Adobe Photoshop Part 1

Adobe Photoshop Part 1: The Photoshop
Interface Free Tutorial

Oct, 2005 · Software Applications · by Jeremy Reis
Welcome to the free Adobe Photoshop Part 1 Tutorial
Adobe Photoshop is a professional graphics and photo editing software. Popular among graphics
designers and web designers, Adobe Photoshop has a very powerful set of tools and utilities. If
you’re a beginner with Photoshop, this tutorial is the perfect way for you to understand the
interface and how to use Adobe Photoshop. This free course is great for mastering the basics of
Adobe Photoshop at your own pace and according to your own schedule – without spending any
money. This free course is taught in an easy to understand manner with plenty of examples and
screenshots.
Learn how to use Adobe Photoshop with this free set of tutorials from Learnthat.com.
In Part 1, you will learn:
• The Photoshop Interface
• How to create a new image
• Saving your work
• Opening an existing Photoshop image
• Using the status bar
• Using the toolbox
• Using palettes
• Changing screen modes
• Using the zoom tool and navigator palette
• Using undo
• Using the file browser
If you would like to continue on to Part 2: Using Colors and Painting, of our free Adobe
Photoshop tutorials, please click here. Click Next Page below to continue on with this free
Adobe Photoshop tutorial!

Photoshop Environment
The Photoshop Interface
The Photoshop interface is organized into menus, toolbars and palettes grouped around an image
window in the center of the workspace:
Like other Windows programs, Photoshop’s menus contain some standard commands in
expected locations, like New, Open, Save, and Print, which are grouped in the File menu, and
Cut, Copy, Paste, and Transform, which are grouped in the Edit menu. Most of the commands
specific to working with your images are organized by type in the Image, Layer, Select and
Filter menus:
• The Image menu contains commands for adjusting image and canvas size
and working with colors.
• The Layer menu contains commands for working with the layers in your
images.
• The Select menu contains commands for working with selections.
• The Filter menu contains commands for applying filters, or effects, to your
images.
The Photoshop toolbox contains the tools you’ll use for creating and editing images. By default,
the toolbox floats vertically near the left side of the Photoshop window, but you can drag it
around the window for convenience while you’re working with an image.
The Options bar appears just below the menu bar and provides options for the active tool:

The Photoshop Interface (Continued)
The right side of the Options bar contains the palette well, where Photoshop’s docked palettes
appear:
The Photoshop palettes group related information about your image and help you to manage
elements such as colors, brushes, and layers. Photoshop includes both docked and floating
palettes. By default, floating palettes are displayed vertically along the right side of the window,
but they can be dragged to any location in the workspace.
The image window, displayed in the center of the workspace, contains the open image:
Note:
We’re using image to refer to a Photoshop file containing all the photographic images, objects,
and art you’ve added.
The image’s file name, as well as its current magnification and color mode, appears in the title
bar of the image window. If the image contains multiple layers, the name of the current layer is
also displayed in the title bar, in the parentheses just before the color mode.

The Photoshop Interface (Continued)
You can open multiple images in the workspace and arrange them by clicking and dragging their
title bars or by using the Arrange commands in the Window menu. You can also open multiple
windows containing the same image by selecting New Window for… from the Arrange
submenu of the Window menu. This lets you see different areas of the same image at once.
When you make changes in one window, the other windows containing the image are
automatically updated with the changes.
To resize an image window, click and drag its edges. If the image is larger than the window,
vertical and horizontal scroll bars appear, letting you scroll to those areas of the image that aren’t
visible. You can also use the Pan tool (located in the toolbox) to move the image around in
the window in order to view different parts of it. With the Pan tool selected, click and drag the
image to center it where you want within the image window.
You can arrange open image windows using the Tile and Cascade commands in the Window
menu. Tile tiles the windows in the workspace horizontally and vertically:
Cascade places the windows on top of each other:
To minimize an image window, click the Minimize button in the upper right corner of the
title bar. To restore the window, click the Restore button. To maximize an image window to
fill the workspace, click the Maximize button in the upper right corner of the image
window’s title bar. When you maximize the image window, you no longer see the individual
image window, and the image fills the workspace, with gray surrounding the canvas borders:
To restore the image window, click the Restore button in the upper right-hand corner of the
Photoshop window, just below the Photoshop Minimize, Restore, and Close buttons:
To close an image window, click the Close button. If you haven’t saved your changes,
Photoshop will prompt you to do so.

Creating a New Image
To create an image from scratch:
1. From the File menu, select New.
The New dialog opens:
2. Enter a name for the image.
3. Enter the width, height, and resolution of the image you want to create, or select a preset from
the Preset menu at the top of the dialog. The Presets menu is a handy way to select image sizes
that are common for print and Web use.
4. Select a color mode. The color mode determines the number of colors that displayed in an
image as well as the number of channels and the file size.
5. Select the background contents—either white, color, or transparent.
6. Click the Advanced button to expand the dialog and choose a color profile. Unless the
image will be used for video, choose Square for Pixel Aspect Ratio.
Note that as you make your selections, Photoshop displays the file size in the lower right portion
of the dialog.
7. To save your settings as a preset, click the Save Preset button, or click OK to open the image
without saving your settings.

Saving your Work
You should always save your working image in Photoshop’s native file format (.psd), since
saving in another format will likely result in the loss of your layers and other elements used to
create the image—and will need in order to edit it. When you’re ready to save a final file (for
publication to the Web, for example), make a copy of the file with the appropriate extension (for
example, .gif) using the Save As command.
To save a file for the first time:
1. From the File menu, select Save As.
The Save As dialog opens:
2. Navigate to the location where you want to save the file.

3. Enter a name for the file into the File name field.
4. To save the image as a Photoshop file, make sure Photoshop is selected from the Format
drop-down menu. To save the file in another format, choose the format from the drop-down
menu.
5. To save a copy of the file while keeping the current copy open, select the As a Copy check
box under Save Options.
6. When saving a file as a format other than Photoshop (.psd), the remaining selections under
Save Options let you save specific elements with the image, as well as a copy of the image:
• To save alpha channel information for the image, select the Alpha Channels check box.
• To preserve the layers in the image (rather than flattening or merging them), select the Layers
check box.
• To save annotations, select the Annotations check box.
• To save spot channel information with the image, select the Spot Colors check box.
7. The Color options are used for creating color-managed documents and embeds a color profile
in the document. Use Proof Setup embeds the document’s current proof profile, and ICC
Profile (on Windows installations) and Embed Color Profile (on Mac installations) embeds the
document’s current color profile.
8. In Windows, select the Thumbnail check box to save thumbnail data for the file. On a Mac
operating system, select the Image Previews options you want to use to save thumbnail data.
Note:
These options are made available in the File Handling Preferences dialog (from the Edit menu,
select Preferences and then File Handling).
9. &
In Windows, select the Use Lower Case Extension check box to make the file extension
nbsp;
lowercase. On a Mac operating system, select the File Extension options to add the extension to
the file name, and to make it lowercase.
10. When you’ve finished making your selections, click Save.
Once you’ve saved a file, using the Save command will overwrite the existing file with the
changes you’ve made. To save a copy of an existing file, open the File menu and select Save As.

Opening an Existing File
To open an existing Photoshop file or an image in another format:
1. From the File menu, select Open.
The Open dialog opens.
1. Navigate to the location of the file.
2. Select the file. A thumbnail preview and the image’s file size appears at the bottom of the
dialog.
3. Click Open.
If you have trouble opening a file of a particular format, you can use the Open As dialog to
specify the format:
1. From the File menu, select Open As.
The Open As dialog opens.
1. Navigate to the location of the file.
2. From the Open As drop-down menu, select the format of the image you want to open.
3. Select the image and click Open.

Using the Status Bar
The status bar at the bottom of the Photoshop window displays information about the tool you’re
currently using, including instructions for using the tool. Keep an eye on the status bar when
you’re using an unfamiliar tool, since these instructions can guide you through the process.
To quickly change the zoom level for the current image window, you can enter a new value into
the field at the far left size of the status bar:
The area to the right of the zoom field displays information about the active document. By
default, document size information is displayed; you can click the black arrow to the right to
select different information:

