Professional Documents
Culture Documents
George Chen
1. Basics: Layers
Photoshop is a layers based graphics program. What does that mean? It means that
Photoshop gives you the ability to divide your artwork up into layers, so you can isolate
what you do to an image. See the following image:
Table of Contents:
1. Basics…1
Layers
Toolkit
Filters
Layer Modes
Layer Masks
2. Improving Color…6
Color Balance
Levels
Curves See how each layer on the Layers Palette marks off a different part of a picture. The
3. Retouching…8 eye icon on the left of each layer makes the layers visible or invisible. Observe.
Clone & Heal
Smooth & Soften
4. Sharpen…12
Sharpen
Unsharp Mask
High Pass
5. Light…13
Screen/Multiply
6. Art & Experiment
Red Eye
Special Effects
1. Basics: Toolkit
In Photoshop and all Adobe programs, you have a toolkit/toolbar for easy access to all
your tools. In Photoshop 7, it looks like the image on the right. Note how most of the
tools have a small arrow at the bottom. Selecting that arrow will bring up more tools.
Quickly, here are the tools and their functions, going left to right:
Marquee Tool: Selection of items for deletion or moving
Move Tool: Self explanatory
Lasso Tool: Select a portion of an item to manipulate
Magic Wand: Auto select a portion of an image with the same color
Crop Tool: Self explanatory
Exacto Knife: Cut shapes
The rest of the menu you really don’t need to know. We will only be using about 10 of
these tools frequently.
1. Basics: Filters
Filters are fun, fast ways to get exciting effects, however, novices often overuse them.
Therefore, try to limit your usage of filters, and blend them into the image
appropriately. We’ll be using filters later, especially in enhancing images, so right now
this will be a quick introduction. Note that there are far too many filters for me to give
you examples of each, just experiment with them when you have free time. When we
get to modes you’ll be able to see ways in which you can blend your filtered layers to
get better effects, as well as playing with their transparency.
Now for the filters menu. Note
how the filters are divided into
sections, and within each
section, the filters are listed.
Some filters create whole new
images while others only modify
the image that you are working
on. Once again, experiment with
them to see what they can do.
Often, these filters will have
preview images so you can see
the result before you apply the
filter. Warning, some of these
filters use up a lot of memory,
especially on large images. This
means that they will slow the
computer down and may
sometimes freeze it. Watch what
you’re doing carefully, and save
often.
1. Basics: Modes
Modes are ways in which layers can
be placed on top of each other to
create some pretty interesting effects.
The modes menu is found on the top
of the layers palette (in this image it
says ‘Normal’). There are several
modes you can chose from, some of
the most common ones are
demonstrated below.
(credit: PhotoshopGuru)
Note: One of the best things to do with Modes is use them in combination with
transparency (opacity). Thus you can minimize the effect as needed. Often, a layer
mode at full opacity provides too harsh of an image. So, what can you do with layers
modes? Here’s a sample:
1. Basics: Layer Masks
Layer Masks are very simple tools to master but can also be very effective. Essentially,
a layer mask is a cover that specifically reveals only parts of an image. This is excellent
when you want to fade two images together. Note that in the mask mode, you may only
use grayscale. Depending on what mode you pick (Reveal All or Hide All), the areas
that are white or black will be the areas revealed. Most often, gradients are used.
Example time:
+ =
How is this accomplished?
making it unusable.
Example time:
See the image without a curve above (It’s Orly!)
By applying a positive curve, the image
becomes lighter. See image.
3. Retouching: Clone/Heal
One of the things that takes a good photo and makes it
bad is an excess of distractions in the background. One
way to remove distractions from the backgrounds of photos
is the cloning and healing tools. However, these tools can
be difficult to master, so be sure to have plenty of practice.
Say we take this image to the right. The red coke cup
detracts from the image’s focus of the student. Therefore,
we can use the clone and heal tools to try and remove it.
Eyes:
1. To work most effectively with the eyes,
zoom in to about 300% or so.
5. Light: Screen/Multiply
So in addition to using Levels and Curves,
there are a few other ways to brighten an
image without totally destroying it. These
techniques is the same thing for both
screen and multiply, though screen is for
lightening images, while multiply is for
darkening images. I’ll just give one
example.
Take this image; it’s a bit too dark.
http://www.planetphotoshop.com
http://myjanee.home.insightbb.com/tutorials.htm
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/Photoshop/1
http://www.n-sane.net/tutorials.php
infinitexperiment : : http://gchen.netfirms.com