Photoshop how does it work

To get you started, we've picked 12 of the most useful tools in Photoshop and explained what they do, where to find them, how to use them, and a few tips and tricks for getting the most out of them.

We've also included some great resources in there in case you'd like to learn about a tool in more depth. What It Does: A layer can be used for an image, text, brush strokes, background colors, patterns, and filters. I like to think of layers as sheets of glass stacked on top of one another that you'll use to create a final product. Each sheet can be modified individually without affecting the project as a whole, which can save you tons of time when making edits to individual elements of your graphic.

Image Credit: StackExchange. Layers are by far the most important element of Photoshop -- and, in my opinion, they're one of the reasons many people throw their arms up in frustration. But once you understand how they work, I promise they'll make your life much easier. Where It's Located: It has its own module on the bottom right-hand corner of your Photoshop screen, by default. You can also access it by clicking "Layer" in the top menu bar.

Pro Tip: Always name your layers. Keeping them organized will help keep you sane, especially if you find yourself working on a project with a large number of layers. The selected layer is highlighted in blue. To edit a specific part of your image, you'll need to select that specific layer.

You'll also notice there's an "eye" symbol next to each layer: Click that symbol to turn the eye on and off, thereby toggling the visibility of that layer as you work. First, select a layer or group in the Layers panel. Next, either drag the layer or group to the Create a New Layer button, or right-click the layer to choose "Duplicate Layer" or "Duplicate Group.

Pro Tip: You can do all sorts of cool things with layers -- and believe it or not, making animated GIFs is one of them.

Check out our step-by-step tutorial here. To learn more about adding, deleting, and duplicating layers in Photoshop, check out this video tutorial. What It Does: The Color and Swatches tool lets you use, modify, copy, and save custom colors for your content. While this may seem like a pretty self-explanatory element, it actually has powerful features that will keep your visual content vibrant and unify your color schemes.

Where It's Located: It has its own module on the top right-hand corner of your Photoshop screen, by default. Another place to find the Color tool is at the bottom of the toolbar on the left, indicated by two overlapping boxes:. Open the Color Picker by double-clicking on the top box either in the Color module, or in that menu on the left. From there, you'll see a vertical spectrum of color with a slider on it, which you can adjust to create your own custom color.

Alternatively, if you already have a specific color of which you know the hex value i. What It Does: The Text tool lets you add custom fonts to your database, and it gives you access to advanced font settings that give your text some serious style. Once you click the Text tool icon, all of the settings and font options will pop up at the top of your screen.

These settings let you change the font, font size, and spacing between characters, height, width, color, and style. Be sure to select the layer of your desired text to edit it. Whenever you create a text box, Photoshop will generate a layer for it. You can choose the color, size, stroke, font style, and a variety of other options to switch things up. Pro Tip: While Photoshop offers a wide variety of fonts, you can also install your own fonts. Read this blog post for a list of 35 beautiful fonts you can download for free, and then read this post to learn how to install your new fonts in Photoshop so you can get to using 'em.

To learn more about fonts and the Text tool, check out this video tutorial. What It Does: Just as with fonts, you can add your own, royalty-free, custom brush tips. With the brush settings, you can change the size, shape, and transparency of your brush strokes to achieve a number of different visual effects. Brushes are a great way to add some visual accents to your content.

Photoshop starts you off with a nice selection of brush tips that you can use to clean up your graphics and create some basic visual effects. Once you click the Brush tool icon, all of the settings and brush options will pop up at the top of your screen. These settings let you change the brush size, opacity, flow, and so on.

You'll find a variety of pre-installed brush tips, as well as any custom brush tips you install to Photoshop. You can find royalty-free brushes at www. The brush tool is perfect for adding design accents to your content content.

You can choose colors from your library of swatches, or use a custom color. Changing the brush settings can give your brush a drastically different look and style. What It Is: When used correctly, this tool will let you select individual elements, entire graphics, and determines what is copied, cut, and pasted into your graphics. The Select tool is known as one of the most basic, yet frustrating tools to use in Photoshop.

The first thing you should know is that it'll only work if a layer is highlighted. So, if I want to cut or copy a piece of Layer 4, Layer 4 must be highlighted in my Layer's tool bar. Highlighted areas are indicated by a flashing dotted line. Once you remember to pay attention to which layer you are working with, the Select tool becomes much easier to use. First, highlight your area of choice. Then, simply right-click and decide what you'd like to do from the pull-out menu.