Using the Toolbox
The Photoshop toolbox contains the tools used to create and edit images, including tools for
selecting areas of the image, moving, cropping, painting, and adding text and objects.
To select a tool, click its button in the toolbox. Tools that perform the same kinds of tasks, like
the marquee tools, are grouped together; these are indicated by an arrow in the bottom right
corner of the button. Click and hold the button to reveal the flyout menu and select the tool you
need:
Using Palettes
Photoshop includes both floating and docked palettes. The Photoshop palettes display
information about the active image and help you manage elements like color distribution and
layers. Palettes are much like mini-windows, with toolbars containing buttons for performing
tasks, menus for selecting options, and tabs that group together related options.
To show or hide a palette, select its name from the Window menu.
Floating palettes appear by default along the right vertical edge of the Photoshop main window,
while docked palettes appear in the palette well in the right-hand portion of the Options bar:
Note:
Your screen resolution must be set to greater than 800 x 600 in order to display the palette well.
Floating palettes have a right-arrow button in the upper right-hand corner that displays an options
menu. The options menu provides commands for adjusting preferences, docking the palette, and
performing tasks specific to the palette:
You can resize a floating palette by clicking and dragging one of its edges, or move it by clicking
and dragging its title bar. When you move a palette against another one, it snaps into alignment.
You can also collapse a floating palette by clicking the collapse button in the title bar, which
appears just to the left of the close button. If you’ve changed the size of the palette by dragging
its edges, the first time you click the collapse button, the palette’s default size is restored. Click
the button again to collapse it:
Collapsing palettes reduces the amount of screen space they take up, while keeping them readily
available. You can also dock a palette in the palette well by selecting Dock to Palette Well from
the options menu, or by dragging it directly to the well.
To use a palette docked in the palette well, click its tab. This reveals all the palette’s options:
You can also dock floating palettes to each other by dragging one palette to the bottom of
another. When the bottom of the other palette appears highlighted, release the mouse button. The
docked palettes can then be moved, collapsed, or resized at the same time.
You can save the layout of your palettes by saving what’s called a “workspace”—an
arrangement of palettes that suits the work you’re doing at the time. To save a workspace, open
the Window menu, select Workspace, and then Save Workspace from the submenu.
In the Save Workspace dialog, give the workspace a name that will help you later identify it
with the current settings, then click OK.
The workspace now appears at the bottom of the Workspace submenu:
To load the workspace, select it from the menu.

To delete a workspace, select Delete Workspace from the Workspace menu. This opens the
Delete Workspace dialog, which lets you select the workspace you want to delete:

Changing Screen Modes
Photoshop provides three screen modes for you to work in, depending on the amount of screen
space you need: Standard, Full Screen, and Full Screen with Menu Bar. These appear in the
Screen Mode submenu
of the View menu. You can switch from one screen mode to another by selecting the screen
mode you want from the menu:
Shortcuts to these commands also appear near the bottom of the toolbox:
Standard Screen Mode is the default, and displays the Photoshop main window, with the
menu bar, image window, and status bar, on the desktop:
Full Screen Mode with Menu Bar displays the image maximized in the Photoshop main
window. The Photoshop title bar and status bar are hidden:
Full Screen Mode hides the Photoshop title bar, menu bar, and task bar, as well as the
Windows task bar:
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1. Adobe Photoshop Tutorial Part 2: Working with Colors and Painting
2. Adobe Photoshop Tutorial Part 3: Working with Selections
3. Paint Shop Pro Free Training Course and Tutorial
4. Paint Shop Pro: Part 2 of our Free PSP Training Course
5. Paint Shop Pro Part 3: Layers, Photographic Effects, and More
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1. Adobe Photoshop Tutorial Part 2: Working with Colors and Painting

Using the Zoom Tool and Navigator Palette
The Zoom tool, which appears next to the Pan tool on the toolbox, lets you zoom into
and out of an image:
1. Click the Zoom tool on the toolbox.
2. On the Options bar, select either the Zoom In or Zoom Out option:
1. Click on the image, in the area where you want to center the view. Or, you can click and
drag a marquee around the area you want to magnify.
The Options bar provides some additional options for handling zooming. When you select
Resize Windows To Fit, the image window is resized to accommodate the new magnification,
up to the point that it bumps into the floating palettes:
If you select Ignore Palettes on the Options bar, then the image window is resized to the right
edge of the Photoshop window:
Selecting Zoom All Windows applies the magnification to all the open image windows.
To quickly restore a 100% magnification, click the Actual Pixels button on the Options bar:
The Fit On Screen button displays the image at the largest magnification that allows it to fit on
the screen. The Print Size button displays the image at the size at which it will print.
When you choose a different tool, the Zoom tool retains its settings, so if you last used it to
zoom into an image, the next time you select the tool, you can immediately use it to zoom in
again.
The Navigator palette can be used for scrolling around images that extend beyond the screen. It
displays a thumbnail of the entire image, with a square view box showing the area currently
displayed on-screen:
Note:
To show the Navigator palette, select Navigator from the Window menu.
If you zoom into an image, the thumbnail and view box are updated to show what area of the
image you’re viewing:
You can drag the view box around the thumbnail to change the area being displayed:
Or, you can hold down the Ctrl key (or the Command key for Mac users) and click and drag the
borders of the view box to zoom into or out of the image using the current Zoom tool settings.
The horizontal slider at the bottom of the Navigator resizes the view box, effectively changing
the magnification of the image:
You can also enter a magnification directly into the box to the left of the slider.
The buttons on the left and right sides of the slider also let you zoom in and out. Click the button
on the left to zoom out once using the current Zoom tool settings. Click the button on the
right to zoom in using the current settings.

If you want to change the color of the view box, click the right arrow button in the upper-right
corner of the palette. From the options menu, select Palette Options. In the Palette Options
dialog, select a new color and click OK.
vAdobe Photoshop Part 1: The Photoshop

Using Undo
At any time while you’re working with an image, you can undo your last action by selecting
Undo from the Edit menu, or by pressing Ctrl (or Command)+Z. You can also use the Edit
menu’s Step Backward command to back-step through your last actions, which are stored in the
History palette. For more information about using the History palette, see the section Using the
History Palette under Editing Tools.

Using the File Browser
The File Browser displays thumbnail images in folders stored on your hard drive or other media
connected to your computer. You can use the File Browser to not only locate but also organize
and process image files. To display the File Browser, click the Toggle File Browser button
to the left of the palette well on the Options bar.
The File Browser has its own panels, which help you to navigate through your image folders and
which display information about the selected image.
The Folder palette in the upper-left corner displays the drives and folders on y
our computer. Click on the plus sign next to a drive or folder to expand it, or click on the folder
itself to view thumbnails of the images inside it.
To make it easier to find images in a few specific folders, you can add these folders to a favorites
list. Favorites appear below Favorite Folders in the drop-down menu over the thumbnails:
To add a folder to your favorites, list, make sure the folder is selected and then select Add
Folder to Favorites from the File Browser File menu. To remove a folder from your favorites
list, select Remove Folder from Favorites from the File menu.
Notice that the drop-down menu also displays the folders you’ve recently viewed. You can use
this list to quickly navigate back to one of these folders.

Using the File Browser (Continued)
To search for an image, click the Search button on the File Browser toolbar. In the Search
dialog, select the folder you want to search in, or click the Browse button to browse to the folder
you want to search in. Then select the criteria you want to search by and click Search:
Tip:
Click the plus button to add more search criteria.

Once you’ve found the image you’re searching for, double-click it to open it in Photoshop. The
image appears in a new image window over the File Browser:
Tip:
Use the Toggle File Browser button on the Photoshop Options bar to close and re-open the
File Browser.
In addition, you can open the current folder, with its images, in Windows Explorer (or Finder, for
Mac users) by selecting Reveal Location in Explorer or Reveal Location in Finder from the
View menu.
You can use the File Browser to organize your images by creating new folders and moving and
copying images. To create a new folder, select New Folder from the File Browser’s File menu.
Type a name for the folder and press Enter.
To delete an empty folder or an image, make sure it’s selected and then press the Delete key, or
click the Trash button on the File Browser’s toolbar. When prompted, click Yes to confirm.

Using the File Browser (Continued)
To move an image file, simply drag it to a folder. If you want to copy the file, rather than move
it, you can hold down the Alt key (or the Option key, for Mac users), while you drag the file to
the new location. You can also drag files from your desktop or from other applications into the
File Browser.
The Preview palette displays a thumbnail preview of whichever image is selected in the
thumbnail window. Below the Preview palette, the Metadata and Keywords palettes let you
add metadata and keywords for the image.
Editable metadata is indicated in the Metadata palette by a pencil icon next to the item. To add
or edit an item, such as a description for an image, click the pencil icon and then type the
information into the field that’s displayed:
Keywords let you group files by content. Once you apply keywords to images, you can view all
the images by those keywords, which are organized into categories:
In the Keywords palette displayed above, Event, People, and Place are categories (called
“sets”). You can expand and collapse a set by clicking the small arrow next to it. When you
expand a set, the keywords grouped in it are displayed, as shown under Event.
To add a keyword to the selected image, double-click the keyword. A checkmark then appears
next to it, indicating the keyword has been added to the image:
To an entire set of keywords to the image, double-click the set.
Tip:
You can add the same keyword or set to multiple images by selecting all the images you want to
use in the thumbnail area of the File Browser, and then double-clicking the keyword or set. To
select multiple images, hold down the Ctrl key (for Windows) or the Command key (for Mac)
and click each image you want to select.
To add a new keyword to a set, click the New Keyword button at the bottom of the
Keywords palette. A new, blank entry is inserted into the set. Type the keyword and press
Enter:
To add a new set, click the New Keyword Set button.
To delete a keyword or set, click it to select it and then click the Delete Keyword button at
the bottom of the panel.
There are many other tasks you can accomplish with the File Browser. For example, you can sort
files using the Sort menu, and rank them by selecting Show Rank from the View menu and then
typing a rank into the Rank field below the thumbnail:
You can also flag files and then view only flagged files. This is useful if you’re reviewing a
number of files imported from a digital camera or other external media. As you review the
images, you can flag the ones you want to keep. To flag a file, select it and then click the Flag
File button on the toolbar. To unflag a file, click the button again. You can use the Show
menu to display only flagged or unflagged files.
You can also run many automated tasks from the File Browser, including batch processes,
photomerging, online print ordering, and creation of presentations, contact sheets, picture
packages, and Web photo galleries. These commands, which enable you to work with multiple
images without opening them in Photoshop, are located in the File Browser Automate menu.

