Photoshop from Scratch: The Beginners Guide to Photoshop 9798553459468

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
Chapter 01 - Introduction to the World of Pixels
Getting Started with Photoshop
Chapter 03 - Tools Part 01
Chapter 04 - Tools Part 02
Chapter 05 - Tools Part 03
Chapter 06 - Some Basic Things
Chapter 07 - Layer Adjustments
Chapter 08 - Some Advanced Things

Citation preview

Photoshop from

scratch

Want to learn Photoshop? Read this book!

D E E P K U M AW AT

ISBN: 9798553459468 Copyright © 2020 Deep Kumawat All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

ii

Dedicated to my father.

iii

Contents How to Download Sample Images and files?������������������������ 16 Introduction ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 16 Conventions used in this book������������������������������������������������� 17

Chapter - 01��������������������������������������������������1 What an image actually is?����������������������������������������������������������3 RGB vs CMYK���������������������������������������������������������������������������������4 Bit Depth?����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������6 Colour Spaces?������������������������������������������������������������������������������8 Different Formats of an Image������������������������������������������������� 17 Why Does Photoshop Exists?��������������������������������������������������� 18

Chapter - 02����������������������������������������������� 21 The Home screen������������������������������������������������������������������������ 23 Creating a new Document��������������������������������������������������������� 24 Layers ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 26 Place Any Image in��������������������������������������������������������������������� 29 Photoshop������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 29 Smart Objects������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 34 Selections ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 37

Chapter - 03�����������������������������������������������39 What are Tools?��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 41 iv

Move Tool ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 43 Brush Tool������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 45 Mask ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 51 Marquee Tool ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 54 Lasso Tool������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 58 Magnetic Lasso Tool������������������������������������������������������������������ 59 Polygonal Lasso Tool������������������������������������������������������������������ 60 Object Selection Tool������������������������������������������������������������������ 60 Quick Selection Tool ������������������������������������������������������������������ 65 Magic Wand Tool������������������������������������������������������������������������ 69 Select Subject������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 72 Select and Mask ������������������������������������������������������������������������� 74 Remove Background������������������������������������������������������������������ 85 Crop Tool��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 86 Frame Tool������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 91 Eye Dropper Tool ������������������������������������������������������������������������ 94 Spot Healing Brush Tool������������������������������������������������������������ 96 Healing Brush Tool ������������������������������������������������������������������� 100 Patch Tool���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 102 Content Aware Move Tool������������������������������������������������������� 114

Chapter - 04��������������������������������������������� 128 Color Replacement Tool���������������������������������������������������������� 130 Pencil Tool���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 130 Mixer Brush Tool����������������������������������������������������������������������� 134

v

Clone Stamp Tool�������������������������������������������������������������������� 139 Pattern Stamp Tool����������������������������������������������������������������� 145 History Brush Tool������������������������������������������������������������������ 147 Art History Brush Tool ����������������������������������������������������������� 150 Eraser Tool�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 154 Background Eraser Tool �������������������������������������������������������� 156 Magic Eraser Tool�������������������������������������������������������������������� 160 Gradient Tool��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 162 Paint Bucket Tool�������������������������������������������������������������������� 170 3D Material Drop Tool������������������������������������������������������������ 174 Blur Tool ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 174 Sharpen Tool ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 177 Smudge Tool ��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 179

Chapter - 05��������������������������������������������184 Dodge Tool������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 186 Burn Tool����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 188 Difference between ��������������������������������������������������������������� 193 Saturation and Vibrance�������������������������������������������������������� 193 Sponge Tool����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 193 Pen Tool ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 198 Delete Anchor Point Tool�������������������������������������������������������� 210 Add Anchor Point Tool����������������������������������������������������������� 210 Freeform Pen Tool������������������������������������������������������������������ 210 Curvature Pen Tool����������������������������������������������������������������� 210

vi

How to Save a Path����������������������������������������������������������������� 211 What I Recommend?�������������������������������������������������������������� 211 Convert Point Tool������������������������������������������������������������������ 211 Horizontal Type Tool �������������������������������������������������������������� 212 Vertical Type Tool�������������������������������������������������������������������� 218 Horizontal Type Mask Tool ��������������������������������������������������� 219 Vertical Type Mask Tool �������������������������������������������������������� 219 Path Selection Tool����������������������������������������������������������������� 219 Direct Selection Tool �������������������������������������������������������������� 220 Rectangle Tool ������������������������������������������������������������������������ 220 Hand Tool��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 221 Rotate View Tool��������������������������������������������������������������������� 222 Zoom Tool�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 222

Chapter - 06������������������������������������������� 225 Difference Between Fill����������������������������������������������������������� 227 and Opacity������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 227 Opacity�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 227 Fill����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 227 How to Separate Subject from The Background �������������� 230 Clipping Mask�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 231 Modify Selection��������������������������������������������������������������������� 235 How to Create Custom Shapes ������������������������������������������ 241

Chapter - 07������������������������������������������� 245 vii

Layer Adjustments ������������������������������������������������������������������� 247 Brightness/Contrast ���������������������������������������������������������������� 247 Levels������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 248 Curves ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 252 Exposure������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 266 Vibrance ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 266 Hue/Saturation ������������������������������������������������������������������������� 267 Color Balance���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 283 Black & White ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 289 Photo Filter �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 293 Channel Mixer���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 295 Color Lookup ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 302 Invert������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 303 Posterize������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 304 Threshold����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 306 Gradient Map����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 307 Selective Color �������������������������������������������������������������������������� 311

Chapter - 08��������������������������������������������� 317 Adjustment Layers ������������������������������������������������������������������� 319 Custom Keyboard Shortcuts�������������������������������������������������� 321 How to Apply Blur �������������������������������������������������������������������� 322 Non-Destructively���������������������������������������������������������������������� 322 How to Apply Sharpening ������������������������������������������������������� 323 Non-Destructively���������������������������������������������������������������������� 323

viii

Quick Mask�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 325 Color Range������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 326 Layer Styles ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 328 Properties Tab���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 340 Note from me for you! ������������������������������������������������������������� 344

Introduction Photoshop is an industry-standard software for editing photos. After using Photoshop for five years, I realized that there is nothing that can’t be edit in an image with photoshop! In the twenty-first century, every company, start-up, or any business is moving towards digital marketing. This is because now everyone uses their social media applications for communicating to one another. Therefore this is the best time to become a graphic designer. In my opinion, the best software to start with graphic designing in photoshop. Although Photoshop is the software to choose for graphic designing, it can get complex at times. So, this book guides you through photoshop and helps you to master it at a beginner level!

How to Download Sample Images and files? You can download the sample images and photoshop documents by going to www.deepkumawat.com, scrolling down, you would see a button that says, “DOWNLOAD SAMPLE IMAGES”, click it to download. ix

Conventions used in this book In this book you will find some helpful convention pictures which would give you tips, cautions, shortcuts etc. And they are as follows:





An easier and better way to the same thing

Caution:- Do not do this!

Notes from me.

x

1

Chapter - 01 Introduction to the World of Pixels

• • • • • •

What an image actually is? RGB vs CMYK What is Bit Depth? What are colour spaces? Different formats of an image Why photoshop exists?

Chapter 01 - Introduction to the world of pixels!

Chapter 01

3

The World of Pixels

What an image actually is? The images that you are observing up till now is not actually what you see! In-fact all the images that you are capture with a phone in your pocket, consist of millions of pixels, and together they make an image that pleases our eyes. An image is made up of very tiny squares. These squares are called pixels. Each pixel shows a specific color, and all these pixels join and make up an image. If you would zoom into an image you would be able to see them! The following pictures will make you clear about what I am trying to explain:

Zoomed out version

Zoomed in version

The reason why I have dedicated a whole section to pixels is that they are the basic unit of every image viewed on a screen. So, if you want to edit an image, you need to know what it is actually made of.

Photoshop Scratch



4

RGB vs CMYK Now you know what pixels are, but you really need to know what are color modes in which these pixels reside.

Well there are two types of colour modes:1. RGB 2. CMYK

RGB (Red Green Blue) - Each and every digital image that you see on your computer are examples of RGB color mode.

pixels, and each pixel shows a shade of Red, Green, and Blue(RGB). All these millions of pixels combine and create a beautiful image. In fact, when you see white on your screen, what actually happening is that pixels are emitting colors all at value, 255. And when your display shows black, the pixels are not emitting color at all.

Chapter 01 - Introduction to the world of pixels!

5

CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow Black) - This color mode is used when the document is needed to be printed. This color mode is used in printing because the printer uses this. Unlike in the RGB color mode, in this color mode, white is shown by not printing any color. Whereas every other color is the combination of cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

Photoshop Scratch



6

You should always work on the CMYK color mode when you know you need to print or vice versa. Do not change it later after you have edited the image.

Bit Depth? In simple words, the more the bit depth, the more the colors you could use. And the more the colors you can use, the further you can push an image in post-processing. But if you want to hop into the technical things, then your welcome! Basically, bit depth determines how much color information would one dot/pixel would show. bit.

1 bit = black and white 2bit = shades of grey 8bit = 256 colour pallet 16bit = 65,536 Photoshop allows you to edit an image in 8 bit, 16 bit, and 32

I recommend using the bit depth at which you have the picture or higher. This will enable you to use the extra information that a higher bit-depth image has. By using higher bit-depth images, you can work with colors better as compared to lower bit-depth images. One benefit that would be the most prudent would be the reduction of banding.

