Photoshop basics

NME17AP

Lukuvuonna 2017-2018

Lets start by opening Photoshop and creating a new document. This can be done by clicking file tab and selecting new. This opens a new window that has properties for the new document. You can select width and height in different units as well as resolution. There are also options for color mode and profile but you can just leave them as they are right now. When you're done, click create.

Now you have a blank document. Start by creating a new layer. This can be done by clicking the new layer icon in the bottom right corner. There is also a shortcut key shift + ctrl + alt + N that will do the same thing. If you want to copy a layer press ctrl + J with a layer selected.

Click the brush tool that is located on the left side or press B.

Brush tool has a large brush type selection which can be opened by clicking the right mouse button. Select hard round brush. Now take a look at the top. There are different brush modes and options for opacity and flow.

Difference between opacity and flow are that with flow you can click and draw and the color builds up. With opacity the opacity will remain same with one click. If you click again then the color will start to build up.

You can change your brush color from the right side that has a color slider. Simply click on the color you want and it will appear on the bottom left corner.

The bottom left corner has colors for painting and erasing. If you erase area that is transparent it will not add color to it. Only background layer works that way. You can switch the default black and white back by pressing d. You can also color a full layer by pressing alt + delete.

Eraser tool can be found on the left side. If you have a pen tablet then you're able to use the top of your pen as a eraser. Shortcut for eraser is E.

Quick selection tool is also located on the left side. Quick selection selects areas you paint on to be for example copied to a new layer or used as a defined painting area. Short cut for quick selection tool is W.

Last tool we're testing in this tutorial is the shape tool. You can create basic shapes easily with this tool. Shortcut for it is U. When you have selected a shape you want you can change parameters like width and height. You can also define fill and outline. Shape is not a regular layer and if you want to merge it with another layer then you need to rasterize it first.

Right click the shape layer and select rasterize. Now you can select the two layer you want to merge and right click. Select merge layers and now you have only one layer left. If you want to merge layers but still keep the originals then use shortcut ctrl + alt +E.

Lastly we're going to take a look at the most useful tab on the top. Edit tab has commands like undo, paste and copy. It's not efficient to go to the tab to use these commands so you should consider learning a few shortcut for these. Ctrl + Z will undo the last step. If you want to undo more steps then use ctrl + alt + Z. In the same tab you can find transform tool. With this you can rotate, scale flip your drawn objects. Shortcut for this tool is ctrl + T.