Congratulations!
Congratulations on finishing the first part of our free Adobe Photoshop online training courses.
At the end of the free Adobe Photoshop tutorials you will be faster and best of all – your photos
will look better. Continue learning Adobe Photoshop at your own pace with more of our free
tutorials.
Adobe Photoshop Tutorial Part 2: Working

with Colors and Painting
Nov, 2005 · Software Applications · by Jeremy Reis
Adobe Photoshop Part 2: Working with Colors and Painting
In our free Adobe Photoshop Part 2 tutorial, you will learn about working with colors and
painting in Adobe Photoshop. Adobe Photoshop is a very powerful graphics editing software.
Our free online Photo Shop training courses teach you how to use this powerful software
application.
In this tutorial, you will learn:
• Setting the foreground and background colors
• Using the color picker
• Using the color palette
• Using the swatches palette
• Using the Eyedropper tool
• Painting with the brush and pencil tools
• Coloring with the paint bucket tool
• Working with gradients
This is Part 2 of our Adobe Photoshop tutorials. You can find Part 1 here if you want to take this
free tutorial first.

Working with Colors and Painting
Setting the Foreground and Background Color
The Photoshop toolbox contains four color controls you can use to set foreground and
background color:
The large box to the left represents the foreground color, and the large box to the right and
beneath it represents the background color.
The foreground color is applied using the Paint Bucket , Pencil , Brush , and
Type tools, as well as when you drag the Smudge tool while holding down the Alt key
(or the Option key, for Mac users). In addition, the foreground color is used to begin any custom
gradient you create, and fills any shape created with the shape tools. It’s also used to fill a
selection when you choose Fill or Stroke from the Edit menu.
The background color is applied using the eraser tools and ends any custom gradient you
create. In addition, you can apply the background color to a selection by pressing the Ctrl and
Backspace keys (for Windows) or Command and Delete keys (for Mac).
To change the foreground or background color, click the appropriate box and select a new color
from the Color Picker dialog. You can also quickly reverse the foreground and background
colors by clicking the small two-way arrow between the two boxes:
To quickly restore the default colors (black and white), click the small black and white boxes in
the lower left-hand corner:
Tip:
You can move the mouse pointer over any area of your image and click to “sample” or select a
color from the image.
Using the Color Picker
When you click on the foreground or background color box on the Photoshop toolbox, the Color
Picker opens. This dialog lets you specify a color out of a range of 16 million:
Use the vertical color slider to choose a color. The slider displays 256 colors, and represents the
range for the field that’s selected on the right side of the dialog. For example, below, hue (H) is
selected, so the colors in the slider represent hue:
The large color field to the left of the color slider represents the range of variations for the
selected color. This range is based on the unselected attributes—in this case, saturation and
brightness, with saturation displayed horizontally and brightness displayed vertically. The white
circle in the upper left-hand corner of the color field represents the specific color selected. You
can use your mouse to move this circle to a new area in the color field, thereby adjusting
saturation and brightness (in the example above). The slider and color field work the same way
when choosing Lab (luminosity), RGB (red, green, blue), and CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow,
and black) values.
As you change the color, the preview box to the right of the color slider displays the new color
on top and the original color on bottom. If the new color can’t be printed in Photoshop, the alert
box is displayed. This is the triangle to the right of the preview box. You can click the triangle or
the color box below it to adjust the color so that it’s printable.
The cube below the alert box appears when a color is selected that isn’t Web-safe. You can click
the cube or the color box below it to use the suggested Web-safe color.
You can also enter specific values directly into the fields. The # field at the bottom represents the
hexadecimal value of the color, which you can also enter directly.
The Color Picker also gives you access the predefined colors, like Pantone, Focoltone, and
Trumatch, among others. To access these colors, click the Custom button. This opens the
Custom Colors dialog:
From the Book menu, select the brand of colors you want to see. Then use the color slider to
choose a range. From the menu of specific colors on the left, select the color, or type a color
using your keyboard.
Once you’ve chosen a color from the Color Picker or Custom Colors dialog, click OK. The
color now appears in the foreground or background color box on the toolbox:
Tip:
As with the color boxes on the toolbox, you can move the mouse pointer over any area of your
image and click to “sample” or select a color from the image.
Using the Color Palette
The Color palette is similar to the Color Picker, but because you can keep it open, it’s often
more convenient to use. To display the Color palette, if it isn’t already displayed, select Color
from the Window menu. Notice that the palette has three tabs: Color, Swatches, and Styles:
The Color tab displays, and lets you adjust values for, foreground and background colors. By
default, the Color palette displays RGB (red, green, blue) values, but you can choose different
types of values by clicking the arrow button in the upper right-hand corner and selecting
different sliders from the options menu:
The color boxes on the left side of the Color palette are like the color boxes on the toolbox; the
upper left box displays the foreground color and the lower right box displays the background
color. A double frame around the box,
as shown around the foreground color box above, indicates that box is selected.
When you click the selected box, the Color Picker opens, letting you select a color as described
in the previous section. To select the other box, simply click on it. The color value sliders to the
right change based on the selected color box (foreground or background color).
You can use the sliders to adjust the individual values for the colors, or you can enter values
directly into the fields.
When a color falls outside the CMYK color range, as shown above, a triangle alert icon appears,
just as it does in the Color Picker dialog. Photoshop displays a new color box next to the alert,
with a suggested “safe color.” You can click on the suggested color to accept it.
In addition, if Web Color Sliders is selected in the palette options menu, the Color palette will
display a Web-safe alert cube if the color falls outside the range of Web-safe colors. You can
click the suggested color next to the cube to accept the suggestion.
The color bar along the bottom of the palette displays the colors in the selected spectrum. In the
last screenshot, the CMYK spectrum is selected, so the color bar displays these colors. You can
change the color of the selected color box (foreground or background) by clicking on the color
you want in the color bar.
Tip:
Here, too, you can “sample” an image by moving the mouse over the image and clicking the
color you want.