Chapter 01 - Introduction to the world of pixels!

7

This is called “Banding”. This happened when I tried to edit this image in an 8bit workspace.

Photoshop Scratch



8

This is what I got when I edited it with a 16bit workspace. Keep in mind that if you are going to upload the image to the web, then it would be compressed to 8 bit automatically. But, your image would still look mostly the same compared to when you exported it from photoshop. Because high bit depth doesn’t make your image look good! It just gives you mode information to work with so that you can come up with better quality edits.

Colour Spaces? I personally recommend working with higher bit depths such as 16 bit, as it would allow you to push your edits further. (i.e., if

Chapter 01 - Introduction to the world of pixels!

9

you are editing an image which shot in higher bit depth than 8 bit in the first place)But one thing to keep in mind is that the file sizes are huge. Colour space is a very essential concept for learning photo editing.Basically, a color space is spce for colors! Yeah, thank you, thank you. I know I am good at explaining. But with all seriousness, that is it. Color spaces are hypothetical spaces where colors reside. Color spaces can be small, large humungous... anything that space can be. As you can guess, bigger color space has more colors than a smaller color space. Well, there are mainly three color spaces:-

Photoshop Scratch



10

• sRGB:- sRGB stands for standard RGB. This color space was created by HP and Microsoft in 1996. sRGB is a relatively small color space, and it is used for the web. Whenever you would upload an image on the web, you would notice that your image is converted to sRGB(if it’s not already sRGB). This is because everyone uses different devices to browse the web. And they all display different amounts of colors because of this, we need a small color space that can be seen worldwide on billions of devices. That is the reason why whenever you would try to upload an image to the web, it would get converted into sRGB. • Adobe RGB:- This color space was created by Adobe in 1998. This color space is used in printers. So, if you want to print the photo, then you need to click that photo in adobe RGB and edit it in Adobe RGB. You should not upload the image to the web because the web would convert your image into sRGB, which would make your image look dull. Or else, the better way to use Adobe RGB would be to edit in an adobe RGB workspace and then convert the image while exporting to sRGB. Don’t worry, photoshop would do a great job at converting. So, the image would look indistinguishably close to the edited Adobe RGB one. • ProPhoto RGB:- This is the biggest color space of all. But, there is no such monitor that can display true ProPhoto RGB color space. If you want the freedom of playing with colors even more, then you should use ProPhoto RGB. This is because you need a bigger color space to edit, as editing is kind of compressing the image. So, you want the most amount of information possible before starting. Because if you use an image captured in a small color space like sRGB for example, then it would appear dull(espacially in saturated areas) while editing colors. Therefore, I would always recommend editing in ProPhoto RGB if possible. Have look at these images for example.

Chapter 01 - Introduction to the world of pixels!

11

Photoshop Scratch



This image is of sRGB color space

12

Chapter 01 - Introduction to the world of pixels!

This image is of Prpphoto RGB color space

13

Photoshop Scratch



14

Can you spot any difference? Well, I cannot. But the real difference would be visible when color grading. Have a look at these images.

This is the sRGB image

Chapter 01 - Introduction to the world of pixels!

This is the Prophoto RGB image

15

Photoshop Scratch



16

I color graded the ProPhoto RGB image in photoshop and then just copied the color grade to paste it on the sRGB one. Therefore, both the images are color graded the same. Even then, you can see that they look completely different. The sRGB one looks duller than the ProPhoto RGB one. This is happening because ProPhoto RGB has more colors in the saturated areas than sRGB(you can even study that in the color space diagram). I guess now you might have understood what a massive difference can just a simple thing like color spaces make. It’s a real pity that many designers overlook this topic. But on a positive note, you know this stuff now. So, you are in this regard, automatically ahead of the competition. Congratulations! You can change your color spaces in Edit > color settings, or you can press the shortcut shift + ctrl + K on windows and shift + command + K on mac in photoshop.

If yours looks like me, then you don’t need to worry

Chapter 01 - Introduction to the world of pixels!

17

I suggest keeping the color space sRGB by default. In color management policies, I recommend keeping it at “preserve embedded profiles’. Tick all the ‘ask when opening’ boxes. Keep the engine at adobe ACE, keep intent to ‘relative colorimetric and keep every other thing default. This diagram shows all three most common color spaces. The horseshoe-shaped color palette is the color that is visible to a human eye. I know it could be confusing so in simple words if want to upload something to web you should use sRGB, if you want to print the photo you should use adobe RGB and if you want to edit an image that would stay on your computer you should us e ProPhoto RGB.

Different Formats of an Image As an editor you should always have a throe knowledge of every major file formats. So let’s start! • JPEG:- It is the most common image format. It stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. It compresses images very much resulting in a very low file size. But it falls behind when you want sharp corners. And another drawback of this format is that it can not be edited to its fullest because during compression it deletes some information to reduce file size. • GIF:- GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. It is great for sharp corners and curves. It can also be used to create a short video with collection of multiple images. It compresses the images even more than a JPEG image. This is why you should never ever use it for complex images. It would make the complex images look grainy and would also make artefacts. • PNG:- PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics. It is used intensively lately. It also supports transparency. That means that

Photoshop Scratch



18

you can use image that do not have background. JPEG give a white background to all the images. • PSD:- PSD stands for Photoshop Document. Whenever you will save an image in photoshop PSD would be selected as default file format. Basically PSDs has only one advantage and that is that they can be edited afterwards with each and every change intact, but you can not use it outside of adobe suit. • TIFF:- TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format. TIFF supports both compressed and uncompressed image formats. It also supports different colour spaces and layers. • SVG:- SVG supports vector graphics. Basically a vector graphic is such a graphic which can be scaled infinity without any lose of quality because it uses mathematical formulas instead of pixels. This format has a very small file size. Wait! you cannot use this formate for complex images. It only work for graphics. • RAW Files:- RAW is not a file format but many companies has there own type of RAW files. For example Adobe has DNG format for RAW. RAW images do not compress the images and has a lot of information. I highly recommend that you should edit in RAW. You can edit a lot on that. The only drawback on this file format is, it has a huge file size.

Why Does Photoshop Exists? Photoshop is an industry standard photo editing software. Its THE software to learn to anything in the world of pixels. I take photoshop as a Tool of a blacksmith. In which we are the blacksmiths and photos are iron. With this Tool you can turn the image into your imagination! There is nothing that you cannot do to an image in photoshop! So, let’s begin with it finally!

Chapter 01 - Introduction to the world of pixels!

19

21

Chapter - 02 Getting Started with Photoshop

• The Home screen • Creating a new document • Layers • Raster Layers • Smart objects • Selections • Place any Image in Photoshop

Chapter - 02 Getting started with Photoshop

Chapter 02

23

Getting Started with Photoshop

The Home screen Search Recent Projects

Create New Document

Open Existing Document

Filter

Change View

Photoshop Home Screen

In the above figure, you can see icons of the home screen in photoshop. You can see all your recent projects in the recent folder, and also you can search for any recent document in the search bar. You can create a new document from the, “Create New” button, and if you want to open an existing document, you can do so by clicking the “Open” button.

If you want you can also drag and drop any image or PSD in photoshop’s home screen to open it.

Photoshop Scratch



24

Creating a new Document categories for templates

Templates

Settings for your documents

You can create a new document by clicking the ‘Create new’ button. After you click that button, you would be greeted with the window shown above. Here you can choose any template if you want, or else you can set up your canvas from scratch by messing with the options thrown at you in the right-hand side of the window. Here you can name your project, and I highly recommend you do so now because whenever you would save this document, this name would be your project’s default name. Just name it and then save the project by ctrl or command + S. You would see that the name you gave him in the first place would be in the “file name” field. Here you can change settings like width, height, orientation, resolution, color mode, background contents(Background color or transparent), color profile, and aspect ratio. An interesting option to look at is the artboard. Artboards allow you to work with different images separately at the same time. For example you can open 10 images in a single document and edit them individually.

Chapter - 02 Getting started with Photoshop

25

Different images edited in the same project using artboards. Each image is a different artboard.

Options Bar

This is the photoshop workspace

Let’s be honest here, the workspace is a bit intimidating. But the best part is that you can customize it easily. By clicking the “three-line icon” in the top right side corner of every window, you can close it. And don’t worry, if you accidentally closed one, you can easily get it back by going to the “Window tab”.

Photoshop Scratch



26

Layers Layers are the most important part of photoshop and also the easiest to learn. So, let’s master it. Imagine you have a table and now you place some sheets of paper on top of it. Here the table is photoshop, and the sheets are layers. Its simple, the layer above any layer is just like a sheet above a sheet. The sheet at the top is only visible, and every other sheet gets hidden behind the sheet on the top.

The above image is a screenshot of my layers panel. You can see that I have a background layer(which comes by default when you create a new document) and above it is a rectangle layer.

This is how my workspace looks like with these two layers

Chapter - 02 Getting started with Photoshop

27

This is how the layer panel look like after I added an ellipse

This is the new circle I created

Now notice that at first, I had a background layer(which is the white rectangle), and then I created a black rectangle, and after that, I created a white circle. Here you can see that the black rectangle layer is on top of the background layer, and because of that, we cannot see the part of the background layer which is covered underneath the rectangle. So, I want you to try it yourself.

