Introduction to Photoshop: Welcome

Welcome!

This guide is designed to get you up and running with Adobe Photoshop! Whether you are new to Photoshop or just brushing up because you haven't used it for awhile, this guide should help.

Most of the material should be relevant regardless of the version of Photoshop you are using. This guide covers core Photoshop techniques in Photoshop CS5, but the user interface is pretty consistent from one version to another. Some features may work slightly differently, but the concepts are the same.

Why Photoshop?

Information includes not only text and numbers, but images as well. The expression "a picture is worth a thousand words" is as true today as ever.

Adobe Photoshop is the industry-standard tool for digital imaging, which makes Photoshop expertise a valuable commodity in the workplace. Learning Photoshop is also a good way to learn imaging concepts. Concepts you learn from working with Photoshop apply to other imaging tools as well (including Photoshop Elements, which has a very similar user interface and features).

How to use this guide

The purpose of this guide is to introduce basic Photoshop features and concepts so that you can use the program effectively. By the time you complete this module, you should be able to use Photoshop to open files and scan images, move around images using navigation tools, understand basic imaging concepts, do basic image editing, and prepare images for print and online presentations.

This guide includes the following sections:

• Getting Started (Photoshop desktop, getting images into Photoshop, moving around an image, tips for using Photoshop)

• Imaging Concepts (color modes, image size, resolution, and print size)

• Acquiring images (opening files and scanning images into Photoshop)

• Editing Images (cropping, removing imperfections, adjusting contrast, correcting colors, and sharpening images

• More Image Editing (selection techniques, layers, adding type, and painting)

• Exporting and printing (Saving for the Web, inserting images into Powerpoint, printing)

Additional Resources

For additional help in learning Photoshop, we encourage you to sign up to request a consultation.

We also recommend the following resources:

• Photoshop on Adobe (excellent, free online tutorial videos): https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/tutorials.html
• Photoshop online help (accessible from the Help menu within Photoshop)
• The National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) at http://www.photoshopuser.com/