Using the Swatches Palette
The Swatches palette contains “swatches” of preset and custom colors, which you can select to
quickly apply a foreground or background color. To display the Swatches palette, select the
Swatches tab from the Color palette, or select Swatches from the Window menu:
Swatches are pre-defined colors, which can be saved and loaded as related sets. Photoshop
includes a number of color swatch presets, including Pantone and Trumatch presets, which you
can select from the palette options menu:
Photoshop then asks if you want to replace the current swatches with the ones you selected, or if
you want to append the new swatches to the current ones:
Click OK to replace the current swatches, or Append to add the new ones to the palette.
If you append the new swatches, you can click and drag the edges of the palette to enlarge it
enough to display the new swatches:
You can also load a palette that’s been saved on your computer or on a disk by selecting Load
Swatches from the options menu. This lets you save and load your own custom palettes on any
computer with Photoshop installed.
To add your own color to a palette, make sure the color box containing the color you want to
save is selected (the foreground or background color box in the Color palette) and then click in
an empty area:
Over an empty area, the icon changes to a paint bucket, indicating that a swatch can be added.
When you click with the paint bucket, Photoshop prompts you to name the new swatch:
Enter a name and click OK. The swatch then appears in the palette:
To delete a swatch, drag it to the trash icon in the lower right corner of the palette.
To save your custom colors, select Save Swatches from the palette options menu. In the Save
dialog, browser to the location where you want to save the swatches, enter a name for them, and
click Save:
Your swatches can now be loaded at any time using the Load Swatches command in the palette
options menu.
Tip:
You can also manage your swatches using the Preset Manager:
1. From the Swatches palette options menu, select Preset Manager.
1. Click Load to load a preset, or click the right arrow button next to the Preset
Type drop-down menu to select from a list identical to the preset list
included in the Swatches palette options menu.
2. To create your own collection from colors in a preset, hold down the Ctrl
button while you click each color you want. Selected colors appear with a
thick black border:
1. Then, click Save Set to save the colors you selected as a new set.
Using the Eyedropper Tool
The Eyedropper tool on the toolbox gives you another means of setting foreground and
background color. Select the tool and then click anywhere on your image. The tool “lifts” the
color of the pixel you clicked, making it the new foreground color (if the foreground color box is
selected) or background color (if the background color is selected).
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Painting with the Brush and Pencil Tools
The Brush and Pencil tools paint soft and hard-edged strokes, respectively. A Brush stroke is
antialiased, while a Pencil stroke isn’t. Both tools normally paint using the foreground color, and
can paint a line of any thickness. To paint with either of these tools, click on the canvas and drag
with the mouse button held down.
A stroke of the Brush tool is soft and blends into the background, as shown below:
The stroke made by the Pencil tool is hard, with no bleeding.
Stylized tracings are popular, and they’re a good way to practice painting when you’re just
beginning. To create a stylized tracing, you paint on a blank layer on top of a layer containing an
existing image. Later, you can delete the background image you traced.
For example, below, a new transparent layer we called “Painting” was added over the
background layer of an image.
We’re going to paint on the Painting layer, which is selected in the Layers palette.
For more information on using layers, see the section Working with Layers.
To get started, we’re going to use the Brush tool to trace some of the facial lines. Then we’ll use
the same tool to apply color:
1. On the toolbox, click on the Brush tool. The Brush and Pencil tools are
grouped together on the toolbox, so if the Pencil tool is displayed, click and
hold the button to reveal the flyout menu, and then select the Brush tool.
If you like, you can practice with the Pencil tool instead. You can use the same methods for both
tools; the tool you choose simply depends on whether you want to achieve soft- or hard-edged
effects.
1. Make sure the foreground color in the toolbox or on the Color palette is set
to black.
2. The Options bar displays the options for the Brush tool:
The options are the same for both the Brush and Pencil tools, except for the Airbrush option,
which is only available with the Brush tool.
On the Options bar, make sure the Mode is set to Normal, Opacity to 100%, and Flow to 100%.
1.
• The Mode refers to how the colors you paint are mixed with
underlying colors in the layer on which you’re painting. Normal mode
paints the foreground color on top of any existing colors on the layer.
• Opacity refers to the opacity of the stroke.
• Flow refers to the opacity of each spot of color produced by the brush.
The Brush tool delivers continuous spots of colors, so when one spot
intersects, or is painted “on top of” another spot, the resulting stroke
at that point will look darker.
The icon to the right of the Flow field enables airbrush capabilities. We won’t be using an
airbrush for this, but once you’ve practiced painting, you can experiment with using the airbrush,
which produces a softer stroke than the normal Brush tool. For example, once we’ve drawn the
lines of our face, we’ll fill in areas with different colors. You could try using the airbrush, rather
than the normal brush, to fill in those areas.
Clicking the down arrow next to Brush displays a menu of brush presets and options. The
Master Diameter refers to the size of the brush, measured in pixels; ours is 13 pixels. Hardness
simply refers to how soft the stroke will be—that is, how much it blends into the background. All
strokes made with the Brush tool are antialiased, unlike strokes made with the Pencil tool, but a
hardness of 100% comes closest to a stroke made with the Pencil tool.
The list of thumbnail strokes at the bottom are presets—you can choose one of these based on its
appearance. The diameter (in pixels) is given to the left of the thumbnail.
Note:
These same options are available for the Pencil tool—that is, you can use any number of brushes
with the Pencil tool.
Notice that this palette also contains an options button in the upper right corner. Click it to reveal
an options menu containing a list of brush sets that can be loaded, much like you can load
swatches:
You can also save the brush you define (diameter and hardness) by clicking the small page icon
below the options menu button.
Tip:
The Brushes palette, which is normally docked in the palette well, offers you many more options
for defining a brush:
1. With the mouse, click and drag along a portion of your image:
1. It can be difficult to control the brush stroke, but you can use the Shift key to
apply a stroke as if you’re creating a dot-to-dot picture: Click where you want
the stroke to begin, then press and hold the Shift key. With the Shift key
held down, click at each point where you want the stroke to curve. Although
the Shift key constrains the brush stroke to a straight line, clicking along the
path of a curve creates the appearance of an overall curve. The more times
you click along the curve, the gentler the curve will appear:
1. To create a horizontal or perpendicular line, hold down the Shift key while
dragging:
You can continue to trace using these same simple methods. A quick way to change the brush
while you’re tracing is to right-click (or Control-click for Mac users). This opens the brush
presets:
Make the changes and then press Enter to close the palette.
You can also use the keyboard to change the brush diameter: the left bracket ([) decreases the
size of the brush, and the right bracket (]) increases the size. To quickly change the opacity using
the keyboard, type a percentage in two numbers. For example, typing 50 changes the opacity to
50%, and typing 05 changes the opacity to 5%.
1. Once you’ve finished tracing the lines of your image, you can use the Brush
tool to color the different areas; this is when the brush Mode comes in
handy. For example, by selecting Behind from the Mode menu on the
Options bar, you can paint “behind” existing strokes, so the color only
appears in transparent areas. This setting helps you to “stay within the lines”
when you paint:
Tip:
To make our drawing easier to work with, we duplicated the background layer and then hid it
using the Layers palette. We then set the duplicate background layer to 70% opacity (also using
the Layers palette). You have to either create a duplicate background and hide or delete the
original background layer, or promote the background layer to a floating layer in order to edit the
layer’s properties, since the background layer cannot be unlocked. For more information on
layers, see the section Working with Layers.
1. Click on the foreground color box in the Color palette, and then click on an
area of your image to sample the color. Using the Brush tool in Behind
mode, continue to paint in areas of the image, from dark to light:
You can experiment with other brush modes to refine your painting. For example, Darken is
similar to Behind, but it paints a color onto the image only where the existing colors you’re
painting on are lighter than the foreground color yo
u’re painting with. Lighten is the opposite; it paints a color only onto areas that are darker than
the color you’re painting with.
For example, if we wanted to add more highlights to the image above, we could choose the
highlight color we want to use, then set the brush option to the Lighten mode. Only darker areas
of the image would be lightened with the color, and colors that are lighter than our new color,
like the round area in the upper-right corner of our image, would be left unchanged:
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Coloring with the Paint Bucket Tool
The Paint Bucket tool fills areas of an image with color. The fill area can be defined by
closed lines or selection areas made with one of the marquee tools. For example, we could have
used the Paint Bucket tool to fill the closed areas of the eye in our image above.
As a simple demonstration, we’ll use the Paint Bucket tool to fill in a coloring page:
1. Just as we did with our earlier image, we added a new, transparent layer over our
background layer containing the coloring page:
1. On the toolbox, click the Paint Bucket tool.
2. The Options bar displays the options for the Paint Bucket tool:
a. There are two choices for Fill: Foreground and Pattern. Foreground fills an area using the
foreground color, while Pattern fills an area with a selected pattern. When you choose Pattern,
the Pattern menu on the Options bar is enabled, allowing you to select a pattern.
Like the Brushes and Swatches palettes, the Pattern menu is loaded with presets, which you
can change out using the options menu:
Note that you can also save your own custom patterns.
We’re just going to use solid colors for practice, so select Foreground for the fill.
b. The Mode menu contains many of the same options as it does for the Brush and Pencil tools.
The Clear mode erases an area using the Paint Bucket tool, and can be used to erase
backgrounds. We’re going to use Normal mode for all our filling.
c. As with the Brush and Pencil tools, opacity defines the opacity of the color you use to fill an
area. We’re going to leave opacity for all our colors at 100%.
d. Tolerance affects the precision of the Paint Bucket tool—how the tool detects border areas,
where it stops painting. Tolerance is based on the brightness values of the pixels where you click,
and a higher tolerance generally results in a larger fill area, since more pixels in the area will be
ignored. Since our image has fairly sharp borders, we’re going to leave the value set to the
default.
e. The Antialiased check box, when selected, softens the border of the fill area. We’re going to
uncheck this box for sharp contrast.
f. The Contiguous check box, when selected, causes the Paint Bucket tool to fill only pixels
that touch other affected pixels (and that fall within the Tolerance value). When the check box is
not selected, all pixels within the range of the Tolerance value are filled, regardless of where
they are in the image. We’re going to leave this box checked.
g. When All Layers is selected, the Paint Bucket tool uses pixels on all layers in the image to
detect the borders of the fill area. Because we want to fill areas of our transparent layer based on
the outlines that appear on our background layer, we’re going to select this box.
1. Use the Color palette or the color boxes on the toolbox to select a foreground color.
2. Click inside a closed area of the image to fill it with the foreground color. This closed
area can be defined by lines that meet, such as our anime character’s hair, or by a
selection marquee you draw with one of the marquee tools:
1. You can continue to change foreground colors using the Color palette or the color boxes
on the toolbox. As you can see, the Paint Bucket tool provides a quick way to fill large
areas with color, and to replace existing colors with new ones:
Working with Gradients
The Gradient tool is located in the same slot on the toolbox as the Paint Bucket tool and
fills an area with a gradient, rather than a solid color. To select the tool, click and hold the Paint
Bucket tool to reveal the flyout menu, and then select Gradient Tool:
As with the other tools, when you select the Gradient tool, the Options bar provides options for
the gradation:
The menu displaying the gradient preview contains gradient presets:
The default presets display gradients based on your current foreground and background colors in
the first two slots.
As with the other types of presets in Photoshop, you can load new ones from the options menu:
The five buttons to the right of the presets menu let you select a gradient style: Linear, Radial,
Angle, Reflected, or Diamond.
Mode and Opacity work the same way they do with the Brush, Pencil, and Paint Bucket tools.
Reverse, when checked, applies the gradation beginning with the background color and ending
with the foreground color. Normally, the gradation begins with the foreground color.
Dither, when selected, prevents colors of different shades in the gradation appearing as bands,
ensuring a smoother transition from one color to the next by mixing the pixels of the differing
colors.
Transparency, when selected, can make lighter portions of the gradation transparent so an
underlying image is visible.
You can use the Gradient tool to fill a sel
ection made with one of the marquee tools or an entire layer. If you don’t make a selection, the
gradient fills the entire layer. Below, we’ve created a new Photoshop image 200 x 200 pixels.
We’ll experiment with the Gradient tool by applying a gradient to the background layer:
1. On the toolbox, select the Gradient tool.
2. Use the Color palette or the color boxes on the toolbox to select foreground and
background colors. Unless you select Reverse on the Options bar, the gradient will begin
with the foreground color and end with the background color.
3. On the Options bar, we’re leaving most of the defaults. Dither is selected and Reverse
and Transparency aren’t. We selected the Reflected gradient style.
4. To apply the gradient, click where you want the gradient to begin and drag to the place
where you want the gradient to end:
When you release the mouse button, the gradient is applied to the area in the direction that you
clicked and dragged:
1. If you undo the gradient and then click and drag in a different direction, the gradient will
follow that direction:
1. Above, we’ve been drawing the gradient across the entire canvas, so the gradient fills the
layer. Try drawing just a small line representing the gradient:
The gradient is limited to the width of the line you drew:

However, the gradient still fills the layer—from one end of the canvas to the other.
1. Use the Rectangular Marquee tool to draw a rectangular selection marquee smaller than
the canvas. Then use the Gradient tool to draw a gradient from one side of the marquee
to the other:
Working with Gradients (Continued)

The gradient fills the entire selection area, but doesn’t spill outside it:
1. Now try drawing a gradient smaller than the selection area:

The are of the gradient is limited to the line you drew, and is still confined within the selection
area:
1. You can use the Gradient tool to fill multiple selection areas with a continuous
gradation:
Tip:
You learn how to create multiple selection areas in the section Using the Marquee Tools, under
Working with Selections.
A gradient spanning the length of the selection areas above results in the following:
You can edit any of the gradient presets shown in the Options bar, and you can create your own,
which can be saved and loaded, just like swatches. To edit a preset:
1. Select it from the menu on the Options bar.
1. Click the preview of the preset on the Options bar to open the Gradient Editor:
1. To preserve an existing preset, type a new name into the Name field and then click New.
You can also create a new gradient using the same method, by first selecting a preset
similar to the gradient you want to create.
1. Photoshop provides two types of gradients: Solid and Noise. Solid uses the colors you
define for the gradient, while Noise adds random colors to the ones you include in the
gradient, creating “noise.” For a simple gradient, keep Solid selected.
2. The fade bar displays the transition of colors from the beginning of the gradient to the
end. The icons above and below the bar are called stops. You adjust the gradient by
adjusting the stops, as well as adding and deleting stops as necessary.
The stops along the bottom of the bar are color stops. The stop to the far left represents the color
at the beginning of the gradient, and the stop to the far right represents the color at the end of the
gradient.
The stops along the top of the bar are opacity stops, representing the opacity of the colors in the
gradient.
1. To adjust the transition between the existing colors, drag one of the color stops to a new
position. For example, if you drag the beginning color stop toward the right, you can see
the increasing amount of darkness in the gradient:
1. Notice that when you select a color stop, the Color fields at the bottom of the dialog are
enabled. To change one of the colors in the gradient to the current foreground or
background color, select (click) one of the existing color stops and then, from the Color
pop-up menu, select Foreground or Background:
To restore the original color, select User Color.
To change the current color stop to a new color, click the color box itself; this opens the Color
Picker, where you can define a new color:
Note:
When a stop is selected, the triangular portion of it is filled with black, as shown in the color stop
on the left side of the fade bar above.
Tip:
You can also select a color by clicking an area of the open image.
1. To add a color stop, click near the bottom of the fade bar, in the position where you want
the stop:
To delete a stop, just drag it away from the bar.
1. When a color stop is selected, small midpoint diamonds appear between the stop and the
color stop on either side of it. The midpoints represent the position where the two colors
mix. You can drag the midpoints to adjust the location of this mix in the gradient:
1. The opacity stops along the top of the bar
represent the opacity of the colors in the gradient. When you select one of the opacity
stops, the Opacity fields are enabled at the bottom of the dialog:
1. As with color stops, you can add new stops at any position on the fade bar. To make
certain areas of the gradient transparent, select the opacity stop positioned over that area
and change the value in the Opacity field.
Congratulations!
Congratulations, you have finished part 2 of our free Adobe Photoshop tutorials.

with Selections
Dec, 2005 · Software Applications · by Jeremy Reis
Adobe Photoshop Part 3: Working with Selections
Learn how to work with selections in this free Adobe Photoshop tutorial. This is part 3 of our
free Adobe Photoshop tutorials.
Working with Selections

Using the Marquee Tools
To edit an image, you first have to select the areas of the image you want to edit. The marquee
tools—Rectangular Marquee , Elliptical Marquee , Single Row Marquee ,
and Single Column Marquee —let you select areas you want to edit by drawing a
rectangle, circle, 1-pixel-high row the length of the image, or 1-pixel-wide column the height of
the image, respectively. A selection is indicated by a dashed, blinking border (“ants”), as shown
below:
When you make a selection and then choose another tool, the selection remains active. To
deselect an area, open the Select menu and select Deselect.
To use one of the marquee tools:
1. On the toolbox, click one of the marquee tools. To open the flyout menu
containing the various marquee tools, click and hold down the marquee tool
that’s currently displayed:
1. The Options bar displays the options for the marquee tool you selected:
These options are slightly different for each marquee tool, but all the marquee tools let you
choose a selection state, represented by the four icons on the left side of the Options bar:
1.
• New Selection creates a single selection, which is normally defined
by clicking and dragging, though you can also use the Options bar to
define a fixed size. A new selection you create in this state replaces
any existing selection marquee.
• Add to selection lets you add another selection area to the existing
selection. It also lets you define multiple selections. Each time you click
and drag a selection area, another selection marquee is created. If a
new marquee overlaps an existing marquee, the marquees are
combined into one.
1.
• Subtract from selection subtracts the selection marquee you draw
from an existing selection marquee.
1.
• Intersect with selection creates a selection based on the
intersecting lines of the new and existing marquees. Like Subtract
from selection, this option creates a selection from only the area of
the new marquee that falls within the existing marquee.
1. The Feather option on the Options bar fades the selection along the edges.
Enter a width in pixels that you want the selection feathered.
Antialias is only enabled for the Elliptical Marquee tool, and antialiases the edges of the
selection when checked.
1. The Fixed Aspect Ratio and Fixed Size options in the Style drop-down
menu let you specify an aspect ratio and size for the selection, respectively.
Normally (when Normal is selected), the size is defined by the area you drag
with your mouse. Selecting either of the other two options enables additional
fields in which you enter the size you want in pixels.
2. If you chose the Normal or Fixed Aspect Ratio style, click and drag the
mouse to define the selection marquee:
Or, if you chose Fixed Size, click on the location where you want to place the pre-defined
marquee.
Tip:
To constrain a rectangular or elliptical marquee to a square or circle, press and hold the Shift key
after you begin dragging. To draw a marquee from the center, rather than the corner, of the
selection area, hold down the Alt key (or the Option key, for Mac users).
You can also reposition the marquee while you’re creating it by holding down the spacebar on
your keyboard. Once you’ve moved the marquee into position, you can release the spacebar and
continue to drag the marquee to the size you need.
After you’ve selected an area of your image, you can move the selection, copy it, cut it, edit it, or
apply any number of effects to it. To quickly deselect a marquee, right-click and select Deselect
from the shortcut menu.

with Selections
Moving Selections
To move a selection marquee without moving the pixels contained in it, simply drag it using one
of the marquee or lasso tools, making sure the tool is in the New selection state on the Options
bar. You can also nudge a marquee one pixel at a time using the arrow keys on your keyboard.
To move the pixels selected by the marquee, you have to use the Move tool:
With the Move tool selected, you can just click and drag the marquee to the position where you
want, or nudge it using the arrow keys. The area of the image contained in the marquee is
moved.
Tip:
You can also move selected pixels by Ctrl-dragging. This works with all but the Hand and
vector tools.
Using the Lasso Tools
The lasso tools let you select irregularly-shaped areas. There are three lasso tools: Lasso ,
Polygonal Lasso , and Magnetic Lasso :
The Lasso tool lets you drag a free-form selection area:

1. On the toolbox, click the Lasso tool.
2. Use the Options bar to define the amount of feathering for sharp edges. Note that you can
also antialias selections made with the lasso tools.
1. Click and drag a free-form selection area. The s

election marquee follows the movement of your mouse as you draw:
When you release the mouse button, Photoshop closes the selection area by joining the beginning
and ending points:
If you’re trying to select a complex area, it’s much easier to use one of the other lasso tools. The
Polygonal Lasso tool lets you draw a selection area by defining anchor points, much like
creating a dot-to-dot picture:
1. On the toolbox, select the Polygonal Lasso tool.
2. Define the selection area you want by clicking at each point that represents a change in
curvature. Photoshop creates a marquee line from point to point, so to select an
irregularly-shaped area, you can click at each point you need the selection marquee to
change direction:
The Magnetic Lasso tool can virtually trace an image for you. As you drag your mouse
(without holding down the button), the tool “snaps” the marquee to the edges of the foreground
image based on its contrast with the background:
1. On the toolbox, select the Magnetic Lasso tool.
2. Use the Options bar to define feathering and select or deselect the Antialiased option.
3. You can also define the settings for Width, Edge Contrast, and Frequency:
1.
• Width refers to how close to the edge of an image (in pixels) you have to move
your mouse for Photoshop to detect it when selecting. Smaller values make it
easier to trace narrow areas in an image.
Tip:
You can change this value as you’re tracing the selection area using the left bracket ([) on your
keyboard to lower the value, or the right bracket (]) to increase the value.
1.
• Edge Contrast is the amount of contrast necessary between elements for
Photoshop to recognize the selection element you’re tracing. Generally, you can
use higher values for higher-contrast elements, and lower values for lower-
contrast elements.
• Frequency determines the frequency with which Photoshop adds anchor points as
you move your mouse to create the selection marquee. When you hold the mouse
still, Photoshop interprets the location as “correct” and adds an anchor point. If
you have rough edges in your image, try increasing this value.
2. Click once at the point where you want to begin defining the selection. With this
tool, it’s best to use a high-contrast image, where the area you want to select
differs considerably from the colors and light of the background.
3. Without holding down the mouse button, drag the mouse around the area you
want to select:
As you drag the mouse, Photoshop detects variations in the color and adjusts the marquee to
trace the edges.
1. When you’ve finished tracing the image, click the first point to close the selection
marquee.
Using the Magic Wand Tool
The Magic Wand tool selects areas in an image with colors that match the area you select:
The Magic Wand tool selects pixels in an image based on color, hue, brightness, or opacity,
depending on the option you select. Once you select an option, click on an area you want to
select and Photoshop creates a marquee that includes all the pixels that match your selection:
1. On the toolbox, click the Magic Wand tool.

2. The Options bar provides four options, which you’ve already used with the Paint Bucket
tool:
• Tolerance affects the precision of the Magic Wand tool—the range of colors the
tool selects when you click. Photoshop takes this value and adds it to, and
subtracts it from, the brightness value of the pixel you clicked on to come up with
a range for determining whether other pixels match. The pixels that fall within
this range are selected.
• The Antialiased check box, when selected, softens the border of the selection
area.
• The Contiguous check box, when selected, causes only contiguous pixels to be
selected—that is, only matching pixels that touch other affected pixels. When the
check box is not selected, all pixels within the range of the Tolerance value are
selected, regardless of where they are in the image.
• When All Layers is selected, takes into account all the layers in the image when
making the selection.
3. Click on an area of the image that contains pixels matching those you want selected.
Below, the red pixels in the main flower are being selected with the Contiguous option
checked, so the other flowers in the image aren’t selected:
Tip:
Hold down the Shift key and continue to click to add to the selection area:
with Selections
Using the Crop Tool
The Crop tool reduces the size of an image to the area you select, removing elements
outside the selection area:
To crop an image:
1. On the toolbox, click the Crop tool.

2. To resample the image when you crop it, enter the width and/or height and the resolution
into the fields on the Options bar:
To resample and crop the image to the size of another image, open the other image, select the
Crop tool, and click the Front Image button. Then return to the image you’re cropping.
Photoshop automatically fills the Width, Height, and Resolution fields based on the values of
the other image. Click Clear to clear these values, if you don’t want to crop based on the other
image after all.
1. Click and drag a rectangle around the area of the image that you want to keep. The
remainder of the image will be removed.
The area outside the crop lines you draw is shaded:
If necessary, you can adjust the crop area by clicking a

nd dragging the handles.
1. Once you’ve defined a crop area, new options appear on the Options bar:
1.
• Multi-layered images include options for deleting or hiding the cropped pixels. If
you select the Delete option, these pixels are deleted from the image. If you select
the Hide option, Photoshop hides the pixels outside the crop area, but you can see
them if you move the image on the canvas.
• The Shield, Color, and Opacity options let you adjust the shading over the pixels
being removed. Unchecking Shield removes the shading, so the area being
removed looks like the area in the crop marquee. With Shield selected, you can
select a color and opacity for the shield.
• When Perspective is selected, you can click and drag the corner handles of the
crop marquee to distort the image.
2. To crop the image, double-click the crop marquee, or press Enter. To cancel,
press Escape or click the Cancel button in the upper right corner of the Options
bar.
Feathering Selections
Feathering is a more dramatic way of softening selection borders than antialiasing. Feathering
gives the selection border a blurred edge, fading the selection on both the inside and the outside,
based on the number of pixels you specify (the feather radius). The effects of feathering aren’t
visible until you do something with the selection—like move it or copy and paste it.
You can feather a selection either before or after defining the selection marquee. To feather it
before drawing the marquee, use the Feather field in the Options bar:
Below, the feathered selection was copied and pasted onto a new, blank image with a white
background:
To feather a selection after drawing the marquee, select Feather from the Select menu, or right-
click the selection and select Feather. In the Feather Selection dialog, enter the feather radius
you want and click OK:

with Selections
Modifying Selections
As you learned in the section on using the marquee tools, it’s possible to define irregular
selection areas by adding to or subtracting from the original selection marquee. You can use any
marquee tool to do this, and change out marquee tools as necessary to define the shape of the
final selection.
The selection state options on the Options bar let you switch between selection states, which
include Add to selection and Subtract from selection. These states are available for all the
marquee tools. But you don’t have to use the Options bar to change selection states; there are a
few keyboard shortcuts that make it much faster and easier to add to and subtract from a
selection marquee:
• To add to a selection, hold down the Shift key while defining the additional selection
area:
• To subtract from the selection, hold down the Alt key (or the Option key, for Mac users)
while you define the area you want to remove:
• To subtract from a selection using the intersection method (where the resulting selection
is based on the area where both marquees intersect), hold down both the Shift and Alt
keys (or Shift and Option keys, for Mac users), while creating the second marquee:
Tip:
You can also access these commands by right-clicking with one of the marquee tools.
If you’re trying to select a portion of a complex image, it may be easier to select the area you
don’t want:
1. Select the area you don’t want included in the selection marquee.
1. From the Select menu, select Invert, or right-click and select Select Inverse from the
shortcut menu. The selection is inverted so you can work with the remainder of the area:
The Select menu contains some additional commands for working with selections. The following
commands are available from the Modify submenu of the Select menu:
• Border adds a new marquee around an existing selection marquee, and the pixels inside
the original marquee are deselected, creating a border selection. To apply a border, first
create the selection marquee. Then, from the Select menu, select Modify and then
Border. In the dialog that opens, enter the width of the border you want in pixels.
As you’ll learn later, you can apply a stroke or fill to a border, as well as other effects.
• Smooth smoothes, or rounds, corners on a selection marquee based on a sample radius
you define. Photoshop uses the value you enter into the Smooth Selection dialog to
create circles that smooth the corners. The higher the value you enter, the smoother the
resulting corners. Below, a sample radius of 5 was entered to create gently rounded
corners:
• Expand and Contract expand and contract the selection marquee, respectively. This is a
simple way to enlarge or reduce an existing selection marquee based on a specific
number of pixels.
In addition, the Grow and Similar commands, also found in the Select menu, function like the
Magic Wand tool by selecting all pixels that match others you’ve selected using one of the
marquee tools:
• If you select several pixels with one of the marquee tools and then select Grow from the
Select menu, Photoshop selects all the neighboring pixels that fall within the range of the
selected pixels.
• Similar functions like Grow, but selects all matching pixels, regardless of their location.
Transforming Selections
You can scale, shear, and deform selection outlines using the Transform Selection command in
the Select menu:
1. Use one of the marquee tools to select the area you want to transform.
2. From the Select menu, select Transform Selection.
3. A bounding box appears around the selection.
In addition, the Options bar displays fields for changing the position and size of the selection, as
well as for entering values for rotating or skewing the selection:
1. You can enter precise values into the Options bar, or you can click and drag one of the
handles on the bounding box:
Note that transforming a selection only modifies the selection outline, and not the underlying
image. Later, you’ll learn how to stroke and fill a selection outline, as well as apply various
effects to it.
Stroking and Filling Selections
One of the most useful features of a selection outline is the ability to paint inside it—without
crossing its borders. Everything outside a selection marquee is frozen and can’t be altered by
whatever you’re doing within the marquee. This makes selection marquees handy for all kinds of
things besides copying, moving and generally transforming a portion of an image.
A few sections back, you learned that you can use the Paint Bucket tool to fill a selection area.
But you can also use the Brush or Pencil tool to make more subtle changes to the selected area
without affecting any of the pixels outside the selection. In other words, selection marquees give
you a handy way to “color within the lines”:
In addition, Photoshop includes a couple of useful commands for stroking and filling a selection:
• To paint along the selection marquee (called stroking the selection), select Stroke from
the Edit menu. This opens the Stroke dialog, which lets you define a range of settings:
You can define the width of the stroke, the color, the location of the stroke in relation to the
selection marquee, and blending and opacity options. Click OK to apply the stroke. Below, a
complex selection border was stroked to create the outline of a bird on a perch:
• To fill the interior of the selection marquee, select Fill from the Edit menu. The Fill
dialog lets you specify what to fill the selection with:
You can also specify blending and opacity settings. Click OK to apply the fill:
Congratulations!
Congratulations, you have completed part 3 of our free Adobe Photoshop tutorials.
Paint Shop Pro Part 3: Layers, Photographic