Photoshop Scratch



28

Well, you might think that why do we need layers? Well in the very early versions of photoshop, there were no layers! Layers are incredibly helpful for non-destructive editing. So now you might be wondering, what is non-destructive editing? Let’s take an example, you edited an image of a dog and a horse. After editing it and saving it, you come the next day and want to change some values of the dog specifically but, you cannot do that because you did everything in the same layer, the values that you will change for the dog will also affect the horse! So, what’s the solution? This is where layers come in. What you should have done is keep the edits of dog and horse in separate layers, so that you could change any individual value of either dog or the horse. You can create a new layer by clicking the new layer icon or pressing the shortcut ctrl + alt + shift + N, and for mac, command + option + shift +N for a new layer without dialogue box and ctrl + shift + N for a new layer with a dialogue box. Try it. Is it just me or you too feel like a boss when using keyboard shortcuts. New Layer Icon

New Layer Icon

The next two topics are raster layers and smart objects. If you are new at photoshop, then you might not understand what they are just by reading them in this book. The first time I tried to understand them, I didn’t understand them either! So, I recommend reading them with a light mind, and later in this book, I would give some examples that would make it clear for you.

Chapter - 02 Getting started with Photoshop

29

Place Any Image in Photoshop You can place any image in a photoshop document by going to File > Place Embedded. Now, you would see an explorer or finder win-

Photoshop Scratch



30

dow opened. It will place the image as a smart object by default. You

Checkmark

After selecting the image to place from the finder or explorer, you should see something like this

would see transformation handles(the 8 square boxes on the edges and corners of your image) while placing. Using these, you can change the size and also rotate the image. There are some cool things you can do with keyboard shortcuts. Such as: 1) Alt or Option: Press and hold alt or option to scale from the centre. Try it. 2) Shift: Press and hold shift to scale without maintaining proportions. (if you’re use a version older than CC 2019, then it would be inverse.

Chapter - 02 Getting started with Photoshop

31

You would need to hold shift to maintain proportions, and let go of shift to NOT maintain proportions. 3)Control or Command: Pressing and holding ctrl or command will allow you to distort images by moving the handle from a square in the corner.

4) Control or Command + Shift: This is similaar to distorting but this time, by pressing and holding this key combination, you can change the prespective of the image. Like this.

Photoshop Scratch



32

To accept the changes, just click on the checkmark.



Congratulations on placing your first image!

Raster Layers Well, mainly you are going to deal with raster layers and smart objects in photoshop. So, let’s talk about raster layers first. Raster layers are layers made with pixels. If you want to use any Tool which changes the pixels such as brush Tool, spot healing brush Tool, patch Tool, clone Tool, etc(we would talk about tools later in this book by the way). You would need to use raster layers. You cannot use smart objects for that purpose. If you try doing so, you would get an error that asks you to rasterize your layer. The main drawback of a raster layer is that it does not retain the pixel information of its original size. Let’s look at the following example to get this better. But first let’s make sure that we are working with rasterized layers. For that just right click on you layer, and then

Chapter - 02 Getting started with Photoshop

33

click on “Rasterize Layer”. Now, example. EXAMPLE: Place an image in a photoshop document or else just open an image itself in a document. So, after placing or opening an image, make it smaller, and accept the changes. If you cannot see transformation handles then just use a simple shortcut, that is ctrl or command + T.

Making the image small

Click on the checkmark to accept changes

Photoshop Scratch



34

Press ctrl or command T for transformation handles. Now bring it back to its original size.

I’m not sure if you can see the difference in this print, but you can definatly see it if you are following me on your side. The point I’m trying to make here is that if you are scaling your image, then raster layers are not the best. Smart objects are the way to go if you know you are going to scale it. Now you might be thinking that why to use the raster layer at all? The answer is that some tools and thousands of different stuff, need raster layers to work. But there are a few more advantages to smart objects too, which we would look at shortly.

Smart Objects Smart objects cannot be edited directly. As I mentioned, you would get an error. So, you need to turn the layer into a raster layer. So, now you might be thinking, if I have to turn the smart objects into raster layers for directly editing them with tools and other stuff, why should I use them in the first place? Let me tell you, smart

Chapter - 02 Getting started with Photoshop

35

objects are very important and useful! The advantage of a smart object is its non-destructiveness. If you make an image a smart object then if you scale it down, you would not lose any data. This means that after scaling it down when you will scale it up again up-to its original size, you would not lose any quality. But if you do the same, with rasterized layers, they would indeed lose quality. Another great quality of a smart object is, that if you apply any filter, layer style, layer adjustment, etc(we would talk about all of this later in this book), you would be able to edit that later. You might not get this completely right now, but I’m sure you will when you learn about the aforementioned topics. EXAMPLE: Do the same as you did with the previous example. Place or open an image in photoshop, and make sure that it is a smart object.

if you can see this icon on a layer, then that layer is a smart object

If your layer is not a smart object, then just right-click and select, “Convert to Smart Object”. Now you just need to repeat the steps you did in the previous example. Make the image very small in size, and accept the changes. Now just scale it back to its original size. You would notice that the image has not been pixelated. So, for scaling smart objects are great! Now, I want you to try using the brush tool with a smart object. I understand you don’t know how to use the brush tool yet, but I want you to try it after learning about it in this book. For now, don’t worry about it. Well, spoiler alert, it would not work, you would need to rasterize the layer. I didn’t wanted to spoil anything, but this was kinda important. The whole point is, smart objects are great for scaling and retaining information(editability) but cannot be used for tools like the brush tool and many more(you would come to know about those later in this book). For that, you would need to use a raster layer. But, what if I tell you that there is a fix to this issue. Meaning you can use tools like the brush tool(and many more) and still have the ability of no pixelation re-scal-

Photoshop Scratch



36

ing, retaining information of effects like layer styles, layer adjustments, etc(we would talk about all of these later in this book BTW). The Solution is(drumroll please...) turing a layer into a smart object, and then double-clicking on its thumbnail. You would now see that a new document has opened up and there is just the same layer but rasterized. Here you can use anything like, for example, the brush tool on this layer and then just save it(use ctrl or command + S to save). Go back to your original document, and you would see the changes that you made on the new document with the rasterized layer have been updated to the original smart object layer. So, in this way you can have the best of both worlds.

Double click this thumbnail

New document created by double clicking Rasterized Layer created

Always when you are transforming(resizing) an image convert it into a smart object. So, whenever you want, you can change the size without any reduction in quality.

Selections If you would select a part of an image, any action that you would take would be implemented to only the area which is selected. If you have not made any selection, an action that you would take would affect the whole document. Another application of selections is that it allows you to isolate the selected part from the image i.e. usally referred to as removing the background. For example, you might want to remove the subject from the background and pasting it on another background(YouTube thumbnails are a great example of this). We would learn how to create selections later in this book in chapter 3. EXAMPLE:

Original Image

After removing the background by making a selection of the subject



All this is fun, but you would have to wait a bit:)

39

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

What are Tools? Move Tool Brush Tool Masks Marquee Tool Lasso Tool Magnetic Lasso Tool Polygonal Lasso Tool Object Selection Tool Quick Selection Tool Magic Wand Tool Select Subject Select and Mask Crop Tool Frame Tool Eyedropper Tool Spot Healing Brush Tool Healing Brush Tool Patch Tool Content Aware Move Tool Red Eye Tool

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

Chapter 03

41

Tools Part - 01

What are Tools? Think of photoshop as a garage, where cars(images) come to get repaired. So in a garage(photoshop), the mechanic(you) repair the car(image) with Tools! Summary id, you would have to learn about tools to edit in photoshop. I hope that from the above example, you came to know that how important are Tools in photoshop. There is a total of 70 Tools! So, now you know how important tools are in photoshop. Let’s start learning them one by one. Now the question is where are these tool? The answer is, on your left. You can see the image of them on the next page. If you can not see them, go to window > Tools. You can select any tool from the toolbar just by clicking its icon. We would cover all 70 tools in this book.

Before writing this book even I didn’t knew there were 69 tools in photoshop! Although I like the number ;)

Photoshop from Scratch



42

You might have question by now, “ Deep said there are 70 tools but I can see only 21 on the tool bar “. The answer is that they are arranged into groups. Can you see the small triangles on the bottom right corner of each tool icon?(Except the last one). When you would right click or hold your click on any tool icon, you would see a drop down menu showing you more tools. You can hover you mouse cursor to any icon to know which tool it is and also a brief explaination about it.

I right clicked the icon of the first tool and as you can see that now I can see more tools

This is the Tool Bar

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

43

Move Tool Move Tool:- Before we start, I want you to open the photoshop document named “Move Tool” in the folder, “Chapter 3 Tools Part 1” from the sample images file. This tool is used to move things around in photoshop. The shortcut for this Tool is the “V” key. Whenever you would click on a Tool, you would get some options related to it in the options bar. We would come to Move Tool’s options later. Now, I want you to practice along.

Move Tool icon

Photoshop from Scratch



44

This is how the document would look like

Opening the document, you would see that there are four layers. The bottom-most layer is the Background layer(which comes as default when you create a new document). We don’t need to talk about that. The third layer from the top is named “Purple Rectangle”. The second layer from the top is named “Red Ellipse” and lastly, the topmost layer is named, “Blue Polygon”. Now I want you to move the rectangle to the upper left corner. First, try it on your own and then read the solution. Don’t worry, if you make a mess, just undo it by ctrl + z(for windows) or command + z(for Mac). Solution: Select the layer named “Purple Rectangle” by simply clicking on it. Now that the layer is selected, you need to select the move tool by clicking on its icon or pressing the “v” key on your keyboard. Now finally, you can move the rectangle as you want by dragging it anywhere. Auto Select: In the previous example, we needed to select the layer which we wanted to move. Now, suppose that you don’t want to select, the layer again and again, which you wished to move. That’s where Auto Select comes into play. It might not make sense to you now, but it would after you read and perform the next example.

