online services, users can add color, adjust the shape or rotate the angles. Artists can also design 3D models from scratch.
Color Replacement Tool
The Color Replacement Tool allows you to change the color, while maintaining the highlights and shadows of the original image, of pieces of the image. By selecting Brushs and right clicking, the Color Replacement Tool is the third option down. What is important to note with this tool is the foreground color. The foreground color is what will be applied when painting along the chosen part of the image with the Color Replacement Tool.
Cultural impact
Main article: Photoshopping
Photoshop and derivatives such as Photoshopped (or just Shopped) have become verbs that are sometimes used to refer to images edited by Photoshop,or any image manipulating program. Such derivatives are discouraged by Adoz because, in order to maintain validity and protect the trademark from becoming generic, trademarks must be used as proper nouns.
Magazines
Before any type of print media is published, whether it is a magazine, newspaper, or even novel, it is likely the case that Photoshop has been used to enhance and clean up the imagery on many if not all of the pages. Magazines use Photoshop and many of its tools in order to enhance the imagery and text in their publications. Many Health and Beauty Magazines employ in-house designers to retouch photos of models to enhance their beauty. They add finishing touches to the imagery by using tools that balance color and add drop shadows, among other edits.[
Photoshop disasters
For comedic effect, some websites publish so-called Photoshop disasters, that is, pictures that contain obvious Photoshop mistakes. Those mistakes range from missing limbs to overdone photo retouching on fashion models.
Photoshop contest
Main article: Photoshop contest
A Photoshop contest (or "photochop contest") is an online game in which someone posts an image, and other people manipulate the image using a raster graphics editor such as Photoshop.
Photoshop Touch
Photoshop Touch is an application designed specifically for tablets and touchscreen devices. It includes many of the features of the personal computer version, including layers, selection tools, adjustments, and filters. Edited files can be synced with Adobe Creative Cloud. Photoshop touch is currently available on iOS and Android. There are two iOS versions—one designed for iPad and the other for iPhone and iPod touch; both require iOS 5.0 or later. Android versions can be installed on any Android handset (4.0 and up) and tablets (3.1 and up).
Importance of Adobe Photoshop
Digital World
Along the time things changes, people changes and technology changes and when technology changes then demands of the people changes. Same is the case when it comes to digital world because people demand to see better visual effects and graphics and to meet this demand we need masters of Adobe Photoshop which can easily be learned today with the help of Adobe Photoshop tutorials.
Education
Teaching Photoshop to learners requires a solid constructivist approach where independent exploration follows a short demonstration of techniques (Atherton, 2011). Laurillard’s framework for teaching and learning describes how learners follow instruction throughout a session (Atherton, 2011). Whilst I would agree that this theory explores an effective teaching method, it is important to recognise the effectiveness of autonomous, situated learning. It is important for my learners to experience a variety of technologies throughout their education to encourage their own development within the arts subject.
Many art teachers are stuck in the old-school curriculum of teaching the elements and principles of art via drawing, painting, and ceramics. They unintentionally discourage many students who may not appear to be artistic– because they can only draw a stick figure– from taking art. It has to be realized that art no longer surrounds the concept of painting and drawing but instead can take the form of any aspect from any subject area.
If we limit the vehicles and types of art that students are exposed to, does that not hinder their right to have the opportunity to express themselves freely? (SECAC, 2004, p.219)
The use of technology must be encouraged; to do this it must first be introduced. Art software programs, such as Adobe Photoshop, are a common fear amongst art students due to the technical language used to describe the formatting options that are made available. I must consider my own skills in relation to such software and whether I am able to teach this effectively. When using Photoshop to edit photographic documents I have the skills and the knowledge to share confidently with my learners however, when using Photoshop within graphic design I would become a barrier to learning because my own skills in this sector are weak and therefore I would be unable to inform my learners effectively; however simple instructive videos are available to encourage self directed study (see video left). If such a situation arose I would have to request further training prior to the session to ensure that my learners did not suffer from my lacking abilities within this area. The issue that I am currently facing within my institution is the stereotypical view of being technologically able due to my age and the consideration of being a tech-native.
There’s an idea that if you are tech-savvy in one area, you must be savvy in all areas and this just isn’t true. (Zemanta, 2010)
The vast majority of my learners are able to use some software consistently and the art subject provides a synchronous opportunity for learners to understand and use this knowledge in a new, constructive and enthusiastic environment. Learners that have few skills in Photoshop can be taught the basics quickly and utilize the knowledge of their peers to ensure that a good grounding with the subject is derived.
Technology allows for changes in curriculum to ensure that learners are taught skills that remain valuable for life. Photoshop skills have become an acknowledged educational program in itself since graphics designers, illustrators and artist’s alike use the program to inform their own unique studio practices. This information is often shared with learners to create an engaging learning environment where aspiration becomes the driving point for constructivist learning (Lave, 2012). The main issues surround the use of Photoshop is its availability out of the education system; learners who wish to use the program at home for example are subject to costs of around two hundred pounds for the most basic version of the software.
The legal and ethical dilemma that could be encountered by the art teacher surrounds the obtainment of software illegally through peers and possibly the Internet. It is my ethical responsibility as the teacher to discourage this behavior and abide by the Copyright Designs and Patents Act (Great Britain, 1988) that governs our society. It is essential that I ensure that the software that I introduce the learners to is original; if this is not the case I would have an ethical responsibility to report this to the designated department with high priority.