Photoshop Tools and Features User Log

The purpose of this log is for you to record what tools and features you used in the creation of your digital graphics. You should try to use as many as possible and you
must record how, why and when you used them. You do not need to record repeated actions but each single new action should be recorded. An example of this would
be setting up a new Photoshop file/image which would cover the ranges; “Image Settings” (all) and part of “Menus” (some of). You only need to do this once. Remember
that where the “e.g.” appears in a range, as many of the items should be covered as possible but not all of them; your tutor will guide you here. Where possible you
should also provide a screen dump to illustrate the action (see sample image below).
Tools and features  How, why and when used. Screen dump
Menus: 
Open; I used the open menu when I wanted to
import a new image to edit, I did this by
selecting file then open and then selecting
an image from my personal workspace
folder.

save; I used the save menu when I wanted to

save my work, this allowed me to save my
work in a safe place and not lose anything,
to do this you select file, then save as and
finally place the work in a suitable folder in
your personal workspace.

1
 import; You can also use the import menu feature
to import new images into Photoshop
however I found it more beneficial to select
open instead of import. To do this you
must select file, then import and then save
it somewhere in your personal workspace.

export; I used the export feature to export the

Mario animated GIF from a normal still
image to an animated moving image. I did
this by selecting file export and then
choosing somewhere to save it in my
personal workspace.

2
 edit; To edit images in photoshop, there are
different ways of doing this, for example
you can just start by adding different
textures and filters to the image or you can
select edit, and transform or free transform
an image, however there are many
shortcuts to do all of this for example Ctrl T
for free transform.

view; The view menu allows you to zoom in and

out, add rulers and guides. This could be
useful for be more accurate be zooming in
and using the guides and rulers to position
an image or text.

help The help tab is a very useful tab to have

because it can put you in the right
direction to creating something if you
3
 don’t know how. Its main features include
online support, learn and support, about
Photoshop, about plug ins and find plug
ins and extensions. The online support
feature may link you to a YouTube video
for help on your chosen topic.

Image settings: 
size; Size is how big you want something to be
such as your brush size or page. For
example, to make your brush size bigger
you click the brush tool and then you can
either right click and then make the brush
bigger or you can locate it at the top left of
the page when clicked on the brush tool.
Resolution; Resolution means the quality of the
number of pixels that are being used. For
example, an image with a lot of pixels is a
high-quality image however an image with
hardly any pixels isn’t a good image. The
internet’s definition of resolution is that “In
computers, resolution is the number of
pixels contained on a display monitor,
expressed in terms of the number of pixels
on the horizontal axis and the number on
the vertical axis. The sharpness of the
image on a display depends on the
resolution and the size of the monitor”.

4
 width; The width of a photoshop document can
be changed to your preference when
creating a new photoshop canvas. To do
this you open Adobe Photoshop, then
select file, then new and finally change the
width to whatever you want.
height; The height of a photoshop document can
be changed to your preference when
creating a new photoshop canvas. To do
this you open Adobe Photoshop, then
select file, then new and finally change the
height to whatever you want.
colour mode; Colour mode is a mode you can set up
when you start creating your canvas page.
To do this you must select file, then new
and finally there will be drop down options
in the far left under the title colour mode,
this will allow you to select what colour
mode you want your page to be, you can
choose from Bitmap, Grayscale, RGB
Colour, CMYK colour and Lab colour. The
most common ones that are used are
Bitmap, RGB colour and CMYK colour.
background; Choosing a background is a crucial part of
creating anything in Adobe Photoshop
because if you don’t choose the right
format, it might restrict you to the things
that you want to do. To choose a
background type you must select file, then
new and finally on your bottom left there
will be an option named background and
you can choose from white, black,
background colour, transparent and
custom. Custom allows you to make your
own background that you want to use, for
example you might want a mixture
between white and transparent and this
5
 will allow you to do that. The most
common background types people use are
white or transparent as this allows you to
do most things.
aspect ratio, Aspect ratio is basically how wide or small
you want the screen to be. To use this
feature all you must do is select file, the
new, then advanced options and finally
under the heading pixel aspect ratio this
will let you choose different ratios of
screens which are square pixels, D1/DV
NTSC (0.91), D1/DV PAL (1.09), D1/DV
NTSC Widescreen (1.21), HDV
1080/DVCPRO HD 720 (1.33), D1/DV PAL
Widescreen (1.46), Anamorphic 2:1 (2) and
DVCPRO HD 1080 (1.5). This may look
confusing however instead of using simple
words just like Widescreen they have used
coding.
file name Creating a file name is easy all you must do
is either select file, new then get rid of the
untitled name and change it to what you
want or you can save your work and then
call it what you want.
Drawing tools: 
tool options; The tool options that you can use are as
followed:

6
 brush; The brush tool can be used for different
things such as drawing, shading, effects
and more. The internet’s definition of the
brush tool is that “the brush tool is a basic
painting tool. It works like a traditional
drawing tool by applying the colour using
strokes. It’s located in the standard tool bar
and its default shortcut is the letter B”.

pencil; The pencil tool is very similar to the brush

tool however the pencil too can erase
what it creates because the brush tool has
soft edges and the pencil; tool has hard
edges.