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

45

Open the previous document again. Check the autoselect box. Now, select the “Purple Rectangle” layer and try moving the ellipse. You would see that it works! So all in all, what auto select does? It just allows you to move any layer irrespective of which layer is selected. You need to know that auto select is not always the way to go. There would be times when you would need to just mess with a single layer mostly, and you don’t want the other layer to get affected. So, there is something you can do. You can uncheck auto select, and whenever you need it, you can just press and hold the ctrl or command key, and it would automatically check on the autoselect box until you let go of the ctrl or command key. (I personally use this shortcut all the time) The other two controls are for if you want to move an individual layer or the whole group, and if you want the transformation handles to be visible.

Brush Tool This is a very basic Tool in photoshop. As the name suggests it is a brush with which you can paint. The shortcut key for this Tool is ‘B’

Brush Settings Brush Preset options

Pressure Sensitivity for size of the brush

Symmetry

Photoshop from Scratch



46

• Brush Preset Options:- Here you can choose any preset of brush. • Brush Setting:- here you can mess with many options related to brush. • Mode:- You can choose any blending mode for your brush. • Opacity:- It sets the opacity of your brush. In simpler words, it sets your brush’s transparency. If you have a pressure-sensitive tablet then you can click on the icon just on the right of it, by clicking that icon your brush opacity would be controlled by the pressure. • Brush Preset Options:- Here you can choose any preset of brush. • Brush Setting:- here you can mess with many options related to brush. • Mode:- You can choose any blending mode for your brush. • Opacity:- It sets the opacity of your brush. In simpler words it sets your brush’s transparency. If you have a pressure sensitive tablet

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

This is the Brush Tool

You can change the color of the brush by clicking here

47

Photoshop from Scratch



48

then you can click on the icon just on the right of it, by clicking the icon your opacity would be controlled by the pressure. • Flow:- You can think of it as strength of the brush. • Smoothing:- This smooths the brush strokes. • Symmetry button:- If you will check this box your strokes would be having a symmetry. Let’s take an example. Open a new photoshop document. I want you to do the below things: • Select the soft round brush from brush presets • Set the size of your brush to 100 px • And draw a square

Try it by yourself first and then read the solutions.

Solution: Click on the brush preset icon(shown in the previous figure), and then you would see a folder named “General Brushes”. Expand that, and the first preset is of the soft round brush. Click on it and you are done. To change the size you need to again go to that same icon, and after clicking it, you would see a slider for brush size. Put the size value 100 px, and you are done(See the image on the next page). Now, to make a square, just simply draw a square in your document!

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

This is my square(Don’t judge my drawing skills XD)

49

Photoshop from Scratch



50

Example 2: Open a new photoshop document. Select the brush tool. Select a hard round brush from the brush presets. • Paint a line with opacity of the brush at 100% and flow also at 100% • Paint another line below the previous one and this time with opacity 50% and flow 100% • Paint another line below the previous one with opacity 100% and flow 50%

Result

The above exercise was important for understanding the difference between flow and opacity. You can clearly observe in the above image that when we kept the opacity at 50%, all it did was just, making it less visible(kinda transparent). So, we can conclude that reducing the opacity of a brush makes its strokes transparent(if you want, you can try this on any image. You would observe that you can see through the stroke). Now let’s talk about the last stroke. For the last stroke, we kept the opacity at 100% and flow at 50%. No think of it as a makeup brush. You might have seen that whenever anyone applies blush on their faces, they do so in a repeated manner. They apply a small amount, and

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

51

then gradually as they like, they apply it again and again until they are satisfied. So, what I am trying to say is that if you would decrease the flow you would need to stroke, again and again, to get the result that a 100% flow brush would get you in just one stroke. You would want to reduce it if you want to have more control over your paint. This would prove itself very useful when you would learn about retouching.

Mask Have you ever wore a mask? When you see anybody in a mask, you would notice that a mask conceals a part of their face, and the rest of the part is visible. Similarly, in photoshop we use masks on layers to conceal or show selective parts of an image. Now you know what are masks but you still might be thinking to yourself that how can I use them? The answer is very simple! You just need to select the layer on which you want your mask and then click the mask button near the new layer button.

Mask

Now, you might be wondering how you can use masks. Well, it is easy. Just create a mask, and then paint black or white on it. You might be thinking, what!? Yes, masks works on colors! So, let me explain. If you click on the mask button you would get a rectangle beside you layer thumbnail. That rectangle would be white. The

Photoshop from Scratch



52

reason why your layer is not hidden by the mask is that white areas in the mask show up, and the areas which are painted black in the mask don’t. This means, if you would create a mask and paint a particular area to black, that area would go invisible. By the way, in photoshop cc 2020, a feature was introduced, which allowed us to us the “~” key as mask revealer or concealer. Let me explain. If you would hold the “~” key and your background color is, white then your brush would reveal the mask, and if it is black, it would conceal the mask. Basically, it just does the opposite. This feature is helpful when you don’t want to change your foreground colors to black or white. Only the background color needs to change. So, suppose you were using the brush tool with a color let’s say, Ferrari red. Now, you might not want to change it to black or white. So, with this feature, you can easily hide or reveal according to your background. Personally, I never use this feature, but I know this can prove itself very helpful.

Mask Thumbnail

This is how the layers look for the image below in photoshop

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

53

As you can see in the example given above, the area which is painted white in the mask is visible. Whereas the area which is painted with black is invisible. That is all that a mask does! You might be wondering how I made perfect rectangular whites and blacks? So, the answer is with the marquee tool. I selected the part of the image that I want in a particular color and then painted. Try masking yourself on different images, and you would get the hang of it.

You can fill you foreground color directly to you selection by using the shortcut alt + backspace on windows and option + delete on mac.

Photoshop from Scratch



54

Marquee Tool Marquee Tool:- You can make some really cool selections with it. The shortcut key for it is the “M” key. If you would long-press or right-click on it’s icon on the toolbar, you can also use the elliptical marquee Tool, single row marquee Tool, and single column marquee tool. All these tools do the same thing, just the shape is changed.

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

55

Add selection Subtract selection Intersect with selection. • With add selection you can add any part to an existing selection. • With subtract selection you can subtract any part of any selection. • With intersect with selection option, intersecting areas of two selections would be selected.

1.Choosing “New Selection” option to create a new selection

2.Making a new selection.

Photoshop from Scratch



56

3. Choosing “Intersect Selection”

4.Making a selection on existing selection

5. Resultant selection would be the intersection of the previous two seelctions.

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

57

• Feather means the transition between the area which is selected and the area which is not selected. Let’s master it by an example. Open a new photoshop document and select the marquee tool. • • • •

Make rectangular selection Select the brush tool Fill the rectangle with any color Now with the selection active, try painting outside the rectangle.

Solution: You would observe that with the selection active you would not be able to paint outside the selection. This was just to let you know that why are selections used. They are used to do something in just a limited area of the image and by not affecting the rest of the image at all. I want you to try making selections in a blank document and testing the add, subtract and intersect selection options. That is exactly how I learned them and I want you to do the same.

Photoshop from Scratch



58

Lasso Tool

Lasso Tool:- Lasso Tool allows making freehanded selections. Its the easiest, and you should try making random selections in a new document. It has an option called Anti-alias, what it does is that whenever you would make a selection, it would automatically blend in the pixels resulting in a great and smooth selection. The rest of the options for the lasso Tool are similar to the marquee Tool. The shortcut key for the lasso Tool is ‘L’. It has two more Tools in its group.

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

59

Magnetic Lasso Tool Magnetic Lasso Tool:- This Tool uses the contrast between edges, and whenever you would hover over any part of the image, it will try to automatically stick to the edges of it. Example: Open the Photoshop document in the magnetic lasso tools folder of the downloadable sample images file. You would see an image of a car in it. What you need to do is select with the help of the magnetic lasso tool. Solution: You need to click wherever you want to start the selection.

I clicked here as I wanted to start selecting from here.

Photoshop from Scratch



60

After clicking on a point, you would need to hover your cursor along the car’s edges. Continue doing it until you make the selection. To complete the selection, you’d need to click the first point from which you started your selection. Now you need to keep in mind that during selecting, it might just happen that the selection goes a little off the desired path(you’d need to try it first to understand). If you want to delete any point, you can do so by pressing the delete key. If you think that the selection keeps going the wrong way, then you can manually make a point by clicking. If you are frustrated that the selection keeps getting worse then you can complete it as it is. You can correct it with different selection tools later.

Polygonal Lasso Tool Polygonal Lasso Tool:- You can click points to create a selection. To complete the selection, you would need to click on the first point that you created.

Object Selection Tool The object selection tool was added in photoshop cc 2020. So what it does? It selects the subject in the selection you make by using artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

61

Mode of initial selection

New selection Add selection

Enhances edges of selection

Subtract Selection

It would automatically subtract unwanted selection from spaces between an image

Refer the topic “Select Subject”

Refer the topic “Select and Mask” to learn

Mode: You can select from lasso and rectangle selection. Well, it means the type of tool, you would be using to select any region around the subject(The main selection of the subject in the selected region would be done photoshop automatically through the object selection tool.)

