7 essential steps to basic Photoshop knowledge - Day 1 - Intro



As a start for this Blog I will create a seven day series on the basic concepts of Adobes premium image editing flagship, Photoshop.

Often times its quite difficult for new users of this allround very mighty toolbox to get access to its many many functions. But through all versions that occured (actual version is CS4) there are some basic ideas behind it, that stay consistent throughout its history. These essential ideas will be explained in this series.

The seven parts of this series are as follows:

1. Day 1 - Introduction, overview and differentiation
2. Day 2 - Layers
3. Day 3 - Selections
4. Day 4 - Image correction
5. Day 5 - Image retouching
6. Day 6 - Filters
7. Day 7 - Extensibility

Differentiation

The main thing to understand is the difference between a program like Photoshop, which is pixel-based and e. g. Illustrator which is vector-based.

Photoshop works with single image-components, called “Pixels”. Those pixels are set together in a mosaic-like manner and - with enough distance - give an image composition. Photo-realistic image display is a main-advantage of pixel-based software, not seamlessly resizeable pictures is one of its disadvantages.

Illustrator e. g. in comparison to Photoshop works with “Vectors” which are mathematical descriptions of curves. Although they can be combined to nearly photo-like quality, they can never reach the image quality of a, lets say good digital-camera image, which is one of its main disadvantages. On the the other hand, the advantage of vector-based image manipulation programs is that resizing without quality loss is possible (mathematic descriptions stay the same wether its 20 inch or 20 feet).

Although - like always in live - this is not the complete truth (Illsutrator can handle pixel-based images, Photoshop can create vectors). But for the moment, lets keep those two statements in mind.

So what will be covered in the next days throughout the lessons?

Day 1: Intro and overview - Every race needs a start

We’re actually in it so you can simply read on

Day 2: Layers - Putting’em on top

In day 2 we will extensively cover the layer concept of Photoshop. Layers are parts of the image that can be edited separately and will be organized in a stack on top of each other. They can be understood the same as overhead transparencies, one over the other. You can see through on some parts of the transparencies, through other parts it’s impossible. In this section you will get a detailed overview of the different types of layers, layer effects, blend modes and related topics.

Day 3:  Selections - One for you, one for me

This days topic covers selections which are very important. Imagine that you only want to apply some of your new techniques only on some exclusive parts of your image. How do you make sure, that this exclusiveness can be maintained? You select the parts you want to alter. In this part we will cover some of the tools and methods that let us exactly that. We will also take care what should be considered after selecting and before modifying our images (or parts of it).

Day 4: Image correction - Enlighten my day

Everyone of you dear readers, who has already somehow worked with pictures knows this situation: You took or downloaded a picture but something seems to be wrong. The picture is underexposed, wrong colors, too dark, too bright… The list of possible corrections can be nearly endless. In this days topic we cover how to fix some of those things that normally apply to all parts of the picture. We will talk about adjustment layers and color corrections as well as the difference between image correction and image retouching.

Day 5: Image retouching - As beautiful as can be

In differentiation to the previous topic of image correction this day will focus on image retouching which normally applies only to parts of your picture. Classical tasks in image retouching will cover red-eye-reduction, brightening your teeth (with no need to visit your dentist), changing colors completely (e. g. from green to red), cloning and stamping (no postal or biophysical knowledge required) and many others. We will go through some of these by example including before/after comparisons.

Day 6: Filters - the smoking guns of image manipulation

Filters (often referred to as effects) can have a huge impact on your design or image. With filters in Photoshop you can completely change the presentation of your image. With far more than 70 built-in filters the Adobe software offers a huge amount of variations. We will show some of the most prominent and most used filters, cover the adjustments in the dialogue-boxes of the filters mentioned and also talk about when to best use filters and when they should be better avoided.

Day 7:  Extensibility - Beam me up, Scotty

On this last and final day of our excursion through the basic concepts of Photoshop we will take about the enormous possibilities to extend your software. We will hear of brushes, custom shapes, gradients, color swatches and much much more. Of course we will also list some of the most valuable places where those “extendables” can be found and what we should have in mind when using third-party stuff. Another subtopic will be “when to use what” as well as how to create your own “tools” (brushes, shapes etc. - you name it) for your needs or even for sharing with the community. As this is our final day in this series, some proposals where to go from here or what to learn do next will round our little trip.

Conclusion

We will cover the most basic concepts in detail in this course. Some of you - especially when the complete series is published after day 7 - will maybe only use parts of it where they feel it may enhance your Photoshop experience. Since a blog like this lives from the user exerience and visitors participation all comments are highly appreciated as they lead to interesting new views for everyone. Throughout the posting of this series I will try to take care of any previous posted comments so that the greatest experience for all visitors can be maintained.

These final words end the first day and introductory post for the series. As always, I hope you like this stuff