Adventure with Photoshop: Introduction to Photoshop Tools

The toolbox basics

Tools with little black arrows in their bottom right corner

indicate a tool group. Alternate tools can be selected by clicking and holding down the top tool.

The toolbox in detail

Move Tool

The Move tool moves items in the document, such as selections, layers, and guides.

Marquee Tool

The Marquee tool selects a section of the document based on the shape of the chosen tool.

Tip: Holding down the shift key and making a new marquee will add to a current selection. Holding down option will take away. (There will be a little + or - by the tool that will let you know if you have one of these choices selected)

Lasso Tool

The Lasso tools allow you to select a section of the document either by freehand, polygonal, or magnetic selections.
- The Lasso tool will close the selection will close automatically when the mouse is unclicked.
- The Polygonal Lasso tool and Magnetic Lasso tool need the ends of the selection to be joined for the section to become selected.
Tip: The same adding and subtracting methods discussed with the marquee tool work with the lasso tool..

Magic Wand Tool

The Magic Wand tool selects areas of similar colors.
Tip: The default setting will only select the same colors that are touching each other (contiguous). However, this can be changed with the options bar.

Crop Tool

The Crop tool trims images.
Tip: When using Crop, the area that will be removed will be in shadow. The area can be expanded or contracted by clicking and dragging on one of the 9 points of the box. Once an image has been cropped, the only way to retrieve the parts that were removed is to undo the crop.

Healing Tool

The Healing tools fix up issues in the document such as blemishes and red eye.
- The Spot Healing Brush removes blemishes and objects.
- The Red Eye tool removes the red refl ection caused by a fl ash.
Note: The Healing Brush tool and The Patch tool are a little tricky to work with, so they won’t be covered in this handout.

Drawing Tools

The Drawing tools let you draw in your document.
- The Brush tool paints brush strokes.
- The Pencil tool paints hard-edged strokes.
- The Color Replacement tool replaces a selected color with a new color.
Tip: If you want to draw in a very specifi ce place, with no spill-over, use the pencil instead of the brush.

Eraser Tools

The Eraser tools erases pixels in the document.
- The Eraser tool will restore parts of an image to a previously saved state or will display the background color.
- The Background Eraser tool will turn the erased areas into a transparency.
- The Magic Eraser tool will erase everything of the same color into a transparency.
Tip: Color selection for the Magic Eraser tool works the same as the Magic Wand tool.

Fill Tool

The Fill tools fill color into areas of the document.
- The Gradient Tool creates a smooth straight-line change from the foreground color to the background color.
- The Paint Bucket tool fills in areas of similar color with the foreground color.
Tip: Color selection for the Paint Bucket tool works the same as the Magic Wand tool.

Pen Tool

Pen Tool is one tool that serves to make the line a path or curve on the image. Pen Tool shortcut on the keyboard was (p).
- Freefrom Pen Tool serves to make the line the path with a nicer shape.

Text Tool

The Type tools add text to a document.
- The type tools create type on top of an image.
- The type mask tools make a selection of the document in the shape of type.
Tip: Both types can be used to create text either horiontally or vertically.

Shape Tool

The Shape tools draw shapes and lines in a normal layer or a shape layer.
- The Shape tools will create a solid color shape of their type.
- The Line tool will create a solid color line.
- The Custom Shape tool makes customized shapes selected from a custom shape list.
Tip: If you want to draw a rectangle or circle with a transparent center, it’s easlier touse the Custom Shape tool.

Color Picking and Ruler Tools

The Color Picking and Ruler tools do not actually change the document in any way.
- The Eyedropper tool changes the foreground color to the color that is clicked on.
- The Color Sampler tool is an advanced tool.
- The Ruler tool measures the distance, location, and angle between to points in the document.

Hand Tool

The Hand tool moves an image within its window.
Tip: This is very useful when the image is naturally larger than the window or zoomed in.

Zoom Tool

The Zoom tool magnifi es and reduces the view of an image.
Tip: To zoom out instead of in hold down the option key. When this is done, the + will turn into a -.

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