Photoshop from Scratch



Choosing Lasso as Mode for selection

Using Lasso tool as mode for object selection tool

62

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

63

Lasso as Mode: If you’d choose lasso as your mode, you would need to make a rough(need not be very precise) freehand selection around the subject. After selecting the region around the subject, photoshop would take a moment to process, and then you’d get a fairly accurate selection of your subject with negligible efforts from your side! Note that the selection will not be super precise you would still need to do some tweaking.

You can use the alt or option key to switch to the polygonal lasso tool(press and hold it). You will get back to the regular lasso tool just by releasing the key. For rectangle as your mode, you can press and hold the shift key to make a perfect square. Rectangle as Mode: Let’s take an example. In the image shown below, I want to select the man. All I need to do is, select a region around him, and photoshop would automatically select him. Isn’t that awesome! Now, I am not saying that it is totally accurate. But previously in older versions of photoshop, I would have to make the selection from scratch, at least now I have a rough selection to start from.

Photoshop from Scratch



64

Selecting region around the subject with object selection tool

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

65

Subject selected!

Quick Selection Tool Quick Selection Tool:- The shortcut key for this tool is ‘W’. This tool uses contrast to find edges and automatically sticks to them. This sounds similar to the magnetic lasso tool, but in that tool, you need to hover over the edge. But in this tool, you will get a brush by which you will click and drag on the area which needs to be selected. Don’t freak out! We would be learning it through an example but first, get a brief idea of all the options available with this tool.

Photoshop from Scratch



Brush options

66

Options for the Quick selection Tool

New selection Add selection

Subtract Selection

You can hold the shift key to temporarily shift to the add selection Tool and Alt(on Windows) or Option(on Mac) to switch to the subtract selection Tool. If you’d release those keys, you will return back to the new selection Tool. (This technique works with all selection Tools.)

• Brush Options: Lets you edit the brush size, hardness, spacing, roundness, and angle. • Previously I explained to you that this Tool uses contrast to find edges, so it’s obvious that this Tool samples the layer. So, if needed, you can check the “Sample All Layers” option. If you have not checked this option, it will only sample from the layer that you have selected. • Auto Enhance: just means that Photoshop would automatically refine edges. Example: We would take the same image that we used for the magnetic lasso tool. Because I want you to know how much easier it is to use the quick selection tool rather than the magnetic lasso tool. So, open the image in a new photoshop document and select the quick selection tool. Now, your job is to create a selection of the car in the picture(try it first and then see the solution). • Select the add selection option from the options bar and also make sure that Auto- Enhance is checked on. • Press and hold the left click and drag your cursor to select the desired area. • If you have selected excessive area, then to subtract selection,

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

67

press and hold alt(for windows) or option(for MAC), and then the plus sign in the brush would turn to a minus. You would be able to subtract selection by holding the left click, and dragging your cursor(or else if you want, you can click the subtract selection option on the options bar).

+

-

Add selection

Subtract Selection

This image is showing the excessive selection that I made

Photoshop from Scratch



68

This is how the selection looks like after subtracting the excessive. If you want, you can remove the background of the car! Just after completing your selection, press and hold ctrl(for windows) or command(or MAC) + J. It would turn your selection into a new layer. You can see the duplicated layer by turning off the layer below it.

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

69

This is how the car should look like. If you want, you can place any layer beneath the duplicated layer so that it looks like the car was on that background. Try, it would be fun!

Magic Wand Tool Magic Wand Tool:- Magic Wand Tool is used to select using colors. What the magic wand tool does is that it samples the colors of the area you clicked on. And selects colors similar to that color from the image.

New selection

Select Intersection Subtract Selection Add selection

Size of sample

Photoshop from Scratch



70

• Sample Size:- Previously I told you that the magic wand Tool selects colors, but colors are made up of pixels. So, here you can choose what you want to sample. For example, if you’d select, “point sample” then it would sample the exact pixel that you clicked on. Whereas if you would select something like, “5 by 5 average”, what it would do is, it would sample a square of 5x5 pixels and average it from where you clicked. • Tolerance:- Tolerance means how much color variation would the Tool tolerate. The lower the tolerance, the more precise selection you’d get. It means that if the tolerance is relatively low, then it would only select the colors nearest to the color you picked. But if the tolerance is relatively higher, then it would pick more colors (it would tolerate the difference in colors more). • Contiguous:- If this option is checked, then you can click and drag to select any and every area. Example: Open the magic wand tool.psd. Select the magic wand tool and try selecting the sky. Try it first yourself and then read the solution. • Select Add Selection from options bar. • I’d recommend you to start with Tolerance = 0. • Then try holding left click and dragging your cursor like you were painting the sky. • Now you would notice that the magic wand tool is not selecting enough area. So, try bumping up the tolerance. • I kept tolerance at 20 and it worked just fine. • Now it’s up to you. Whatever you want to do with this selection you can do. Paint it, place an image beneath it, on it, etc. I don’t know, have fun!

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

71

I clicked once, and this what got selected. Now, if I want to add to this selection, I would just click on the area that I want to add to this selection.

The arrow shows where I clicked. I clicked with the Add Selection option selected. Now, if I want to select the whole sky, then I would need to click again in the area which I want to add.

The arrow shows where I clicked. You can see that the sky is selected completely

Photoshop from Scratch



72

Select Subject

Select Subject:- This option is available in both the magic wand tool and quick selection Tool(look at the options bar of both of those tools). This tool uses AI to know what is the subject and selects it. Now you might be thinking that if AI can automatically select the subject, then why should we know all the selection Tools? The reason is that this tool is not accurate! In most cases, it would not give you a flawless selection. So, because of this reason, you’d need to know all the Tools. You never know when you will need which tool. Example: Open the Select Subject PSD from the sample images folder. Select magic wand tool or quick selection(it doesn’t matter ant of them would work) and then click the button in the options bar, which says Select Subject. You would see that It would select the man in the image.

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

73

This is the selection made by the select subject. Notice that it has not selected the boots properly, and also the space between his left arm and torso is not excluded from the selection.

So, you can see that the selection is not perfect. That is why you need to master more tools than just clicking a button. Although I suggest using Select Subject often as it can reduce your time taken in making selections by giving you a rough selection right away. Now, what you need to do is just refine it. So, for this example, we would need to exclude the area between his arm form the selection and add his boots to the selection. I would do this using the quick selection tool. • • • • •

Select Quick Selection tool Select Add Selection from the options bar Select the boots Select Subtract Selection from the options bar Remove the area between the subject’s left arm and torso from the selection.

Photoshop from Scratch



74

This how the selection looks like after all the tweaks I mentioned to do above.

Select and Mask Select and Mask:- This is an amazing Tool for selection. Let’s know more about it.

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

75

Reset

Properties panel of select and mask

Photoshop from Scratch



76

• View:- You can change the view of seeing the selected area and the area which is not selected. • Transparency:- It controls the transparency of the area which is not selected. • Radius: It controls the radius of the refinement. • Global refinements:- These are pretty straight forward so whenever you use select and mask you can mess with these sliders.

Quick Selection Tool (W) Refine Edge Brush Tool (R) Brush Tool (B) Lasso Tool (L) Hand Tool Zoom Tool (Z) • Refine Edge Brush Tool:- This Tool is used for refining the edges of the selection. • Brush Tool:- It is used for making selections as if you were using the brush tool. • Hand Tool:- It is used for moving within the canvas by dragging. • Zoom Tool:- It is used for zooming in and out. This Tool is used for cropping the image. The shortcut for this Example: Open the Select and Mask original image in photoshop from the sample images folder. I have also included the completed PSD. • Select magic wand tool or quick selection tool. • Click the Select and Mask button in the options bar. • Keep the view On Black.

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

77

Click this drop down menu

Select On Black

• Select the Quick Selection and also keep Opacity to 75%. Now you would see that the image is dark. The dark area signifies the area that is not selected. Try selecting the subject. You would see that

Photoshop from Scratch



78

the selected area brightens. So, you can conclude that the selected area remains as it is, but the area which is not selected goes dark. That happens because we selected On Black for the View.

You can see that most of the subject is bright whereas the background is dark.

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

79

• Now make a selection of the subject(image on the next page). You can also use the Brush Tool to tweak your selection. Don’t pay much attention to minor details like single strands of hair. We are going to fix them later. Just get a rough selection(refer to the image on the next page) • After completing the rough selection, select the Refine Edge Tool. • Make sure that the Radius is 0. Now, using the Refine Edge Tool paint the area which you want to deselect. In this case, it would be the edges of the girl’s hair. • You would want to use the Refine Edge Tool whenever you have to select areas very intricate like hair, trees, grass, etc. • Now, I would want you to tweak some settings in the Global Refinements section. It’s not compulsory to tweak them. It might’ve happened to you that your image looks best when you don’t tweak the settings, but you should experiment to come up to a conclusion.

These are the settings I changed for this image. For every image it would be different

Photoshop from Scratch



80

This is the selection that I made with the Quick Selection Tool.

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

81

This is how the image turned out to be after using refine Edge tool on the edges of hair.

Photoshop from Scratch



82

This is the image after changing Global Refinements settings

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

83

• After you are done with everything you ca click the OK button. • Turn off the original layer.

This is how your layers should look like. Layer 0 is the original layer. So, I turned it off.

If you were following with me, this was the most complicated selection that we have done up until now. By, now you are ready for almost any selection!

Photoshop from Scratch



84

This is the result. Congratulations! If you were following along you have successfully separated the subject from the background!