7
 clone; The clone tool allows you to duplicate
anything that you have created and use it
again. The internet’s definition of the clone
tool is that it “allows you to duplicate part
of an image. The process involves setting a
sampling point in the image which will be
used as a reference to create a new cloned
area. Select the clone stamp tool, then
check the settings in the options bar”.

fill; The fill tool allows you to fill an entire area

with a solid colour or a gradient. The
internet’s definition of the fill tool is that
“these tools fill a selected object, area or
layer with colour. In adobe photoshop this
is done with a paint bucket and gradient.
The paint bucket and gradient tools
occupy one cell in the toolbar, and are
represented by the icon of the last tool
used”.

text; Text is a tool that allows you to write

anything you want, use different font
types, colour and size. The internet’s
definition of the text tool is that it “is one of
8
 the most powerful tools in your toolbox
because it opens the door to a multitude of
pre-designed font libraries. These font
libraries allow you to create graphical
versions of letters using pre-designed
formats. Photoshop handles these font
libraries just as it would any image”.

line; The line tool allows you to create shapes,

drawings and more. The line tool is useful
because it gives you a lot of creativity to
design things such as logo’s.

9
 stroke; A stroke is used in photoshop as a
command to outline around an image or
part of an image, you can use the stroke
command to paint a coloured border
around a section, path or layer. For
example, if you wanted to put on stroke
layer on text you must start with a blank
layer and some text, then right click/cmd,
then click on the name in the layer’s
palette and create a new blank layer,
furthermore in the layer palette, turn off
the bottom layer and you should see the
outline now, finally apply the stroke again,
however this time with 1 pixel and set to
outside.
zoom; The zoom tool allows you to zoom in and
out. This is useful for various reasons such
as if you have an image, and you are trying
to edit it, you might find it difficult because
you may not be able to see what you are
doing therefore you would use the zoom
tool. For example, if you are trying to use
the path tool, you must be very accurate
which would be difficult if you were
zoomed out. To zoom in and out you can
either press Ctrl + or Ctrl – and finally you
locate it in the top of your tabs.

10
 guides and rulers; Guides and rulers in photoshop are used to
make the quality of your creations and
designs more accurate. To access rulers,
you must navigate your way to the tabs at
the top and select view, then select rulers,
and with guides do the same just select
new guide, and if you want it to be vertical
or horizontal.

As you can see on the page a ruler has

appeared to the left and at the top of the
page, this will allow you to guide your way
through an image using rulers.

The blue line down the page is a guide this

allows you to put the guide anywhere on
the ruler and work from that.

11
 Grid; To access grids, you must select
preferences, then guides, then grids and
slices. Next define the grid as desired.
Furthermore, select and check the view
that you want, then turn on the path
window if it isn’t already turned on. Finally
use the pen tool and the path selection
tool to use grids properly.
Snap; The snap feature allows you to snap to
guides, grids, layers, slices and document
bounds. This is useful because it gives you
a quick way to snap to different things
such as grids.

12
 Paletts, e.g. colour, There are different uses of pallets to add to
gradients, layers, the use of colour. You can use the brush
object, brushes, tool to add different kinds of strokes to the
history, actions, colour that you use. For example, for the
size, resolution; brush, you can have a hard brush or a soft
brush, a hard brush is much more thicker
than a soft brush whereas a soft brush is
more feathery and gives you more of a
lighter, finer touch.

Gradients are the different tones of colour

that can be used, such as you could have a
mixture of red and blue in one colour to
add effect, gradients are often used for
backgrounds.

13
 You can change the resolution and size to
a photoshop page to make colours stand
out or look dimmer, this can be done either
before you start a new photoshop
document or in the settings when a page
has been created.
Layers, e.g. Layers are a crucial part of photoshop
copying, saving, because they allow you to do some much.
arranging; Copying and saving layers are the very
flattening; colour basic uses of photoshop because all you
selection, must do is go to a selected layer and right
click, then it will give you various options
such as copying, (duplicate) saving,
deleting etc layers.

If you want to arrange a layer such as

moving it down or up, all you have to do is
drag the selected layer where you want it
and if you don't like the change then you
can just press Ctrl Z and it will undo what
you just did.

