Mastering Photoshop Made Easy

By Davide Gatti

Photoshop has been for more than a decade the most famous image editing software in the World. Inevitably, being the result of so many years of development, it includes hundreds of features and the possibility to extend its functionality with plugins as special filters, import actions or ready-to-use gradient brushes that can be downloaded from the internet. This manual tries to simplify and shows how to be productive in an effective and quick way, by taking the hands inside reals examples and explaining the most useful commands and frequently used plugins. It's valid for ANY VERSION, so if you've never used Photoshop or you own a very old release, maybe updating without understanding how to use it anymore, this's the right book to approach the basics. It also explains commands and techniques useful for making the most from Photoshop with a pleasant but not demanding approach.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781326107673

Book preview

Mastering Photoshop Made Easy

MASTERING PHOTOSHOP MADE EASY

MASTERING PHOTOSHOP MADE EASY

edited by: Davide Gatti

deewhy_logo.jpg

2014

Copyright © 2014 by Davide Gatti

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher and/or the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2014

ISBN978-1-326-10767-3

DeeWHY

London, United Kingdom

www.deewhy.org

Ordering:

Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, educators, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the above listed address.

site: http://deewhy.org/contacts/

e-mail: [e-mail]

Dedication

Ciao amico mio. Sempre sul cuore.

Forewords

Photoshop has been for many years the most famous and used editing program in the world, but being the result of so many years of work is a very complex software, with hundreds of possible features and techniques of use, and the possibility to extend its functionality with plugins for the application of special filters, or import actions, or gradient brushes that can be downloaded from the internet.

This manual for Photoshop tries to overcome this problem explaining the most useful commands with real examples - it is valid for ANY VERSION - so, if you've never used Photoshop, or if you have an old version and you have updated not understanding how to use it anymore, this is the right book for a good starting. Not limited to explain the basics of Photoshop but also commands and techniques useful for making the most from the program without a very close study and long in terms of time.

Introduction

What is Photoshop?

Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Systems for Windows and OS X.

Photoshop was created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, it has become the de facto industry standard in raster graphics editing, such that the terms photoshopping and photoshop contest were born. It can edit and compose raster images in multiple layers and supports masks, alpha compositing and several color models including RGB, CMYK, Lab color space (with capital L), spot color and duotone.

Photoshop has vast support for graphic file formats but also uses its own PSD and PSB file formats which support all the aforementioned features. In addition to raster graphics, it has limited abilities to edit or render text, vector graphics (especially through clipping path), 3D graphics and video.

Photoshop's feature set can be expanded by Photoshop plug-ins, programs developed and distributed independently of Photoshop that can run inside it and offer new or enhanced features.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop)

1 – Obtain Adobe Photoshop

At the time of this book, the last available version of Photoshop is Photoshop CC 2014.2 October 2014 release, you can easily check the ‘what’s new’ page from the adobe website here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/whats-new.html

and compare key features across versions:

www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/versions.html

about the system requirements:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/system-requirements.html

to try and download it for a limited time before to purchase:

https://creative.adobe.com/products/download/photoshop

2 – First steps

Introduction

A lot of people are intimidated by Adobe’s Photoshop. At first glance it is confusing, but with a little help you can quickly be on your way to becoming a Photoshop guru. This is our introductory guide on how to do basic functions in Photoshop.

Photoshop is a layered graphic editing program; it is a great tool for creating, editing and manipulating images. Let me give you a little bit of knowledge to begin with. I wish someone would have explained what layers were in relation to graphic design before I started teaching Photoshop to myself.

Every new piece of data you add to your image is a new layer, even though you see the whole image as one; it does not mean you have the whole image selected. So if you are trying to do something to everything on your screen and it is only affecting one portion of it you are in the wrong layer. Keep that in the back of your mind as we continue.

A new layer is created for each new action you take. If you use the text tool to add some text to the image it will create a new layer for it. However, if you edit that layer and change the font color it is still in the same layer. You can always bring up your layers by pressing F7. The layer portion of the screen is below. This is the heart and soul of Photoshop so make sure you really do keep in mind as we discuss other Photoshop areas. We will go into more detail as we