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

85

Remove Background Remove background is used to remove the background of an image. Surprise, surprise! You can select your subject layer and then go to the properties tab(if you cannot see the properties tab, then go to windows > properties). Now click on the button, “Remove Background”. The remove background button would not appear if your layer is a smart object. You would need to convert it into a rasterized layer. After you click that button you would notice that your subject has a mask. Mind that the mask would not be super precise, you need to make some small tweaks. Try it on the example of Select Subject.

This one!

Photoshop from Scratch



86

Crop Tool

Shortcut key for this tool is “C”. As the name imply, this tool is used to crop images, and that it. • Straighten is used to straighten your image. You can draw lines, and photoshop would adjust the image according to that line. • Delete Cropped Pixels:- Uncheck this option now! If checked, it would delete the area from the image that you have cropped. So, this means that if you need the cropped area back, you are screwed because it doesn’t exist now.

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

87

• Content Aware:- It uses photoshop’s AI To fill the blank spaces in the crop. Example: Open the original image as a new photoshop document. Crop it to the subject.

Original Image Method 1 - Using sliders: When you would select the Crop Tool, you would see six sliders, and you can drag them to adjust your crop.

Photoshop from Scratch



88

These are the sliders I am talking about. See the cropped image on the next page.

Method 2: By making a rectangle with crop tool.

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

Result

I also recommend trying different ratios for practice.

89

Photoshop from Scratch



4 : 5 ratio

90

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

91

Frame Tool

Frame Tool:- The shortcut key for this Tool is ‘K’. Basically, with this tool, you can create a Rectangular or elliptical frame. Frame means, you can attach any image to it, and it would only be visible in the area where the frame is. Example: Open the original image for Frame Tool select the

Photoshop from Scratch



92

Frame Tool. Select the Rectangle frame from the options bar. Now, make a frame around the squirrel. After creating the frame, you would notice that the image is only visible in the area where you have made the frame.

Notice that the squirrel is only visible within the frame

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

93

1

This is how the layer would look 2

1) Image Layer. Try clicking this and then move the image, you would see that the image moves, but the frame remains intact. 2) Frame layer. If you would select this and then try to move the layer, you would see that the whole frame moves. Try this out in photoshop to understand better.

Photoshop from Scratch



94

Eye Dropper Tool

With this tool, you can sample colors from the workspace. You can select the eyedropper tool and then click anywhere, and it would sample that color as your foreground color.

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

95

Eye Dropper Tool Options Bar

Currently selected color Previously selected colour

Sampling Ring

Whatever color you sample, it would show it here and then when you would use the brush tool for example, you would see that it paints that color.

Photoshop from Scratch



Spot Healing Brush Tool

96

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

97

Spot Healing Brush Tool:- This Tool helps you to fill in the color of nearby areas with keeping the texture intact. The Shortcut of this Tool is ‘J‘. • Mode:- We will be talking about blending modes in the next part of this book as it is a bit advanced topic. • Content aware means it would use AI to find which colour to fill in the desired space. • Create Texture:- If you will check this option it would create a new texture wherever you drag. • Proximity Match:- This option is the default. This simply fills in the area with the colour of the nearby area.

Enable pen pressure to control size of the brush (Only used for pressure sensitive tablets) Example: Open Spot Healing Brush Tool folder from the sample images file, open the original image as new photoshop document(the completed PSD is also included, if you need it then you can refer it). We need to get rid of all the red acnes from the skin. So, try first and the read the solutions. • Make a duplicate layer of it by ctrl + J or command(windows) + J(mac). You can also do it by the not so cool way i.e, to right click the

Photoshop from Scratch



98

These are the acnes that are our target!

• • • • •

layer and hit “Duplicate Layer”. We are doing this because we need to have a backup. Select the Spot Healing Brush Tool. Set the Type to Content Aware. Make the brush size just a bit bigger than the size of acne and set the hardness of the brush to 0%. Paint on the acne. While you would paint, you should see something black painting from your brush. But after completing the painting, and releasing the brush, you would see that the acne is gone as if it was not there in the first place.

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

While Painting

After releasing the spot healing brush tool

99

Photoshop from Scratch



100

This is the completed image

Healing Brush Tool Healing Brush Tool:- This Tool is almost the same as the spot healing brush tool, but in this Tool, you get the control of setting the sample. The shortcut key for this Tool is ‘J’. You can press and hold Alt or option and then click to take a sample. • Source: Sampled: what this does is that pastes the area’s color, which you have sampled. You can sample any area by pressing and holding alt or option and then clicking. • Pattern:- This does just that but only does it as a pattern. • Aligned:- This keeps the source and the area where you are pasting aligned with each other. • Use Legacy:- This would use the algorithm of photoshop cc 2014

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

101

or earlier. • Diffusion:- This controls the transition between the area which is not affected and the area which is affected. Example: We are going to use the same image, which we used for the spot healing brush tool. By now, you know what to do. Let’s cut the crap and move to the healing brush tool. We need to remove all the acnes as we did before, but this time with the healing brush tool. • Select the Healing Brush Tool. • Press and hold Alt(windows) or Option(mac) and now you cursor will change. Click the area near the area that you want to heal.(Just like a clone stamp tool) • Then paint over the acne. You will see that it works brilliantly! You should use the Healing Brush Tool if you want the best results possible, but you should use the Spot Healing Brush Tool if you don’t care about quality, and time is more important to you. • You might even have a question, “What is the difference between the clone stamp tool and the Healing Brush Tool?”. So, the answer is clone stamp clones the area that you sample and pastes it to where you paint, but the Healing Brush Tool samples the TEXTURE ONLY, and wherever you’d paint, it would paste the texture and would fill the color similar to the nearby pixels. • What happened in this example was, when you sampled a nearby area, you sampled only the texture, but the color was sampled from the area in proximity to where you were painting. This helps to blend the healing with the rest of the image. This blending of the healed area and surrounding areas makes it look realistic. This ability of this tool makes it perfect for retouching. It still might confuse you a bit, but it would be crystal clear if you try it yourself. Try using the Clone Stamp Tool instead of the Healing Brush Tool, and you would see the difference yourself!

Photoshop from Scratch



102

Healing brush tool options bar

Patch Tool Patch Tool:- Patch Tool is simply used for replacing one area with another. It is very easy to use. Select the area which you want to replace and then drag your selection to the area from which you want to replace. First, understand all the options and then move ahead to the example. 

Patch Modes • Patch Modes:- Patch Tool has two modes and they are, Normal and Content-aware. Normal:- It is the normal patch Tool. Content-aware:- This mode uses AI to blend patches. I recommend using the normal mode as default, but if it doesn’t work, then you can use content-aware mode. • Source:- If you select source, then you can replace your selection with any area that you drag your selection to. This is used for replacing areas. • Destination:- You can use this mode if you want an area to be repeated. You can select anything and then when you will drag your selection you can place it any where you want. This is used for repeating/duplicating areas. • Transparent:- If you will check this option then photoshop would

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

103

use transparency to blend layers. What I do is if the patch is not blending well then I try checking this box on. Example: We would be using the same image for this tool as well but I would be also giving you another example after this(the sample image file would include the finished PSDs for both the examples). So, we need to remove the acnes from the subject’s face(surprise, surprise!). • • • • • • •

Make a copy of the background layer Select the Patch Tool. Set Patch to Normal. Select Source. Keep Diffusion 5. Now select an acne. Drag the selection to the place by which you would like to replace it.

Photoshop from Scratch



Select the acne with the Patch Tool

104

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

Move the selection to the place from where you want to replace it

105

Photoshop from Scratch



Release the mouse.

106

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

107

Example 2: In the last example we removed an acne with the patch tool and Source was selected in the options bar. What source did was replaced our selection from the area we dragged the selection to. We would be using another example for Destination in Patch Tool. Destination is just exactly opposite of Source. Whatever you would select, would be placed wherever you would place the selection. Open the original image as a new photoshop document. Our goal is to duplicate the sheep in that image. • • • • • • • •

Duplicate the Layer Rasterize it if it is a smart object by right click > Rasterize Layer Select the Patch Tool Select Type: Source. Select DESTINATION. Select the sheep in the image with the Patch Tool. Move the selection wherever you want to paste it. Press ctrl(for windows) or command(for mac) + D for deselecting.

Photoshop from Scratch



Select the sheep with Patch Tool

108

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

Complete the Selection

109

Photoshop from Scratch



Move the selection

110

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

Release the Mouse

111

Photoshop from Scratch



112

Press ctrl(windows) or command(mac) + D to deselect the selection

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

113

You might see some hard edges around the patch. To fix that, you can make a mask and then paint with a soft round brush black on the mask. You’d need to make the hard edges fade around the patch by painting around. Try it! Trying this would make the concept of mask more clear to you. I have provided the completed PSD with masking, and it’s included in the sample images downloadable folder.

Make a Mask

Photoshop from Scratch



114

This is how it looks after me masking the edges roughly

Content Aware Move Tool Content aware move Tool:- This Tool is really just the patch Tool with destination mode selected but on steroids.

• Modes:- (Move)--> This mode cuts your selection from the selected area and pastes it wherever you place it. (Extend)--> This mode is almost the same as the MOVE MODE, but in this mode, the sample is not deleted(similar to the patch tool with DESTINATION selected). Structure:- You can adjust how much the source structure should be preserved

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

115

• Color:- You can adjust the color variation from the source. • Transform on drop:- If you will check this option, whenever you will drop your selection you will have transform handles. Example 1: Our first example is going to be for Move Mode. We are going to reuse the image, which we used in example 2 of the patch tool. This because I want you to see the difference between both of those tools. • • • • • •

Open the image is a new photoshop document. Select the Content Aware Move Tool. Set the Mode to Move. Let the rest of the setting be as default. Select the sheep. Try moving it wherever you like.