When you have completed what you are

creating you can flatten the image, so all
the layers get grouped into one, to do this
select image, then select flatten image.
However, in my opinion it would be more
beneficial and useful to save the un
flattened image and the flattened image
separately, this is because at a later stage
you might want to change something to
the image however you can't because you
won't have the editable version.
Colour selection, The foreground and background colours
e.g. foreground, are also used by some special effects filters.
background, You can designate a new foreground or
background colour using the eyedropper
14
 colour swatch, tool, the colour panel, the swatches panel
eyedropper or the Adobe colour picker. The default
foreground colour is black, and the default
background colour is white however, this
can be changed. The foreground colour is
always the colour that is selected, to
change the background colour to the
foreground colour you must select the
switch icon.

The eyedropper tool basically lets you

select any colour that you see on the page
or from an image that you have imported,
all you must do is select the eyedropper
tool which can be found to the left where
all the icons are, then just select a colour
you see and that colour will now appear
for the foreground colour.
Editing tools: 
Selection, e.g. There are lots of selection tools that can be
marquee, lasso, used to do a variety of different things. The
magic wand, marquee tool is used for dragging and
magnetic lasso, selecting a specific thing, for example with
deselect; an image you might just want to select half
of that image which is what the marquee
tool can do.

The lasso tool is useful for drawing

freeform segments of a selection border.
This is like the path tool however it is less
advanced.

The magic wand tool is much more basic

than other tools and selects pixels based
on tone and colour. The magic wand tool
is a much more basic and less accurate
path tool.
15
 Transform, e.g. You can transform images, shapes, text and
scale, rotate, skew, more to how you want. You can scale an
flip; cut; copy; image by either pressing Ctrl T and the
paste; crop; trim; pressing down shift, Alt and dragging the
erase; undo; fill image to where you want it, or you can
select the image, then select image and
finally select transform and free transform
the image. This works the same with
rotating and skewing an image.

To flip, cut, copy paste, crop and trim an

image select the image you want to do this
with, then right click on the image, and
finally select either flip, cut or copy. These
are useful editing tools because it allows
you to do things that you couldn't do on
any other application and it is quick and
easy.

To erase something on photoshop you can

use the rubber tool by holding, moving
and left clicking the mouse across where
you want to erase. To undo something
that you have done just press Ctrl Z or you
can do it manually by selecting edit then
undo. Finally, to use the fill tool, select the
paint bucket icon on the left-hand screen
of the page, and choose a colour by just
going to the colour swatch tool and chose
one, then left click anywhere and it will fill
it in.

Advanced tools: 
Effects, e.g. layer There are plenty of effects that you can
effects, filters, add and use in photoshop. It all starts with
channels; image the layer, first you must select the layer that
adjustments, you want to add an effect to, this might
16
 get confusing if your layers are called layer
1, layer 2, layer 3 etc, to make this as easy
as possible for you name your layers so,
you know what each one is.

There are many effects and filters that you

can use in photoshop to make an image
more unique and different. Photoshop
provides a variety of effect such as
shadows, glows and bevels that change
the appearance of a layer's contents. Filters
are a good way of changing an original
image into something that looks nicer by
using filters such as pixelate filters, render
filters and black and white filters. Once you
have added an effect or filter you can
select the channels and image adjustments
to change the effect or filter slightly.
Image There are many image adjustments that
adjustments, e.g. you can use in photoshop, such as
brightness and changing the image's brightness, contrast,
contrast, hue and hue saturation and colour balance, this can
saturation, colour be done when you first start a new blank
balance, gradients, photoshop document, it will give you
transparency, options with these as titles and just change
invert; masks; them to how you want, or you can change
this to an image to make it lighter or
darker. Most people use this to blend an
image into a background.

There are different types gradients that can

be used in photoshop, a gradient is a
smooth blending of shades from light to
dark or from one colour to another, you
can change the gradient on the colour
pallet.

17
 To make an image transparent you must
select the opacity slider above where the
layers are located, and then make it as
transparent as you want, this makes a nice
effect to images.

If you want to invert an entire image, you

need to select image, then adjustments
and then invert. If you invert an image it
mixes the colour round that is already
being used in that image and after it looks
completely different.

Layer masks use values of grey to assign

levels of transparency to specific portions
of a layer or group of layers, while clipping
masks use of transparency of one layer to
define that of a different layer or group of
layers, the mask icon is located at the
bottom where the layers are.
Paths, e.g. vector A path is used for cutting round an image
paths, converting so there is no background. There are
text to paths; sections in a path defined by anchor
image slicing. points. A path can be open or closed, so
either a straight line or a circle. Pretty much
any shape you draw is a path and can be
changed or moved using the path
selection tools.

18