Lesson 1                                Digital Photography           Lessons                                                              Home

PHOTOSHOP TOOLS
Lecture Notes by Joanna Gazzola

SELECTION TOOLS: All selection tools, except the pen tool and color
selection, can be interchanged on any given selection. You can switch tools and add or
subtract from your selection using any selection tool. To add to a selection,
hold down the shift key while selecting. To subtract from a selection, hold
down the option/alt key. Feathering a selection blurs the edges of the
selection. I use a 1-2 pixel feather. More can give you a blurry halo around the
selection. Frequently I will go to SELECT> MODIFY>CONTRACT to tighten up my
selection. One or 2 pixels should do it.
    RECTANGLE/OVAL MARQUEE: Click and drag. To make a circle, hold down shift
key, click and drag. To make square, hold down shift key, click and drag. You
can use the rectangle tool to crop. Make a selection, go to IMAGE > CROP.
    LASSO: Click and drag. To move selection, switch to tool on left (Move
Tool). To duplicate and move, hold down option/alt key while clicking and
dragging. Once you turn off selection, the pixels of the selection replace the
pixels underneath. It is a permanent change. If you don’t want a permanent change,
make a selection, hit command/control C to copy selection, then
command/control V to paste the selection on a second layer. Then you have the option of
moving it around, changing it any way you like.
    POLYGONAL TOOL:  Makes straight edge selection by clicking from one point
to another. Close selection by clicking on first point. (a closed circle will
appear as your curser goes over the beginning point. Sometimes it is d
ifficult to see the first point, so hold down Control/ Command key and click If you
want to switch to freehand tool in the middle of a selection, hold down
option/alt key. When you let go, it reverts to polygonal tool.
    MAGNETIC LASSO: Works best if there is a strong contrast between what you
want to select and its backround. Click and drag. You can add anchor points
by clicking as you drag. The tool adds its own anchor points as well.
    MAGIC WAND TOOL: Selects by color. Specify tolerance; larger number is
wider range of tones, smaller number is smaller range of tone. Default is 32
This means that 32 tones lighter and 32 tones darker than the pixel you clicked
on will be selected. Hold down shift key to ADD to your selection.
    PEN TOOL: Makes shapes or a path. Shape will be backround color. Paths
can be used to make selection or to eliminate backround when importing into
another program. This is the most accurate way to make a selection, but is used
more by professional artists than photographers.
    COLOR RANGE: Go to select>Color Range. Click on eyedropper. Click on
“Selection” under thumbnail picture. Put eyedropper over your image and click on
the color you wish to select. Adjust the selection by using the fuzziness slid
er. To add colors, use plus eyedropper, to remove colors, select minus
eyedropper. When you have what you want, click OK.

PAINTING AND DRAWING TOOLS: All painting type tools: the brush tool, the
history brush tool, the clone tool, the gradient tool can be used in different
MODES. A mode is how what the brush lays down interacts with the layer it’s
painting on. You can multiply, screen, color burn, etc. the effect of what you are
painting on the image. The healing brush, smudge tool, sharpen tool and blur t
ool also have modes, but more limited ones.
    BRUSH TOOL: Paints with the foreground color. Can be controlled with
changes in opacity, brush size and type, and mode.
    HISTORY BRUSH: Paints from a selected image or snapshot in your history.
For example, use a filter on your image. Go to history dropdown menu. Choose
“Make snapshot”.
Go back one step (Command/control Z). Your image will revert to the version
BEFORE the filter. Now click on box to left of snapshot. Click on history brush
tool. Now paint those areas where you would like the filter effect.
    CLONE TOOL: Enables you to clone areas from one part of your image and
transfer them to another. Use to clean up a photo or to take out unwanted items.
Click on clone tool. Hold down Option/Alt key and click on area you want to
take from. Click on area you want to change.
Click and drag if you want to clone large area, watching the + to check where
you are cloning from.
    GRADIENT TOOL: Select area or make new layer. Click on gradient tool.
Click on gradient in upper right, select a gradient, load in other gradients or
create your own. Click and drag on layer to make gradient. Dragging diagonally,
up or down will make different gradients.

SMUDGE, SHARPEN, BLUR TOOLS:  I hardly ever use them. The smudge tool, used
with a small brush, can sometimes smooth out the edges of a selection. The
sharpen and blur filters in FILTERS work much better.

BURN AND DODGE TOOLS: Work in a similar fashion to burning and dodging in the
darkroom. They will burn and dodge the highlights, midtones and shadow areas
of an image. Control with exposure setting. However, the burn tool WILL NOT
bring out details in the highlight areas if they are not there. It will only add
some grey. Sometimes you can clone from another area to add some texture or
detail. Another way to burn and dodge is to use your Brush tool set to Color
Burn Mode, your opacity set to somewhere between 5% and 25% and your foreground
color set to 50% grey. VERY, VERY USEFUL!

TYPE TOOL: Click on tool. You can select point size, any typeface you have in
your system, and color of type. The type will automatically be on a new
layer. Alter type with “warped text” or with “layer styles” (under layers). To
change color of existing words, highlight words, double click on color box and
change color. Move type to where you want it.

HAND TOOL: Will enable you to move your image in all directions when you have
enlarged a portion of that image. Will not work when the image is full frame
on the monitor.

EYEDROPPER TOOL: Enables you to check what the color composition is of any
pixel in your photograph. Useful to check if there is any color in your
highlight areas or how much magenta or any other color is in any area of your image.

MEASURING TOOL(under eyedropper): Useful for measuring and for straightening
horizons. If your image is slanted, click and drag on horizon line or any
other line that should be straight up and down or straight sideways. Go to
image>rotate canvas> arbitrary. Click OK. It will straighten your image. Then you
will have to crop your image.


MAGNIFYING TOOL: Click and drag to enlarge an area of your photo. To reduce
the size of your image, hold down the option key and click.

COLOR BOXES: These are your foreground (upper left) and backround (lower
left) colors. Double click on whichever one you want to change. Clicking on the
curved arrow reverses the colors. Clicking on the small boxes (lower left)
resets default black and white.

MASKING TOOL: Allows you to see what area you have selected without the
“marching ants”. You can alter the mask by painting with white or black to add or
subtract from your mask. You can actually do your whole selection this way as
well. Before you can do anything else you have to switch back to normal viewing.

VIEWING MODES: Normal (left) mode shows all your tools, middle mode shows
your image on a grey backround, right mode allows you to see your image on black
with no tools.

 
Next time: IMAGE MODES  and ADJUSTMENTS

Lesson 1 Joanna.pdf    Activate this label to print the lesson.