Photoshop from Scratch



Select the sheep with Content Aware Move Tool

116

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

Move the selection to desired area

117

Photoshop from Scratch



118

Deselect the selection by ctrl(windows) or command(mac) + D

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

119

Example 2: This time we are going to choose EXTEND as the Mode. The only difference between EXTEND and MOVE is that EXTEND doesn’t delete the original area which you selected. So, you’d end up with two sheep! This might remind you of the patch tool. Remember, when we used the patch tool, we cloned the sheep. So, EXTEND actually does the same thing! The only difference is that it uses content-aware. The patch tool had two modes NORMAL and CONTENT AWARE. But it would not allow you to select CONTENT AWARE with Destination selected. All of this might be confusing you, but just try selecting Destination with CONTENT AWARE(you would not be able to do so!). So, if you’re not satisfied with the result of the Patch Tool with DESTINATION selected, you can try using the Content-Aware Move Tool. Now, most of the time Patch Tool Yields the best results, but if it doesn’t, then you may use the Content-Aware Move Tool with EXTEND SELECTED. We would take an example to make it clear. We would take the same image which we use previously. Open it in a new photoshop document. I have provided the finished PSD of this example. • • • • • • • •

Select the Content Aware Move Tool. Select EXTEND as your Mode. Make a duplicate layer of the original image layer. Rasterize that layer if it is a smart object by right clicking the layer > Rasterize Layer. Select the Sheep with the Content Aware Move Tool. Move the Selection wherever you want. Accept the changes by clicking the tick mark on the options bar or hitting enter. Deselect the Selection by Ctrl(windows) or Command(mac) + D.

Photoshop from Scratch



Select the sheep with the Content Aware Move Tool

120

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

Move the selection to the desired spot

121

Photoshop from Scratch



122

Deselect the selection by pressing Ctrl(windows) or Command(mac) +D

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

123

As you can see, the image didn’t turn out well. That is why earlier, I told you that most of the time, the Patch Tool works just fine. This tool is JUST IN CASE kind of a thing. I mean, just in case the Patch Tool doesn’t work well, you can try this tool, but the Patch Tool should always be your first option. I hope this tool is clear to you. I didn’t cover it to the nitty-gritty stuff because I personally never worry about it and always leave it to default.

Red Eye Tool A few years ago, it happened sometimes that the eyes had a reddish artifact in the image. So this Tool deals with just that. It darkens the pupil and removes the red spot from the eye. I personally have never used it. Nowadays cameras are so advanced that you will never deal with this issue.

• Pupil Size:- Here you can set the size of the centre of the eye. • Darken Amount:- Here you can set the pupil darken amount. Example: Open the original image from the downloadable sample images folder into a new photoshop document. • • • • •

Duplicate the original image layer. Select the Red Eye Tool. Set the Pupil Size to 50% and the Darken Amount to 50% as well. Now just click the red spots on the eyes. And you are done!

Photoshop from Scratch



This is the original image

124

Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01

Click the red spot on the eye

125

Photoshop from Scratch



This is how it should look after clicking both the eyes

126

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Pencil Tool Color Replacement Tool Mixer Brush Tool Clone Stamp Tool Pattern stamp History Brush Tool Art History Brush Tool Eraser Tool Background Eraser Tool Magic Eraser Tool Gradient Tool Paint Bucket Tool 3D Material Drop Tool Blur Tool Sharpen Tool Smudge Tool

Photoshop from Scratch

Chapter 04



130

Tools Part - 02

Pencil Tool This Tool is just a small brush and is available in the group of the Brush Tool.

• Auto Erase:- If the color of the layer on which you are drawing is the same as your foreground color, then it would draw with the background color.

Color Replacement Tool As the name suggests, this tool allows you to replace colors. This tool is available in the same group as the Brush Tool.

Sampling Continuous Sampling Once Sampling Background Swatch

• Mode:- You can choose between four modes and they are: Hue:- It changes the color while keeping the brightness levels

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

131

intact. Hue means “which color?” Color:- It changes the colors and does not care about the brightness levels. Saturation:- It changes the saturation levels. Saturations means the amount of color. Luminosity:- It means brightness levels. • Sampling Continuous:- Each and every place where to draw with your brush it would take a sample. • Sampling Once:- It would only sample once. • Sample Background Swatch:- This would sample the color which is in your background swatch or which is your background color. • Limits:- Discontinuous-> It would not stop changing colors with the variations in the colors. In simpler words, it would not stop changing colors even if another color is in between the color that you want to change. Continuous:- It would only change the color of the continuous area having that same color at once. Find Edge:-It would find the edges first wherever you click, and then according to that area, it would replace the colors. • Tolerance:- The amount of color variation it can tolerate.

Example: Before we begin with the example, I would like to mention that this tool is useless! I have never ever gotten good results with this tool. There are many other methods to replace the color of an image, which is much better than this. Don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself, and you would see. Here is my result.

Photoshop from Scratch



My result after using the color replacement tool

132

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

133

My result with my method which you would learn later in Hue Saturation

Photoshop from Scratch



134

Mixer Brush Tool Mixer Brush Tool:- This brush allows you to blend colors together. This brush stimulates a real paintbrush. This tool is also in the group of Brush Tool • Load the Brush after each stroke:-If you’d select this option, it would load color to the brush each time you’d release the brush. • Select color:- You can select any color you want to paint with.

Select color Load the brush after each stroke

Empty the brush after each stroke

Mixer brush presets

• Empty brush after each stroke:- If you want to just mix colors then you can check this option. • Mixer brush Presets:- Here you can choose from thirteenth different presets for the mixer brush Tool.

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

135

• Wet:- This option would determine the wetness level of your brush. Imagine you have a real paintbrush. If that brush is wetter, it would trail more. • Load:- Remember the brush that you just created with your imagination? So, the LOAD is just how much color it contains. • Mix:- This determines the ratio of mixing colors.

Airbrush effect

Smoothing settings Smoothing

• Air Brush Effect:- If you’d select this option, the brush will build up an effect as if it was an airbrush. • Smoothing:- You can make your brush smooth here. • Smoothing settings:- You can further customize your smoothing with this drop-down menu. Example: Open the sample image for Mixer Brush Tool from the sample images file into a new photoshop document. • Duplicate the Background Layer by pressing Ctrl(Windows) or Command(mac) + D. • Select the Mixer Brush Tool • Sample the color of the skin of the lady in the image by holding Alt(windows) or Option(mac) and clicking the area from which you want to take the sample. • Keep the value of the options in the options bar as follows--> • Brush Hardness: 0% • Brush Size: 40%(you can change this as you like)

Photoshop from Scratch

• • • • • • • • • • •

• • •



136

Current Brush Load: The color that you sampled. Load the Brush After Each Stroke: Off Clean the Brush After Each Stroke: off Mixer Brush Preset: Custom Wet: 80% Load: 50% Mix: 50% Flow: 50% Art Brush type Effect: Off Smoothing of Stroke: 10% Additional Smoothing Options: Stroke Catch up and Adjust for Zoom should be selected. Brush Angle: Doesn’t matter we are using a round brush. Sample All Layers: Off Always Use Pressure for Size: It’s upon you.

This how it should Look

• Paint Over her skin. • Don’t paint over her hair, eyes, eyebrows or lips. • After you’re done painting, reduce the opacity of that layer as per your liking. For me 30% worked great. • You can see that her face looks very soft now. Sometimes this is how you would want it(but thats not my style). Mixer Brush Tool is commonly used for quick retouching. If you want that soft look, go for it.

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

This is how she looked like after I painted

137

Photoshop from Scratch



138

This is after I reduced the Opacity to 30%(this was just for demonstration. I would never do such harsh retouching. But if I had to, I’d keep the opacity at something like 10%. There are better ways of retouching.)

Mixer Brush Tool is just such a vast tool that I’d recommend going all in and trying all the setting yourself. Try changing only one setting at a time and then try it and observe what it does. That is exactly how I learned it. Not just for this tool, I would recommend doing this with every tool!

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

Clone Stamp Tool

139

Photoshop from Scratch



140

The clone stamp tool allows you to clone an area of an image to another part of that image. You can take the sample area that you want to paste by holding Alt or Option and clicking. And then you can paste it anywhere. The shortcut key for this Tool is “S”.

Use Pressure for Opacity • Use Pressure for Opacity:- If you have a pressure-sensitive tablet, you can use this option. If this option is selected, then your brush opacity would be controlled by the pressure applied with the pen on your tablet.

Don’t sample adjustment layers • Aligned:-If you check this option, then photoshop would maintain the distance between the sampled area and the brush. • Don’t sample adjustment layers:- If you would check on this box, the clone stamp tool will not sample from the adjustment layers (we are going to cover them in the future chapters)that you applied. As the clone stamp tool can be a bit tricky and also be very important, I am going to explain it further with an example.

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

141

Zoomed in BEFORE

In this image, you can see a tattoo. We are going to remove the tattoo! You can do so with the clone stamp tool. Here’s what you need to do! You need to press and hold alt or option and click the area from which you want to sample. Here you can sample from the hand. After taking the sample, you can start painting. Paint in the required area! After doing so, it would look something like the image given below.

