I started learning how to use Adobe Photoshop a few years ago, and as time went by, I got better and better. I decided to make a simple tutorial for everyone to learn a bit about using this extraordinary piece of software.
1. Introduction
For those who don’t yet know what Adobe Photoshop is let’s ask: What is Adobe Photoshop? Well, Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems.
1.1 Eearly history
In 1987, Thomas Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan began writing a program on his Macintosh Plus to display grayscale images on a monochrome display. This program, called Display, caught the attention of his brother John Knoll, an Industrial Light & Magic employee, who recommended that Thomas turn it into a fully-fledged image editing program.
Thomas took a six-month break from his studies in 1988 to collaborate with his brother on the program.
Thomas renamed the program ImagePro, but the name was already taken.
Later that year, Thomas renamed his program Photoshop and worked out a short-term deal with scanner manufacturer Barneyscan to distribute copies of the program with a slide scanner. A total of about 200 copies of Photoshop were shipped this way.
During this time, John traveled to Silicon Valley and gave a demonstration of the program to engineers at Apple and Russell Brown, art director at Adobe. Both showings were successful, and Adobe decided to purchase the license to distribute in September 1988.
While John worked on plug-ins in California, Thomas remained in Ann Arbor writing code. Photoshop 1.0 was released in 1990 for Macintosh exclusively.
Today, Adobe only supports Windows and Macintosh versions of Photoshop, but using Wine, Photoshop CS5 can run well on Linux too.
1.2 Versions of Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop is available in the following languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian.
CS1
The first Photoshop CS was commercially released in October 2003. Photoshop CS increased user control with a reworked file browser augmenting search versatility, sorting and sharing capabilities and the Histogram Palette, which monitors changes in the image as they are made to the document.
CS2
Photoshop CS2, released in May 2005, expanded on its predecessor with a new set of tools and features. One of which included an upgraded Spot Healing Brush, which is mainly used for handling common photographic problems such as blemishes, red-eye, noise, blurring and lens distortion.
One of the most significant inclusions in CS2 was the implementation of Smart Objects, which allows users to scale and transform images and vector illustrations without losing image quality as well as create linked duplicates of embedded graphics so that a single edit updates across multiple iterations.
Photoshop CS2 also brought the Vanishing Point and Image Warping tools. Vanishing Point makes tedious graphic and photo retouching endeavors much simpler by letting users to clone, paint and transform image objects while maintaining visual perspective. Image Warping makes it easy digitally distort an image into a shape by choosing on-demand presets or by dragging control points.
The File Browser had been upgraded to Adobe Bridge, which functioned as a hub for productivity, imagery and creativity, providing multi-view file browsing and smooth cross-product integration across Adobe Creative Suite 2 software.
Photoshop CS2 also brought a streamlined interface, making it easier to access features for specific instances. In CS2 users were also given the ability to create their own custom presets, which was meant to save time and increase productivity.
This is the version on which I started learning Photoshop. I got a book and the software itself from school, me being involved in a school project. This version is a very simple to use one, but it has less options and tools than the new versions. After the CS3 version came out, I bought it and worked a few years using it, I think it’s the best for beginners and I recommend using it.
CS3
Smart Objects display filters without altering the original image CS3 improves on features from previous versions of Photoshop and introduces new tools.
One of the most significant is the streamline interface which allows increased performance, speed, and efficiency. There is also improved support for Camera RAW files which allow users to process images with higher speed and conversion quality. CS3 supports over 150 RAW formats as well as JPEG, TIFF and PDF.
Enhancements were made to the Black and White Conversion, Brightness and Contrast Adjustment and Vanishing Point Module tools. The Black and White adjustment option improves control over manual grayscale conversions with a dialog box similar to that of Channel Mixer. There is more control over print options and better management with Adobe Bridge.
The Clone Source palette is introduced, adding more options to the clone stamp tool.
Compositing is assisted with Photoshop’s new Quick Selection and Refine Edge tools and improved image stitching technology.
CS4
CS4 features smoother panning and zooming, allowing faster image editing at a high magnification. The interface is more simplified with its tab-based interface making it cleaner to work with.
The Content-aware scaling allows users to intelligently size and scale images, and the Canvas Rotation tool makes it easier to rotate and edit images from any angle.
As the successor to Photoshop CS3, Photoshop CS4 is the first x64 edition of Photoshop on consumer computers for Windows.
The color correction tool has also been improved significantly. CS4 and CS4 Extended were released on October 15, 2008. They were also made available through Adobe’s online store and Adobe Authorized Resellers.
I had this version, but for some reason I didn’t like it.
CS5
Photoshop CS5 was launched on April 12, 2010. In May 2011, Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 (CS5.5) was released, with new versions of some of the applications. Its version of Photoshop, 12.1, is identical to the concurrently released update for Photoshop CS5, version 12.0.4, except for support for the new subscription pricing that was introduced with CS5.5.
CS5 introduces new tools such as the Content-Aware Fill, Refine Edge, Mixer Brush, Bristle Tips and Puppet Warp. The community also had a hand in the additions made to CS5 as 30 new features and improvements were included by request. These include automatic image straightening, the Rule-of-Thirds cropping tool, color pickup and saving an 16-bit image as a JPEG.
Another feature includes the Adobe Mini Bridge which allows for efficient file browsing and management.
This is the version I currently use, and It’s very good, very clean and simple interface, very fast and reliable. I recommend using this for this tutorial, because the interface and the tools differ a bit from the CS3 version.
CS6
On March 21, 2012, Adobe released a beta version of Photoshop CS6. It adds new creative design tools and a redesigned interface with a focus on enhanced performance. New features have been added to the Content-Aware tool such as the Content-Aware Patch and Content-Aware Move.
CS6 brings the “straighten” tool to Photoshop, where a user simply draws a line anywhere on an image, and the canvas will reorient itself so that the line drawn becomes horizontal, and adjusts the media accordingly. This was created with the intention that users will draw a line parallel to a plane in the image, and reorient the image to that plane to easier achieve certain perspectives.
CS6 also allows background saving, which means that while another document is compiling and archiving itself, it is possible to simultaneously edit an image. CS6 also features a customizable auto-save feature, preventing any work from being lost.
All the tools and filters are improved and optimized in CS6. Now, when a filter is applied, it will be applied to the current layer, as opposed all layers in older version of Adobe Photoshop.
Adobe has responded to feedback from the graphic design community, and has modified the User Interface accordingly. Now, it boasts a more unified, static look, and is easier to keep track of all the palettes and documents.
2. The program itself
2.1 The first thing you see when opening Adobe Photoshop is the Adobe Photoshop splash screen:
2.2 After this disappears, the main window of Adobe Photosop pops up:
The main window is divided in a few parts:
2.2.1. The main Bar left side
2.2.2. The main Bar right side
2.2.3. The tools panel (it has 2 forms)
2.2.4. The “Layers” panel: (it has more parts, we will get back on it later, but for now that is all you need to know)
As Adobe Photoshop is a very complex piece of software, we will come back at each of these 4 parts and explain them more thoroughly for a better understanding.
That’s it for this time, but I am working on the following parts already. Hope you have a nice day and thanks for reading. See you in the next part soon enough.
Part 2 – The main bar – File at http://computersight.com/software/cernys-adobe-photoshop-tutorial-part-2-the-main-bar-file/
This is very good for total beginers, but for more advanced ones, this is kinda crap… i was hoping for something better.
well yes. This is meant for total beginers, I want to write a long series of Cerny’s Adobe Photoshop Tutorial, and i want to reach to the smallest details, and further on, a few more advanced tutorials. Hope that I will have eough time to write it all
) thanks for reading anyways 