Chapter 2. Photoshop Essentials

Adobe Photoshop, the professional painting and photo-retouching tool, is fast becoming a cultural icon. The product is now a household word and even a verb: "Let me Photoshop it to fix the color" or "Why did you Photoshop Donald Trump's head on Grandma's body?"

The secret to Photoshop's success is simply its ability to manipulate the photographic image: perfecting, enhancing, or reinventing bitmap-based (raster) files for maximum effect. It's by far the industry-standard bitmap image manipulation tool, and a must-know for every graphic designer.

In this chapter, we'll explore the fundamentals of Photoshopconcepts like layers, selections, masks, and using typeto build a foundation in techniques for editing photographic images. At the end of the chapter, you'll tackle a fun and challenging photo compositing project.

COURSE DEVELOPER: DONALD GAMBINO

This chapter is based on a lesson developed by Donald Gambino, an educator and computer artist with 20 years of experience and former chairperson of the computer art department at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Figure 2.1. With Photoshop, you can turn a digital image into a tasty treat.

In this chapter you will:

• Learn about the role of Photoshop in design projects.

• Learn how bitmap images are edited.

• Learn to use layers to manage complex artwork in Photoshop.

• Learn to select areas of an image using basic selection tools.

• Learn to perform basic modifications on selected areas of an image.

• Learn to select complex areas using Quick Mask mode.

• Learn to input and format text using the Type tool, the Character palette, and the Paragraph palette.

• Learn to adjust lighting in a photo using an adjustment layer.

• Create a composite from a variety of images.