Beginner to Pro: Photoshop for Beginners (Topic)

We are launching a series of articles on learning from the basics to proficiency in Adobe tools. Today our hero is Adobe Photoshop.

Of course, the first question people ask in such articles is "Where to download Photoshop?"

Let's be honest: the best option if you really want to become a professional is to buy Photoshop, so you will immediately solve a bunch of problems that may arise with unlicensed software.

Earlier, we covered in detail the topic of purchasing and setting up the official Adobe Creative Cloud client, in which all software is now downloaded, including Photoshop.

If you are not sure whether you need to buy Photoshop, you can use all software (not only Photoshop) for 30 days by choosing a trial period for free when you start the program

Photoshop is more than a graphics editor

When opening any program for the first time, we all get lost from the abundance of buttons and panels, and Photoshop, which has grown into a real monster in this regard, is one of the most unfriendly and frightening in recent years.

But you should not be afraid that you will not be able to understand where and what is. The big elephant is eaten in parts, so here, in this article, we will talk about the most basic functions and gradually from article to article we will move to more complex functionality .

Fun fact: Most users use less than 5% of Photoshop's capabilities, as in recent years it has combined many diverse tools that may not overlap.

Create a new document

Immediately after launching Photoshop, you will be greeted by a screen with a selection of preset options for documents.This screen can also be invoked by the Cntl + N keyboard shortcut

I highly recommend using Photoshop exclusively in English, as most of the good tutorials and guides are made by professionals, and they almost never use the USA interface.

These ready-made resolution templates quickly help you select the desired size, color space and measurement units in your document (pixels, centimeters, etc.)

Let's create a 500 x 500 px file for our example

In the center, you will have a 500 x 500 px white block - this is your work area.

Workspace

In the center you will see a white square - this is your workspace. On the left you will have your toolbar, and on the right you will have layers.

It is worth remembering that in Photoshop there are options for workspace presets (How and what elements are placed in your interface) Essential should be selected - this option is open by default suitable for general purposes

Toolbar

Your toolbar contains all of your tools that you can use to manipulate your image.

Layers panel

The layer field displays all of your layers and the relationships between them.

If your layers are not displayed, you can press F7 or turn them on in the Window - Layers menu.

An important tip - try to do any action on a new layer. And remember the shortcut keys Cntrl + J to duplicate the current layer and Cntrl + Shift + Alt + N to create a new layer.

Now let's create a new one, for this you can click on the icon of a new layer in the Layers panel or press Cntrl + Shift + N then you will see a message asking you to name your layer or Cntrl + Shift + Alt + N, in this case it will simply create a layer with the sequential name layer 1, 2,3, etc.

Insert image

Now that we have learned how to create layers, let's paste the image into our project. To do this, you can drag the image directly from the folder, or by selecting the image, copy it and paste it into Photoshop using Cntr + C and Cntr + V respectively.

Fill and gradient

Fill is a tool that allows you to quickly fill your layer with color. And the gradient is respectively a gradient transition of 2 or more colors. Let's select Layer 1 in the Layers panel and select a gradient by pressing G key. (After that, to select a gradient press Shift + G )

Or you can select it from the toolbar.

Our mouse cursor will then change to a paint bucket, just click it on your image and a new color will be superimposed on top of it.

Layer Blending Effects and Transparency

In Photoshop, you can apply a unique effect to each layer or make any transparency you like.

Using a text tool to add text

Let's add text to our image by pressing the T

Our test layer will be added as a new layer above the selected layer Layer 1

You can font, size and style in the Character panel. Window - Character

Save file

Now let's save the resulting result. To do this, press File - Save (Cntrl + S) or File - Save As (Cntrl + Shift + S) or Save As For Web (Cntrl + shift + Alt + S)

It is best if you are not going to print the image, or you do not need any special file format (not jpg, png, gif) to save for the web (Cntrl + shift + Alt + S), since in this format the file takes minimum space. Also, to save space, you can safely reduce the quality to 60%. Below 60%, you will already see clear losses in image quality and artifacts.

Addition

A very important feature of Photoshop is history. Any action can be undone and redone.

Click Windows - History to access the History panel

By default, you can not undo many actions and immediately set 100 - 200 steps for undo. To do this, click Edit - Preferences-Perfomance

It is worth remembering that to undo an action in Photoshop, you need to press Alt+Cntrl+Z Cntrl + Z will also work, but it only undoes 1 last actionAnd to repeat the action or step forward you need to press Shift+Cntrl+Z

This concludes this overview of Photoshop basics.

In addition to this, there are tons of plugins and effects you can use in Photoshop and don't forget the power of Google Young Padawans.

The Topic of Article: Beginner to Pro: Photoshop for Beginners.
Author: Jake Pinkman