Opening, Creating, and Importing Files


You have to start with something, right? With Photoshop, you have various options: You can open existing files, whether Photoshop files, JPEG images, or any other of Photoshop's laundry list of supported file formats; you can create a new file from scratch (basically a blank document); or you can import files from another source, such as a scanner or a digital camera.

The Open Dialog Box

As with just about any computer program, you can open a file by choosing File, Open or by pressing Command+O (Ctrl+O) to bring up the standard system Open dialog box. As you highlight files in the dialog box, you might or might not see a low-resolution preview, depending on the file type and what your operating system supports. When you've located the file you want to open, click on the Open button to open the file. Photoshop also lets you open several files at once by holding the Command (Ctrl) key as you click on the different files.

If you want to choose a file from a Version Cue project, click on the Use Adobe Dialog button in the lower-left corner of the dialog box (see Figure 5.5). We talk more about Version Cue in Chapter 11, "Using Adobe Version Cue 2." You can also open files in Photoshop directly from Adobe Bridge.

Figure 5.5. The Use Adobe Dialog button in the Photoshop CS2 Open dialog box.


By the Way

If you're looking for the Photoshop File Browser, it's no longer a part of Photoshop. All of the functionality from Photoshop's File Browser in previous versions has been rolled into the new Adobe Bridge.


Creating a New File

To start from scratch and create a new file, choose File, New or press Command+N (Ctrl+N) to access the New dialog box (see Figure 5.6). Here you can give your file a name (you can do this later when you actually save the file, too) and choose a size and resolution for your file. Adobe has also included many preset canvas sizes, and you can choose one of those (for example, a 5x7-inch file). Choosing the right resolution is very important when you create a Photoshop file because changing the resolution in the file later could cause degradation or distortion in your file.

Figure 5.6. The New dialog box.


Did you Know?

You can also create your own New document presets by choosing the options you want and then clicking on the Save Preset button.


There's an option to choose what the default background of your file will be (White, Background Color, or Transparent), and you can click on the arrow button to display Advanced options that enable you to choose a color profile or to specify a nonsquare pixel aspect ratio for video content (see Figure 5.7).

Figure 5.7. Choosing a video setting from the Advanced section of the New dialog.


Color Modes

Photoshop lets you create files using any of several color modes, and it's important to know which one to choose. Although you can change color modes later in the process, just about any such change will cause color shifts. Each color mode has a gamut, or range of colors that can be produced. Some gamuts are wider, or can contain more colors, than others. For example, certain colors can be displayed in RGB that simply can't be reproduced in CMYK (for example, bright greens or oranges or pastel colors). So converting an RGB file to CMYK might cause some colors to become dull or to change color altogether because those colors don't exist in CMYK. Let's take a look at each of the supported color models:

  • Bitmap Also called 1-bit, a 1-bit bitmap image can contain only two colors, black and white (like my favorite kind of cookie). It's useful for certain workflows, such as screen printing or specialized newspaper techniques. Some other programs (Illustrator or InDesign, for example) can change the black color of a bitmap to a different color, so scanned logos are also sometimes saved as bitmap images. Some older cellphone displays or PDAs also require bitmap images.

  • Grayscale The Grayscale color model is black and white with a touch of gray256 levels of gray, that is. Mainly used for single-color artwork such as black-and-white photographs, the Grayscale model is also used to create mono tones, duotones, tritones, and quadtonesall of which we cover later in the chapter.

  • RGB Color RGB (Red Green Blue) is a color method used to display color on televisions, computer monitors, and video screens. In RGB, you start with black (when your TV is off, the screen is black), and adding values of red, green, and blue results in white. When you're working on files that will be used in video, for broadcast, on the Web, or for onscreen presentations, RGB is the format you should use.

  • CMYK Color CMYK is a color method used to print color on paper. Unlike RGB, in the CMYK color space, if you mix all the colors together, you get black, but if none of the colors is present, you get white. Anything you see in print uses CMYK (a blank piece of paper is white), so obviously when you're designing content that will be printed in color, CMYK is the color model of choice. CMYK stands for Cyan (a shade of blue), Magenta (a shade of red), Yellow, and Key (Black). Black is referred to as Key because that is traditionally the key color; it reinforces and invigorates the other colors (or so a printer once told me).

    By the Way

    As I mentioned earlier, the CMYK gamut isn't nearly as wide as most designers would like, so designers use spot colors (for example, Pantone colors) that allow designers to pick a specific color ink (including metallic inks, pastels, and the like).


  • Lab Color Almost scientific in nature (as if the other color models weren't), the Lab color model contains a Luminance level called L and two channels of color, called a and b (hence the name Lab). Lab has the widest color gamut of all those listed here, and Photoshop uses this model internally to calculate operations. For example, when you convert an image from RGB to CMYK, Photoshop first internally converts the RGB data to Lab and then converts the Lab data to CMYK. Because very fewif anyapplications can use or understand Lab files, I suggest that you choose this color model only if your image isn't going to be placed into other applications or printed on a press.

Importing Images

Another way to bring images into Photoshop is to import them from another hardware source. Plenty of scanners, traditional cameras with digital film backs, fully digital cameras, video capture devices, and the like can be used to capture images that can be directly imported into Photoshop. Each of these devices usually comes with a plug-in for Photoshop to allow this use. For example, my Epson Expression 1600 FireWire scanner has a plug-in that enables me to access my scanner from the File, Import menu.

Did you Know?

Check with your hardware manufacturer for the latest driver and plug-in updates. You can usually download them free from the Internet.


More popular than almost anything these days are digital cameras. It seems as though just about everyone has one. Some cameras let you import pictures directly into Photoshop as JPEG images; others simply copy the files to your hard drive. Additionally, some cameras support something called camera raw format.

Did you Know?

For organizing and cataloging photos, you can use Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 if you're using a Windows computer. Macintosh users can use iPhoto (part of Apple's iLife '05 software package).


Camera Raw Image Support

Many of the newer digital cameras have the capability to shoot in "raw" format. This means that the camera preserves the image in a native format instead of storing it as a JPEG file (as most cameras do). The benefit, of course, is that the image is unadulterated and contains every aspect of the data that the camera can capture.

Like the Photoshop File Browser, the capability to open and edit camera raw files has been moved into Adobe Bridge. To open a camera raw file in Bridge, highlight the file in the browser and choose File, Open in Camera Raw. Besides the many enhancements that Camera Raw has, including the capability to rotate and crop CRW files and edit multiple files at once, by moving this functionality into Bridge, you can process files in Camera Raw in the background and simultaneously use Photoshop to perform other tasks.



Sams Teach Yourself Adobe Creative Suite 2 All in One
Sams Teach Yourself Creative Suite 2 All in One
ISBN: 067232752X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 225
Authors: Mordy Golding

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