Adobe Photoshop Training: Introduction & Intermediate

Photoshop contains a huge number of tools. This session introduces you to the various menus that Photoshop contains. It then shows you the basics of opening an image, using a brush and closing and saving an image. We get you working with Photoshop as quickly as possible.

The key techniques trained include:

• Starting Photoshop
• The Photoshop Workspace
• Working With The Palette Dock
• Working With Palettes And Palette Groups
• Palette Techniques
• About The Toolbox
• Working With The Options Bar
• Opening An Existing Document
• Creating A New Image
• Brush Tool Essentials
• Selecting Colours Using The Swatches Palette
• Undoing Actions
• Exiting Photoshop

Now that you have worked on your first image in Photoshop it is time to show you how to navigate its menus and tools in more detail. To be a competent Photoshop user you need to understand the various tools that Photoshop offers and how to access them. You also need to know the keyboard shortcuts that are available as they will increase your productivity.

The key topics trained in this section are:

• Understanding The Document Window
• Navigating With The Navigator Palette
• Navigating With The Hand And Zoom Tools
• Navigating With Keyboard Shortcuts
• Changing Screen Modes
• Working With Multiple Documents

The Photoshop gives you the ability to control and manipulate the colour and tone of images. It allows you to modify the contrast, colour, shadowing and levels of images very simply. This session will show you how to control all of these in your images and more.

The key topics trained include:

• Understanding Tonality And The Histogram Palette
• Using Levels To Improve Contrast
• Adjusting Levels Automatically
• Using Curves To Improve Contrast
• Opening Up Shadows
• Repairing Photos That Needed Fill Flash
• Repairing Photos With Too Much Flash
• Using Auto Colour
• Adjusting Colour Balance
• Painting The Sky Blue
• Desaturating Colours Selectively
• Changing Hues Selectively

Photoshop can famously be used to edit photos. It allows you to whiten teeth, banish blemishes and remove red eye amongst other things. This session shows you how to ensure that your photo is looking perfect before you use it.

The key techniques trained include:

• Using The Clone Stamp Tool
• Removing Blemishes
• Removing Bags Under Eyes
• Reducing Freckles Or Acne
• Whitening Eyes
• Whitening Teeth
• Reducing Hot Spots
• Reducing Wrinkles
• Repairing Large Areas
• Removing Red Eye
• Changing Eye Colour
• Sharpening An Image

Each Photoshop image is composed of one or more layers. They are a very powerful concept that when used correctly allows for very rapid and simple editing of an image. Separating a composite image into a number of different layers means that when you would like to edit a certain effect or area, you can work with just the relevant area on the relevant layer. This lets you focus on the specific change you would like to make and leave all other parts of the image unchanged.

The key topics trained include:

• Understanding Layers And The Layers Palette
• Creating New Layers
• Working With Layers
• Working With The Background Layer
• Changing Layer Stacking Order
• Changing Layer Opacity
• Creating A Simple Composite

As your Photoshop images will be stored as digital images it is important to have a basic understanding of how that works and also some basic techniques for working with digital image files. This session will show you the most important controls that Photoshop gives you.

The key topics trained include:

• Understanding File Formats
• Understanding File Size
• Understanding Colour Mode
• Understanding Resizing And Resampling
• Resizing An Image For Printing
• Resampling An Image
• Cropping Images
• Cropping Images Without The Crop Tool
• Using The Crop Tool To Add A Border

So far we have only looked at making small-scale amendments to our images in Photoshop. This session looks at the possibilities for making larger scale edits to our images. For example, Photoshop allows you to straighten scanned images and even warp entire images by attaching an image to a grid and then manipulating the grid to create the image effect that you would like.

The key topics trained include:

• Flipping And Rotating Images
• Straightening Photos
• Straightening Scanned Images
• Correcting Perspective Problems
• Skewing And Rotating Images
• Warping Images

As a user of Photoshop a key skill is to be able to select exactly the part of the specific section of your image that you want to work with. It is not until you have selected the relevant part of your image that you can begin to use the various tools available to modify your image. This session focuses on how to use the various tools that Photoshop has for making selections:

The key topics trained are:

• Using The Marquee Tools
• Working With Selections
• Using The Lasso And Polygonal Lasso Tools
• Using The Magic Wand Tool
• Using The Magnetic Lasso Tool
• Modifying Selections Using Quick Mask Mode
• Extracting Selections From The Background
• Cleaning Up Extractions

Having introduced the concept of layers previously in this course we now return to them. We show you some of the effects that they allow to be created including soft focus and adding masks to images.

The key topics trained include:

• About Layer Masks
• Filling Text With An Image
• Applying A Soft Focus Effect
• Applying A Blurred Lighting Vignette
• Applying A Focus Vignette Effect
• Using A Gradient Mask
• Converting A Colour Image To Greyscale
• Using Multiple Adjustment Layers
• Understanding Blending Modes
• Dodging And Burning With Overlay Blend Mode

This session focuses on annotating images. Once you have perfected your image in Photoshop you may want to add text to it as well. We show you how to add text as well as how to then format it to get just the effect that you want.

The key topics trained include:

• Adding Point Type
• Changing Text Colour
• Changing Text Size
• Editing Text
• Adding Paragraph Type
• Warping Text
• Adding Special Text Effects With Layer Styles
• Drawing Paths For Text
• Creating Text On A Path

The final section of this course focuses on outputing your Photoshop image. Having created and annotated your image so that it is ready for use, this session then shows you how to save and optimise your image. It also covers printing or digitally outputing your image.

The key topics trained include:

• Printing Single Images
• Using The Print Dialog Box
• Creating A Picture Package
• Creating A Web Photo Gallery
• Creating A Contact Sheet
• Saving Layered Files
• Saving Images In A New Format
• Understanding The Save For Web Dialog Box
• Optimising Photos For The Web Part 1
• Optimising Photos For The Web Part 2
• Creating A PDF Presentation