Effects, and More
Aug, 2005 · Software Applications · by Jeremy Reis
Welcome to our Paint Shop Pro Training Course: Part 3
In this free Paint Shop Pro tutorial, you will learn about using layers and photographic effects.
Learn how to change the brightness of pictures, crop pictures, or simply get the red eye out.
Paintshop Pro is a very powerful and easy to use photo editing and graphics editing software
application. This is part 3 of our 3 part series on Paint Shop Pro.
Section 1: Layers
Section 2: Photographic Effects

Effects, and More
Paint Shop Pro Training Course Part 3: Section 1
In this section, you will learn about:
• Using layers
• Selecting layers
• Adding and deleting layers
• Changing layer order
• Viewing and hiding layers
• Adjusting the opacity of layers
• Masking
• Creating a mask
Layers
About Layers
Paint Shop Pro images are composed of layers, transparent sheets on which you add objects,
brush strokes, text, masks, and other pieces of the composite image. Layers can be envisioned as
pieces of tracing paper laid on top of the background. They let you work with each distinct
element of your image separately, and can be named, duplicated, deleted, rearranged, made
visible or invisible, and set to any level of opacity.
An image’s layers are listed in the left panel of the Layers palette:
The arrangement of the layers in the palette is referred to as the “stacking order.” Layers
appearing near the top of the list cover, in the image, layers appearing near the bottom of the list.
Each layer appears with an icon representing the layer’s type. The right panel displays options of
each of the layers.
New images—whether created or imported—begin with a single layer. For photos you import,
this layer is labeled Background and contains the raster data that comprises the image you
imported. The background layer is the bottom layer and, unlike new layers, cannot be renamed or
moved up in the stacking order—it must remain at the bottom. New layers are placed on top, and
any objects you add to these layers will appear on top of the image contained in the background
layer. You can, however, promote a background layer to a raster layer, which you can then move
up in the stacking order.
When you create new images, you can specify the kind of background you want to use—raster,
vector, or Art Media. These layers are not considered background layers and can be arranged as
needed within the stacking order.
In addition to the background layer (when it exists), images may be composed of several types of
layers:
• Raster layers contain raster data, and must be used with the raster tools
and the effects commands.
• Vector layers contain vector objects and vector text. Objects on a vector
layer are displayed separately beneath the layer name; to view and work with
a specific object, click the plus (+) sign next to the layer in the Layers
palette to expand it, and then click on the name of the object you want to
work with.
• Art Media layers are used with the Art Media tools, and simulate the effect
of creating original artwork on canvas. Art Media layers can be “wet” or
“dry,” which impacts how the strokes you apply interact with each other. If
you think of these layers as you would art on a real canvas, oil paint, when
you apply it, is wet, and will naturally smear with other wet paint. Pencils
won’t smear, and so are considered “dry.” You can dry a “wet” Art Media
layer, or make a dry layer wet, using commands available in the Layers
menu. Note that these layers can be converted to raster layers, but not to
vector layers.
• Mask layers are used to show or hide parts of underlying layers. Note that
mask layers cannot reside at the bottom of the stacking order.
• Adjustment layers are used to correct the color or tone of layers beneath
them. Note that adjustment layers cannot reside at the bottom of the
stacking order.
Paint Shop Pro automatically creates a layer of the appropriate type when you select a tool to
use. Some other commands may cause Paint Shop Pro to prompt you to convert the current layer
to another type appropriate to the command you’ve selected. Keep in mind that converting a
layer type converts the data on that layer. For instance, you may convert a vector layer to a raster
layer, but any vector objects on that layer will be converted to raster data and will no longer be
editable using the vector tools.
To maintain layer information, you must save images as Paint Shop Pro files (using the
.pspimage extension). Generally, when you save an image as another format, the layers are
merged into one.
Selecting Layers
To select a layer, click on it in the Layers palette.
Adding and Deleting Layers
Use the buttons along the top of the Layers palette to add new layers and delete existing ones:
• Click the New Raster Layer button to create a new raster layer.
• Click the New Vector Layer button to create a new vector layer.
• Click the New Art Media Layer button to create a new Art Media layer.
Each of these buttons opens a specific New Layer dialog, with options for that type of layer:
Enter a name for the layer that reflects the contents you’ll place on it, define any of the other
options, such as opacity and visibility, and click OK. The layer appears in the Layers palette,
and can be dragged to the location you want in the stacking order.
To delete a layer, click on it in the Layers palette and then click the Delete Layer button.
Changing Layer Order
You can change the stacking order of the layers in your image simply by clicking and dragging
each layer to the position you want in the Layers palette:
The cursor changes to a pointing finger over locations where you can drop a layer. The cursor
changes to a null sign over locations where layers can’t be moved.
Layers appearing near the top of the stack will cover those appearing near the bottom of the
stack. Keep in mind that certain layers, such as background and mask layers, cannot be moved.
Viewing and Hiding Layers
When you hide a layer, you hide all the data on that layer, rendering the data “invisible.” To
show or hide a layer, click the Visibility button next to it. When the layer is hidden, an X
appears over the button.
You can also hide individual vector objects on a layer the same way. Simply expand the layer
containing the objects, and then, for each object you want to show or hide, click the Visibility
button next to it.
Adjusting the Opacity of Layers
Layers can be transparent, opaque, or somewhere in between. Use the Opacity slider on right
panel of the Layers palette to adjust the opacity of a particular layer:
The following image shows all layers at 100% opacity:
Now, notice the change in the top-most petal of the rosebud when its layer is changed to 76%
opacity:
BY varying the opacity of different layers, you can create a number of interesting effects in your
images.

Effects, and More
What is a Mask?
A mask is a greyscale raster layer—transparent or opaque—that covers portions of underlying
layers. Masks are generally used to hide details you don’t want visible in an image.
Mask layers affect all underlying layers. For this reason, a mask layer can never reside at the
bottom of the stacking group.
Creating a Mask
You can create a mask in several ways, but the most common use images or selection areas to
define the shape.
To create a mask from an image:
1. Open the image you want to use for the mask.
Tip:
Paint Shop Pro includes some sample masks in the Masks folder.
1. Open the image you want to mask—that is, the image file in which you want to use the
mask.
1. If your main image file contains more than one layer, select the layer you want to mask
by clicking on it in the Layers palette.
2. From the Layers menu, select New Mask Layer, and then From Image.
If you’re prompted to promote the target (background) layer to a full layer, click OK.
The Add Mask From Image dialog opens.
1. From the Source window drop-down menu, select the mask image (the first image you
opened).
2. Under Create mask from, three mask options are available:
• With Source luminance, the mask is created based on the luminance of the pixels
in the image, so lighter pixels produce less masking than darker pixels. This is a
good option in most cases, and is used for the screenshots here.
• With Any non-zero value, any pixels in the mask image that aren’t transparent
are used to produce the mask.
• With Source opacity, the mask is created based on the opacity of the mask image,
so more transparent pixels produce more masking, and opaque pixels produce no
masking.
Note:
Invert mask data reverses the transparency of the mask, turning black pixels white and white
pixels black.
1. Click OK.
The mask is applied to the image. Below, the mask is used to give the image a torn effect around
the edges:
Notice that the mask layer and the image layer are now grouped in the Layers palette:
This means that the mask layer affects only the layer you initially selected. If you have additional
layers in the image, and you want the mask to be applied to all of them, you can drag the mask
layer from its current group up to the main level, above the other layers.
You can also create a mask from a selection using the Selection tool, the Freehand
Selection tool, or the Magic Wand tool:

1. Open the image you want to apply the mask to.
1. Use one of the selection tools to create a selection of any shape. You’ll be able to mask
either the contents of the selection or everything but the contents of the selection.
1. From the Layers menu, select New Mask Layer, and then either Show Selection or
Hide Selection.
The following was accomplished by choosing Show Selection:
With a little creativity, there’s no end to the effects you can create with masks. For instance, by
using the Flood Fill tool to fill a mask created from a selection with a gradient, and then
reducing the opacity of the mask layer, you can apply a semi-transparent gradient to an object
without altering the object itself:
Paint Shop Pro Training Course Part 3: Section 1 Review
In this section, you learned about:

• Using layers
• Selecting layers
• Adding and deleting layers
• Changing layer order
• Viewing and hiding layers
• Adjusting the opacity of layers
• Masking
• Creating a mask

Effects, and More
Paint Shop Pro Training Course Part 3: Section 2
In this section, you will learn about:

• Adjusting color in a photo
• Adjusting brightness and contrast
• Adjusting saturation
• Touching up photographs
• Removing camera noise
• Correcting underexposure
• Correcting overexposure
• Removing red eyes
• Applying special effects to photographs
Photographic Effects
Adjusting Color in a Photo
While Paint Shop Pro includes many advanced tools for making color corrections to
photographs, the Automatic Color Balance command is often sufficient for new users to make
quick and easy adjustments, particularly to old photos that have yellowed with age:
1. Open the image you want to adjust.
1. From the Adjust menu, select Automatic Color Balance.

