Name:

Tovah Lukken

Student Number:

X00015848

Photoshop: Chapter 6: Photoshop Interface

and Textbook Blog

The native file type for Photoshop is PSD, so you may often see the abbreviation PSD to refer to Photoshop.

PART 1: READ Chapter 6 from Photoshop CS 6 Visual QuickStart Guide, then:

1. Answer all questions below, briefly but completely.
2. Change the color of the answer to BLUE.
3. Copy this information and paste in a new post in your DIGITAL GRAPHICS blog.

Tools Panel: Photoshop has so many tools, it collects them under tool buttons on the Tools panel. Look on pages 102-104 for the Tools panel; you will see that the second button down (the selection tool called the RECTANGULAR MARQUEE TOOL) has a little black triangle in the lower-right corner. In Photoshop, if you click on this, you will see the box appear that contains other selection tools. Briefly describe the  purpose of the following Photoshop tools:

1.       Elliptical Marquee Tool (NOTE: Photoshop calls the “marching ants” in a selection a marquee): Creates oval and circular selections.

2.       Magnetic Lasso Tool: Creates freehand selections that snap to high-contrast edges in an image.

3.       Quick Selection Tool: Selects shapes that it detects in the image.

4.       Magic Wand Tool: Selects pixels that are similar in color to the one that’s clicked.

5.       Crop Tool: Crops the image.

6.       Eye Dropper Tool: Samples colors from an image.

7.       Ruler Tool: Measures a distance or angle, or straightens the image.

8.       Healing Brush Tool: Corrects flaws based on a sample area.

9.       Content-Aware Tool: Repositions or extends an area of an image.

10.   Brush Tool: Applies brush strokes.

11.   Mixer Brush Tool: Simulates traditional paint strokes; allows colors to mix and smudge.

12.   History Brush Tool: Restores pixels from a history state or snapshot.

13.   Background Eraser Tool: Erases a sampled color area to transparency.

14.   Gradient Tool: Creates soft blends between two or more colors.

15.   Sharpen Tool: Sharpens edges and details.

16.   Smudge Tool: Smudges colors.

17.   Dodge Tool: Lightens pixels.

18.   Burn Tool: Darkens pixels.

19.   Pen Tool: Draws curved or straight-edged shapes or paths.

20.   Horizontal  Type Tool: Creates horizontally oriented editable type.

21.   Vertical Type Tool: Creates vertically oriented editable type.

22.   Ellipse Tool: Creates oval shape layers or paths.

23.   Hand Tool: Moves a magnified image in the document window.

24.   Zoom Tool: Changes the document zoom level.

25.   Set Foreground Color Tool: Displays and lets you change the current foreground color.

Other Photoshop Panels: Briefly describe the  purpose of the following Photoshop panels:

1.       Actions panel: In this panel you can record, store, edit, play, delete, save and load actions.

2.       Adjustments panel: Use this panel to use and apply flexible color and tonal edits and corrections to an image.

3.       Brush panel: Use to choose brush tips and custom brush settings for tools, also choose special options for a graphics tablet or stylus.

4.       Channels panel: Lists and displays the thumbnails for all the color channels in the current document.

5.       Character panel: Here you can choose attributes for the type tools on the Character panel.

6.       Color panel: Allows you to choose colors with a slider or by number.

7.       Histogram panel: You can view a graph of the distribution of tonal (light/dark) values in the current image.

8.       History panel: Saves changes on your image in a panel.

9.       Info panel: Provides up-to-the-minute data about your document.

10.   Kuler panel: Web-hosted Adobe application that lets users create and upload color groups called color themes.

11.   Layers panel: Adding layer to a document, image, adjustment, fill, smart objects, etc.

12.   Navigator panel: Here you can move a magnified image in the document window, change the document zoom level or target an area for magnification.

13.   Paragraph panel: Use to apply paragraph-level settings, including horizontal alignment, indentation, spacing before/after and automatic hyphenation.

14.   Properties panel: Adjustment layer options. Tonal and color corrections that you apply directly to a layer via the image.

15.   Styles panel: Use to apply a style to a layer, a unique collection of layer settings.

16.   Swatches panel: Stores predefined and user-defined solid color swatches.

17.   Timeline panel: Compose a sequence using audio clips and video files.

                       

PART 2: Photoshop & Illustrator Textbook Blog The Quickstart textbook authors, Elaine Weinman and Peter Lourekas, maintain a Photoshop and Illustrator blog with “tips, tutorials, and design concepts” to supplement the Quickstart Guide books. You will subscribe to this blog and follow it during the class term (you may unsubscribe when the course is over, or you may decide to continue following this blog to learn more about Photoshop and Illustrator after the class is over). 1.       Follow these instructions to find and follow the blog: 2.       Go to: http://elaineandpeter.com 3.       Scroll throughout the page to see the latest postings. 4.       Previous Postings: Notice the previous months listed on the right; click several of them to see other graphics postings. (You can also use the CATEGORY dropdown list or the SEARCH box to find specific topics of interest.) 5.       Subscribe: Scroll down the page and look for the Subscribe via Email to receive new post updates. Enter your gmail email address to subscribe, then click SUBMIT. 6.       WORD PRESS: Scroll to the very bottom of the blog and look on the right; do you see this blog is powered by WORD PRESS? WORD PRESS, like BLOGGER, is a free, popular blogging tool. (If you would like to find more about WORD PRESS, click on the POWERED BY WORD PRESS link. Note: WORD PRESS must be downloaded in order to use it, while BLOGGER is a cloud blog application.)

Textbook Blog Post: SILHOUETTES   From the Quickstart blog, scroll down to find the SEARCH box. Enter the word SILHOUETTES (be careful to spell this correctly! Or just copy and paste from this document.) then click the Search button. Scroll down through the post and click on the CONTINUE READING link. 1.       Explain the technique described in this posting and ways in which you could use it: To select the shape: use the Quick Selection tool, drag it across a shape that has a distinct shape. It will stop at the first color or shade boundary it detects. Silhouette: Cmd-J/Ctrl-J to create a new layer. The area around the copied layer will be transparent. You can use this for de-emphasizing the background and applying a blur filter or add your silhouetted layer to a collage. 2.      Scroll down to find the cup of coffee silhouette pasted on the café tables. Click the image, then save it, and paste it here:

Coffee Cup Image:

Other Photoshop Blogs: From GOOGLE, search for PHOTOSHOP BLOG. Look through some of the results and click on several blogs. Choose one posting that you liked and provide this information: 1.       Blog Address (copy from address bar at the top of your browser window): http://photoshopelementstips.blogspot.com/ 2.       Blog Posting (describe the technique discussed in the blog posting):  I enjoyed reading this blog as the blogger lays out the steps he uses to create, edit. The explains the aspects of Photoshop Elements Organizer 11 which he uses to tag people, places and things.