The foreground color is the uppermost of the two colored squares in the toolbox. It's the color the brush applies. The background color is the lower square. It's the color you see when you erase "paint" from the canvas.
Q2:
What's the purpose of the picture at the top of the toolbar?
A2:
It's the Adobe Photoshop logo. If you have an Internet connection, clicking the logo will take you to Adobe's website, where you can find ideas, tips, late-breaking Photoshop news, and, of course, product info .
Q3:
Why are there trash cans at the bottom of the History and Layers palettes?
A3:
Clicking the trash on the Layers palette deletes a selected layer. Similarly, clicking the trash on the History palette deletes a selected history state. You'll learn more about this when we look at undoing in Hour 2, and layers in Hour 11.
Q4:
How can I draw a box around some words I've put on my picture?
A4:
That's one of the neat things the Shape tools can do for you. You'll learn how to use them in Hour 13. There are even pre-drawn word balloons in the Custom shapes palette.
Quiz
1:
How do you zoom in for a closer look at the page?
Place the Zoom tool on the part of the picture you want to see, and click.
Press Option/Alt and click the Zoom tool.
Press Shift and type zoom .
Press Shift and the plus key.
2:
How do you zoom out to see the whole page?
Press the Shift and minus keys.
Type zoom out .
Press Option/Alt and click the Zoom tool anywhere on the picture.
Quiz Answers
A1:
a. Click again to magnify more.
A2:
c. You'll see the symbol inside the icon change to a minus.
Exercises
Open a new page and try some of these tools. Click the Brush and draw some squiggles and lines. Click an eraser and erase part of them. Try dragging the Smudge tool across one of the lines. Select a piece of line with one of the Selection tools and move it to another part of the page. Explore. You're not going to break anything.
If you have an Internet connection, click the Adobe logo at the top of the toolbar. Visit Adobe's website and see what's there.
