Week 11: Introduction to Adobe Photoshop

This week, we started learning about an all new software (well, to us at least), and that is Adobe Photoshop. Not going to lie, I have personally been waiting for this day for quite a while now. For everyone know about the wonder of photoshopping, and the vast differences between an unedited picture and an edited one. So needless to say, I was psyched for this week's tutorial, and will be sharing with you some of what I have learnt in it.

First, I will be talking about some of the basic tools of Photoshop. To start things off, hue/saturation allows one to adjust the hue, saturation, and lightness of a specific range of colors in an image or simultaneously adjust all the colors in an image. This technique is used to fine-tune colors, in order to make an image sharper or brighter depending on your preferences.

Similar to hue and saturation, the brightness/contrast adjustment let you make simple changes to the color tones of the image, for example making it more of an "cooler" or "warmer" image by adjusting its degree of red or blue shades.

You can follow this link for more detailed information on how to access and use hue and saturation:
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-elements/using/adjusting-color-saturation-hue-vibrance.html

The above mentioned tools both deal with adjusting the color and contrast of an image. I will now talk about how to actually edit certain details on an image or photo itself.

There are indeed, many methods and techniques to photoshopping, and thus I will only highlight a few important ones. The first tool I'm going to talk about is the Move Tool. What this tool does is basically allowing one to move a selected area or even the entire layer, by dragging and dropping with the mouse, or the arrow keys should you prefer that. You can use it to drag foreign images onto an image, basically adding extra details to an image.

The next tool is the Crop Tool. Have you ever wanted to keep only a certain portion of the original photo taken? Well, with this tool, that is now possible! Simply select the area on the original image that you want to keep, and press "Enter". And Voila! But a important thing to note is that Although cropping reduces the dimensions of an image, it is not the same as resizing. Whereas resizing reduces or enlarges the entire image and everything in it, cropping does not alter the size of the image content at all. So its good if you want to retain the clarity of the original image.

Last on my least is the tool that I'm sure everyone has heard of- The Eraser Tool. What this tool does in Photoshop is not that different from what a normal eraser does in real life. However, there are various "modes" to the Eraser Tool, and all of them are catered to different purposes. Some erase pixels completely, while others are more suitable for thinner or thicker strokes. You can even "erase to history", which basically means restoring an image to a previously saved state or the original state. Thus, as you can see, the Eraser Tool is a simple, but definitely vital tool to your photoshopping shenanigans.

Below are some links to websites with more detailed information on these tools:

The Move Tool: http://shapeshed.com/photoshop_101_the_move_tool/
The Crop Tool: http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/adjusting-crop-rotation-canvas.html
The Eraser Tool: http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/background-eraser/


This week has been both fun and educational. We got to learn yet another important software, and our knowledge continues to expand. Of course, learning all about a new software is never easy, and I made quite a few mistakes during tutorial, and had quite a few questions as well. Luckily, through the guidance of the skilled and patient teacher, and a few trial-and-errors, I believe I have set down the right path.