This opens the Automatic Color Balance dialog, which shows two preview panes: on the left is
the original image, and on the right is the image with the current color balance settings applied.
You can use the Zoom and Navigate but
tons below the preview panes to view different parts of the image, if necessary.
1. The default strength is 30, which is often sufficient. However, you can adjust
the strength up or down and see the results in the preview pane on the right.
2. A color cast is a hue that appears in all the colors. If this is present in the
image, check the Remove color cast box. Keep in mind, however, that
removing a color cast will result in some loss of data.
Tip:
Centering the preview panes over an area of white in the image will help you gauge the changes
to the colors.
1. Temperature refers to the tones of the colors—warm or cool. Photos taken in
bright sunlight tend to look bluer, while those taken indoors tend to appear
warmer. Use the slider to adjust the temperature, keeping an eye on the
results in the preview pane on the right.
2. Click OK to apply the changes to the image.
For more advanced color correction, use the commands found in the Color Balance submenu of
the Adjust menu.
Adjusting Brightness and Contrast
To quickly adjust brightness and contrast, use the Automatic Contrast Enhancement
command:
1. From the Adjust menu, select Automatic Contrast Enhancement.

This opens the Automatic Contrast Enhancement dialog, which shows two preview panes: on
the left is the original image, and on the right is the image with the contrast settings applied. You
can use the Zoom and Navigate buttons below the preview panes to view different parts of the
image, if necessary.
1. Bias refers to the brightness of the image, and Appearance refers to overall
contrast. Select a setting for each, as well as a strength, noting how the
changes affect the image in the preview pane on the right.
2. Click OK.
If you want to manually adjust values for either brightness or contrast, you can easily accomplish
this using the Brightness/Contrast command, located in the Brightness and Contrast submenu
of the Adjust menu. This opens the Brightness/Contrast dialog, where you can enter individual
values for both brightness and contrast:
Adjusting Saturation
Saturation refers to the vividness of the colors in an image. The Hue and Saturation submenu
of the Adjust menu provides commands for adjusting saturation; however the Automatic
Saturation Enhancement command is easy and effective for new users:
1. From the Adjust menu, select Automatic Saturation Enhancement.
This opens the Automatic Saturation Enhancement dialog, which shows two preview panes:
on the left is the original image, and on the right is the image with the saturation settings applied.
You can use the Zoom and Navigate buttons below the preview panes to view different parts of
the image, if necessary.
1. Select a bias and a strength, watching how the settings affect the image in
the preview pane on the right.
2. If skin tones are present in the image, check the Skintones present
checkbox to preserve a natural appearance.
3. Click OK.

Effects, and More
Touching Up Photographs
Paint Shop Pro 9 includes several new filters for correcting problems with digital photos,
including Digital Cameral Noise Removal, Fill Flash, and Backlighting. These, along with
other commands for retouching images, can be accessed using the buttons along the Paint Shop
Pro toolbar:
Removing Camera Noise

The Digital Camera Noise Removal filter removes noise often produced by digital cameras
and scanners. Noise is most evident in smooth, single-colored areas of an image, as in the sky
portion of the image below:
The Digital camera noise removal dialog displays both a before and after preview image, as
well as an image that shows the sampling regions Paint Shop Pro uses for the correction.
The crosshairs indicate areas of light, midtone, and dark, which Paint Shop Pro uses to sample
the image and detect noise. You can drag the crosshairs to other areas to use different sampling
regions; you can also add regions to provide the filter with more data. To do so, expand the
dialog box by clicking and dragging at the edges. You’ll notice that in the preview pane on the
left, sampling boxes corresponding to the crosshairs appear over the image:
When the dialog box is as big as you can manage it, use the Navigate button below the preview
images to center the panes on an area containing a different color or noise level. Then click and
drag a new sampling box on the left preview pane:
You can add up to 10 sampling boxes. For best results, add boxes over single areas of color with
little texture or detail. To delete a box, click and drag the top left corner of the box over the
bottom right corner.
The Small, Medium, and Large fields control the amount of correction for small-, medium-, and
large-sized noise patterns, respectively. The default setting is 50, which is usually sufficient, but
you can enter new values and see how the changes affect the image in the right preview pane.
Note:
When Link detail sizes is checked, making a change to one value causes all the values to be
updated.
In addition, the Protect Image tab lets you define regions where you don’t want noise removed:
For example, you may want to limit the noise removal from sand or water, since smoothing these
areas may lead to an unnatural appearance. The Protect Image feature works using the hue of an
area you select, which it places along the hue range graph to the right. First, select an area you
want to protect by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking and dragging a box around the area on
the left preview pane:
Click and drag as many areas as you need. The hues appear as a darker range on the graph:
Next, use the nodes along the line at the top of the graph to define how much noise to remove
from these areas. The lower you drag a node, the more noise is removed from those hues:
Above, the nodes at the bottom of the graph tell Paint Shop Pro to remove noise from areas of
the image containing these hues. The protected hues, indicated by the darker grey area on the
graph, will have no noise removal, since the nodes appear at the top.
Click OK to apply the settings. Below is the resulting image:
Notice the difference in detail in the waves, compared to the following image, in which no
regions were protected:
In the second image, the waves appear smoothed over, showing fewer ripples. The first image is
more realistic. In both images, noise has been removed from the sky.

Effects, and More
Correcting Underexposure
Use the Fill Flash filter to correct underexposed areas of your photos. The castle in the
image below is too shadowed to make out many of the details:
Applying the Fill Flash filter creates the same effect as flooding the subject with light.
After applying the filter twice at a strength of 50, the details of the castle are apparent:
Correcting Overexposure
Conversely, the Backlighting filter corrects overexposed areas. The following photo is too
bright, particularly in the white areas and around the eyes:
Applying the filter with a strength of 30 results in the following:
Removing Red Eyes
Another helpful filter is Red-Eye Removal , which replaces red eyes with a color you select:
The Red Eye Removal dialog provides several methods for correcting red eye:
• Auto Human Eye is the best method for correcting human red eyes. It uses a round
selection area applies settings appropriate for human eyes.
• Auto Animal Eye corrects animal eyes using a round or elliptical selection area.
• Freehand Pupil Outline lets you use the Freehand Selection tool to select a correction
area. Use this method when the eye you need to correct is partly obscured.
• Point-to-Point Pupil Outline lets you use the Point-to-Point Selection tool to select a
correction area. Use this method when the eye you need to correct is partly obscured.
Use the Navigate button below the preview panes in the dialog to center the right pane on the
eyes you need to correct. In the left pane, click and drag around the first red eye:
When you’ve finished drawing the area, either by drawing a circle or ellipse using one of the
automatic methods, or by using a selection tool with one of the manual methods, use your mouse
to adjust the location of the selected area by clicking and dragging the bounding box surrounding
the selection:
Note:
When using the Auto Animal Eye method, you can rotate and reshape the selection using the
rotation or side handles on the bounding box.
Use the remainder of the fields on the dialog to adjust pupil lightness, iris size, glint lightness
and size, and feathering and blurring of the iris. Select an eye color and hue for the replacement
eye.
Click and drag another selection area if both eyes are red, and define the settings for that eye.
When you’ve finished, click OK to apply the settings:
Applying Special Effects to Photographs
You can apply any of a number of Paint Shop Pro’s special effects to your images. These include
noise, 3D, artistic, and illumination effects, among many others. To apply a specific effect, select
it from the Effects menu. You can also preview effects before applying them using the Effect
Browser:
1. With your image open, select Effect Browser from the Effects menu.
The Effect Browser opens. The preview pane on the right displays your image with each effect
applied:
1. In the left panel, scroll to the folder labeled Effects and click on it. The Effect Browser
loads thumbnails of your image with each of the effects applied:
1. To apply an effect as you see it in the thumbnail image, select the thumbnail and click the
Apply button. To change the settings for an effect, select the thumbnail and click the
Modify button. This opens the appropriate effect dialog box. Below is an example of the
Sunburst dialog:
Make adjustments until the image appears as you want it in the right preview pane. Then click
OK to apply the settings.
Experiment with multiple effects to create truly unique and imaginative images!
Congratulations!
Congratulations, you have completed the third part in our Paint Shop Pro series of free tutorials.
Paint Shop Pro is a very powerful graphics and photo editing software application though with
these free tutorials, you should be on your way to being an expert in PSP.

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