For example, you can cut out objects from a current layer and create a layer of your own. Open the image you'd like to use in Photoshop, and use the Select Tool to determine how much of the image you want to copy.

Next, open the tab for your current project and paste it in as a new layer. Highlight the layer of the object s you'd like to select. You can move multiple objects at once by highlighting multiple layers. A Choosing "Layer via Copy" to copy the object s from this layer and create a layer of its own. Pro Tip: To select your entire graphic and include all layers, highlight all layers and then use the Select tool. B Choosing "Free Transform" to scale, rotate, move, and flip your selections.

Refer to the Move tool in the next section of this post if you need more help on this. Pro Tip: One really nifty trick you can do with "Free Transform" is to overlay screenshots of a PDF to make a 3D-looking image, like the one below for our introductory Pinterest ebook. You can use Photoshop for almost any type of image editing , from touching up photos to creating high-quality graphics. In fact, Photoshop has so many features that it may actually be too powerful for many users.

It's also very expensive , so unless you need to edit photos or graphics professionally it may not be the best option for you. You may want to review our lesson on Photoshop alternatives to learn about other image editing programs you can use. Because Photoshop is primarily designed for professionals, it can be somewhat challenging to use, especially if you're learning it for the first time. This is an amazing value because you get access to everything Adobe has to offer.

From there you can learn and try new programs that Adobe offers to see what your favorite is. Adobe Photoshop is available on both Mac and Windows computers, however not every computer is built the same. It is important to do your research before purchasing a computer to ensure you have the right hardware components for the computer processor and graphics cards. Adobe recommends that your computer processor should have at least 2. The processor is essentially the brain of the computer.

The processor helps the computer complete the intensive tasks that you may run with Photoshop. The faster and more updated the processor, the faster your computer will complete the task. I recommend that you buy the best and fastest processor you can afford at the time of purchasing your computer as it is more difficult to upgrade a processor at a later time.

Nowadays Apple has made it impossible to replace the processor for most of its computers. When it comes to RAM, again, if you are able to buy more than do so. RAM is what allows your computer to handle multiple tasks at once.

When working as a designer or digital artist, using multiple Adobe applications at the same time can become a very normal practice. Adobe applications can be very taxing on any computer and more RAM helps to complete those tasks quickly. Having more RAM connected to your processor will ensure you have a highly optimized powerhouse computer to handle any and all Photoshop tasks.

However, make sure to check this as again, companies like Apple have made it impossible to replace the RAM in their computers. It is always worth double checking! Since Photoshop and the rest of the Adobe suite of applications are used to make graphics and edit images you will need to make sure you have the right graphics card. On the system requirements page that Adobe provides they state you should have a graphics card with a minimum of 2GB of GPU memory.

Again, this is not something I am super familiar with so make sure to do your research before purchasing. One last component that I want to make sure to mention is the hard drive size of your computer. Storage is important when using applications like Photoshop to create graphics as the files you create will ultimately take up space on your computer.

Over time this will slow your computer down. Giving your computer enough storage space will ensure your computer stays snappy as you can continue to create. Most of the base options for computers now come with a minimum of GB of space. This can be fine but I have found that GB of storage space can go pretty quickly and once it is filled up, you will be forced to move files onto a separate hard drive or even begin to delete files.

Again, in the situation of hard drive space, more is better and I recommend GB and up. Yes you can! When you open a PDF in photoshop you will be asked to choose which page you would like to edit if there are multiple pages in your PDF. Another thing to note is that unless the PDF was created to preserve layer functionality, you will not have the capability to edit text or objects within the PDF. You can create GIFs or short animated clips using the timeline panel. When using the timeline, you create and modify each individual frame for your animation or movement.

The level of animation you can achieve in Photoshop is great for short clips and small adjustments. If you would like more robust animation tools, you should check out and learn Adobe After Effects. This means you will not be able to individually alter any of the graphics within that AI file. If you do not have Adobe Illustrator downloaded to your computer then this will be the only way of opening the file in Adobe Photoshop.

If you do have Adobe Illustrator on your computer, a best practice is to copy your design from illustrator and paste it into your Photoshop file as a smart object.