Maglot

LEARNING THE PHOTOSHOP WORKSPACE

The Toolbox is where every image editing tool is held (not counting filters). However, a lot of them are hidden from view to save space on your screen. Look closely at the Toolbox, and you'll notice beneath most of the tools there is a tiny black triangle. This indicates that if you click the mouse button and hold it for a few seconds, the tool will expand itself to show you the other tools that are grouped with it. For instance, look at the very first one, the square looking one. This is the selection tool. With the current one, you can make square selections, but if you click the mouse button and hold it down for a few seconds, you'll see it will also allow you to make other shapes as well.

For each tool below, there is a brief description of what the tool does. To save time, I used Photoshop's own help tutorial's pictures since they were already done well enough as it was. You may go explore that tutorial further if you wish by pressing F1 to bring up the help file. In the left menu, click on "Work Area". Then, in the window to the right, click the link that says "Tools".

One last tip for ya. Each of the tools has alternate uses which appear on the satus bar at the bottom of your screen. By holding down ALT or CTRL while you use the brush, you can activate different properties of it. One example is if you are using the Burn tool and hold ALT, it will change to the Dodge tool for as long as you hold ALT down. This is mainly a time saving technique and I use it all the time.

Anyhow, lets take a look at what each of those tools do! Each image below shows the tool in the lower left corner, and what the tool does in the image itself. Below each one, I've written what it is the tool does. If you are having trouble finding a specific tool, you"ll notice that each picture below is in it"s own section which is labled Tools 1 - 4. Look at the number, then come back up here and look at the picture to the right. If the tool you are looking for doesn't appear, click the mouse button on one of the tools and hold it for a few seconds, the tool will expand itself to show you the other tools that are grouped with it. From there, it's just a matter of you looking around to find the one you want. Each image also has a letter beneath the title. This is the SHORTCUT KEY for that tool. Just press the key on your keyboard and the tool will become active.

TOOLS 1

MARQUEE TOOL M The marquee tools make rectangular, elliptical, single row, and single column selections.	MOVE TOOL V The move tool moves selections, layers, and guides.	LASSO TOOL L The lasso tools make freehand, polygonal (straight-edged), and magnetic (snap-to) selections.	MAGIC WAND TOOL W The magic wand tool selects similarly colored areas.

CROP TOOL C The crop tool trims images.	SLICE TOOL K The slice tool creates slices. Mainly used for web page graphics.	SLICE SELECTION TOOL K The slice selection tool selects slices.

TOOLS 2

SPOT HEALING BRUSH TOOL J The Spot Healing Brush tool removes blemishes and objects	HEALING BRUSH TOOL J The healing brush tool paints with a sample or pattern to repairs imperfections in a image.	PATCH TOOL J The Patch Tool repairs imperfections in a selected area of an image using a sample or pattern.	RED EYE TOOL J The Red Eye Tool removes the red reflection caused by a flash.

CLONE STAMP TOOL S The clone stamp tool paints with a sample of an image.	PATTERN STAMP TOOL S The pattern stamp tool paints with part of an image as a pattern.	ERASER TOOL E The eraser tool erases pixels and restores parts of an image to a previously saved state.	BACKGROUND ERASER TOOL E The background eraser tool erases areas to transparency by dragging.

MAGIC ERASER TOOL E The magic eraser tool erases solid-colored areas to transparency with a single click.	BLUR TOOL R The blur tool blurs hard edges in an image.	SHARPEN TOOL R The sharpen tool sharpens soft edges in an image.	SMUDGE TOOL R The smudge tool smudges data in an image.

DODGE TOOL O The dodge tool lightens areas in an image.	BURN TOOL O The burn tool darkens areas in an image.	SPONGE TOOL O The sponge tool changes the color saturation of an area.	BRUSH TOOL B The brush tool paints brush strokes.

PENCIL TOOL B The pencil tool paints hard-edged strokes.	COLOR REPLACEMENT TOOL B The Color Replacement Tool replaces a selected color with a new color.	HISTORY BRUSH TOOL Y The history brush tool paints a copy of the selected state or snapshot into the current image window.	ART HISTORY BRUSH TOOL Y The art history brush tool paints with stylized strokes that simulate the look of different paint styles, using a selected state or snapshot.

GRADIENT TOOL G The gradient tools create straight-line, radial, angle, reflected, and diamond, blends between colors.	PAINT BUCKET TOOL G The paint bucket tool fills similarly colored areas with the foreground color.

TOOLS 3

PATH SELECTION TOOL A The path selection tools make shape or segment selections showing anchor points, direction lines, and direction points.	TYPE TOOL T The type tools create type on an image.	TYPE MASK TOOL T The type mask tools create a selection in the shape of type.	PEN TOOL P The pen tools let you draw smooth-edged paths.

CUSTOM SHAPE TOOLS AND LINE TOOL U The shape tools and Line tool draw shapes and lines in a normal layer or a shape layer.	CUSTOM SHAPE TOOL U The custom shape tool makes customized shapes selected from a custom shape list.

TOOLS 4

ANNOTATION TOOL N The annotation tools makes notes and audio annotations that can be attached to an image.	EYEDROPPER TOOL I The eyedropper tool samples colors in an image.	MEASURE TOOL I The measure tool measures distances, locations, and angles.	HAND TOOL H The hand tool moves an image within its window.

ZOOM TOOL Z The zoom tool magnifies and reduces the view of an image.

TOOLS 5

Since the tools in Tools 5 aren't really considered tools at all, I thought I would just give you a brief description of them here. The Black and White squares you see there are what's known as the "color picker". By clicking on either of these, you can choose a color to paint with. The top color is your foreground color (the color you'll be painting with) and the bottom color is your background color (the color your back ground will be, and also the color you will erase with). You can also switch between the colors at any time by pressing X on your keyboard or by clicking that little bendy arrow on the upper left of the two squares. The rest of the tools are fairly useless, they wil mainly change the way the screen looks by hiding the tastkbar or the file menu, stuff like that. It's mainly used if you want a little more space to work on. The very bottom button will jump to Adobe ImageReady, another of Adobe's products that I've never messed with. It's just a shortcut really, so unless you need to switch over to ImageReady, don't mess with it.