Chapter 3. USING THE PHOTOSHOP TOOLBOX

IN THIS CHAPTER

Using the Options Bar 44

Using the Selection Tools 45

Using the Crop and Slice Tools 46

Using the Retouching Tools 46

Using the Painting Tools 49

Using the Drawing and Type Tools 51

Using the Shape Tools 53

Using the Annotation, Measuring, and Navigation Tools 54

Selecting Foreground and Background Colors 56

Changing View Modes 56

The toolbox has gone through many incarnations since Photoshop was first introduced. More tools have been added and some modified and combined. Photoshop also shares most of the same tools as ImageReady, with a few differences that you'll see later. This chapter is a reference on each of the tools. Skim over it for just the tools you are trying to learn or read it straight through. Many tools have a keyboard shortcut assigned to them to access them immediately without having to locate them on the toolbox. When you hover your mouse over tools in the toolbox, a ToolTip gives you the name of the tool and the keyboard shortcut bound to it (see Figure 3.1). Some tools actually have groups of tools hidden underneath them. You can tell whether there are hidden tools if an arrow is fixed in the lower-right corner of the tool's button.

Figure 3.1. A ToolTip appears when the mouse pointer hovers over a tool in the toolbox.