Photoshop from Scratch



Zoomed in AFTER

142

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

Zoomed out BEFORE

143

Photoshop from Scratch



Zoomed out AFTER

144

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

145

Pattern Stamp Tool The pattern stamp tool allows you to stamp patterns on an image. I have never used this tool. I just know how to use it. You never know when you’d need which tool. So, learning all of them is advisable. • You select any pattern from the square given in the options bar and pant it on the image. • Impressionist:-If you would check this box and paint, you would get dabs of paint for 3D effect. The best way to know it is to try it! Example: • Open any image or a blank document • Select the Pattern Stamp Tool • Select any pattern that you like and then just paint over the image or the blank document. What I did was I opened the image that I used as an example for the Mixer Brush Tool and then painted trees around the subject.

Photoshop from Scratch



This is how it ended up looking

146

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

History Brush Tool

147

Photoshop from Scratch



148

The History Brush tool allows you to paint back the previous area of an image. Let’s reuse the previous example. In that example, I showed you off the clone stamp tool. We removed a tattoo. Remember? Well, this to would help you to paint back the tattoo if you want, after removing it. It is easy to do. You need to select the history brush tool and paint on the area where there was the tattoo. The shortcut key for this tool is “Y”. You can sample from any history state that you want. Now, you might be thinking that what is a history state, and where can I choose it? So, let me answer that for you! History states are just the steps that you did in photoshop. For example, suppose you selected the history brush tool. Then it would get saved as a history state in the History panel. And also, if you would do anything such as messing with the tools, hide or reveal a layer, etc. Then it would get saved as a history state. So, now you might be wondering where in the history panel? History panel is accessible from the window tab, and by default, it would be in your workspace. And there, you can choose the history state from which you would like to sample.

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

149

Click this to open history panel

Click here to make the history brush tool sample form here

History brush tool will sample from here

Photoshop from Scratch



150

Art History Brush Tool Art history brush tool helps you to give artistic painterly effect to images. It’s a great tool to play with. To use this tool, you need to select a history state from which it would sample and paint. It is in the group of the history brush tool.

• Style:- You can choose from 10 different styles of painting. Try it and, you would come to know. • Area:- Here you can define how much area would the brush paint. One thing to remember for the art history brush tool is, the bigger the brush size, the less the details. The images would make it clear to you.

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

Original image

151

Photoshop from Scratch



Art history brush tool used Brush = 50px; Area = 500px; Tolerance = 0%; Style = Dab

152

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

Art history brush tool used Brush = 200px; Area = 500px; Tolerance = 0%; style = Dab

153

Photoshop from Scratch



Eraser Tool

154

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

155

The eraser tool allows you to use used to erase parts of layers. Remember that this tool would only work with rasterized layers. The shortcut key for this tool is “E”.

To rasterize any layer you can right click on the layer and select “rasterize layer”.

Photoshop from Scratch



156

• Mode:- You can choose from three modes, and they are brush, pencil, and block(Square eraser).

• Erase to History:- If you would check this option then whatever you would erase would be erased back to the previous history state. I am not going to include any example for this tool as it the most straightforward tool in photoshop. Suppose your layer is a pencil painting that just made, and your youngest sibling or child erased it. That eraser is the eraser tool in photoshop!

Background Eraser Tool This tool helps you to remove the backgrounds of images. Suppose you took a photo of someone, and now you want that only the subject should be visible, and the background transparent, then you can use this tool. I highly recommend not to use this tool as it is destructive. This means that after using this tool, you cannot revert the changes(Yes, you can use undo, but after you saved it and closed the document, you can never change it again). I recommend using masking for removing background as it is non - destructive.

Protect Background Color:- If you would select this option photoshop, would not remove the color, which is in your background

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

157

swatch. Example: We are going to use the Background Eraser Tool first and then we are going to use the quick selection tool in conjunction with masking. This would give us a fair comparison. • Open the original image as a photoshop document. • Duplicate the layer by pressing Ctrl(windows) or Command(mac) + D. • You can try the option bar settings as you want. It depends on you how you would like it. Now let’s try the alternative non-destructive method: Using Quick Selection Tool with masking. • Open the original image in a new document or else you can delete(by pressing the delete key on your keyboard) your current layers and place the original image again. • Duplicate the original image layer by pressing Ctrl(windows) or command(mac) + D. • Select the Quick Selection Tool. • Click the button in the options bar which says “ Select Subject “. • You would see that it creates a perfect selection of the subject. • Now click the mask button. • And you are done! Wasn’t that much more easy and better? On top of that it is also non-destructive which means you can change the mask whenever you want.

Photoshop from Scratch



158

This is how my image looks like after using the Background Selection Tool for removing the Background. Don’t Laugh I know its bad!

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

My result with Select Subject and Masking

159

Photoshop from Scratch



160

Magic Eraser Tool The magic eraser tool is just an eraser tool but on steroids. It can achieve a lot more than what the regular eraser tool can do. You can adjust the tolerance through which the process becomes a lot easier and faster. If you would select this option photoshop, would not remove the color, which is in your background swatch. Example: We are again using the same image as before. So, this time don’t make a new photoshop document, just duplicate the layer. Now, start using the Magic Eraser Tool and try removing the background. Adjust the tolerance(more tolerance = more things removed and less tolerance = fewer pixels removed) as you like. If by mistake, you remove parts of the subject itself, then you can undo and try reducing the tolerance.

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

161

This is how my image turned out. The Select Subject and masking one was better!

Photoshop from Scratch



Gradient Tool

162

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

163

As the name suggests, this tool helps you to for creating gradients. The shortcut key for this tool is ” G ”. Well a gradient, is a blend of colors. Here are a few examples,

Linear gradient

Photoshop from Scratch



Radial gradient

Angle gradient

164

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

Reflected gradient

Diamond gradient

165

Photoshop from Scratch



166

Diamond gradient Select gradients

Linear gradients

Radial gradient

Angle gradient

Reflected gradient

You can select any color gradient that you like by clicking the rectangle with a gradient. As soon as you click that rectangle you, will be greeted with this dialogue box.

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

167

• Presets:- You can choose from various different presets of gradients just by clicking on them. If you want, you can make your own preset by customizing your gradient and then clicking on “New”. If you want, you can save your gradient in a separate file at a particular location by clicking “Save”. It would create a .grd file of your gradient. • Name:- You can name your gradient over here.

Photoshop from Scratch



168

• Gradient Type:- You have two types of gradient options. Solid:- This contains solid color gradients.

Opacity Color

Solid gradient type

Notice the marker that you select has a black tip and the other markers which are not selected have a grey tip.

• Markers:- You can see a rectangle that goes from purple to red. In this rectangle, the color is decided, by the markers located below it. Notice the first marker below the rectangle. It has purple. This means the marker controls the purple color. The marker at the end has red in it. If you would move those markers you can play with the amount of color shown. The markers which, are located above the rectangle control the opacity of colors. • Location:- This means the brightness level from 1 to 100 of the color. • Gradient type: Noise:- You can give a creative look with this option.

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

169

Noise gradient type

• Roughness:- This means the hardness of the variations of colors. • Color modes:- You can choose from RGB, HSB, and Lab color modes. No matter which color mode you choose, you would get two sliders for each, one black and one white. You can use those two sliders for selecting the color range. • Restrict colors:- This option prevents the colors to be oversaturated. • Add transparency:- You can add transparency to your gradients. • Randomize:- You can randomly go through different gradients.

• Reverse:- It would reverse the gradient. For example, the black to white gradient would show up as white to black.

Photoshop from Scratch



170

• Dither:- This option makes sure that banding(Blocks of colors in the gradients which are not blending seamlessly) does not happen. • Transparency:- This option allows you to have transparent gradients.

Paint Bucket Tool age.

This tool is used to fill in colors in contiguous parts of the im-

Source for the fill area

Choose pattern to fill

• Source of he fill area:- You can choose from foreground and pattern options. • Pattern:- If you select the pattern, you can paste the pattern in contiguous areas of the image. • Foreground:- If you would select this option, you can fill the foreground set in your swatch in any contiguous area of an image. Example: open a new photoshop document. • Select the Brush Tool. • Draw a circle.

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

171

• Select the Paint Bucket Tool and select any different color as your foreground color than which you used to make the circle. • Click inside the circle with the Paint Bucket Tool selected.

Make a circle using the Brush Tool

Photoshop from Scratch



172

Click here to change foreground color

This is what you would see after clicking the icon shown above. This is the color picker.

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

173

This is what should’ve happened after you clicked inside the circle with the Paint Bucket Tool selected. Yes, the color would be different(it would be the color that you picked from the Color Picker).

Photoshop from Scratch



174

3D Material Drop Tool We, are not going talk about this tool because this tool is used in 3D workspace of photoshop and in this book we are not going to cover it as it is not necessary for beginners.

Blur Tool As the name suggests, this tool helps you to blur things up(to see where it is located in the toolbar, go to the next page).

• Strength:- It defines the strength of the blur. More strength = More Blur and Less Strength = Less Blur Example: open the image in a new photoshop document from the sample images folder for the Blur Tool. • Select the Blur Tool. • Set the strength to 100%(You can adjust it as you want) • Now blur the area beneath the face of the subject. • Blurring the area beneath the face would grab the attention of the viewer of the photo towards the subject’s face.

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

175

Photoshop from Scratch



176

I have created this to show you where to blur and how much to blur. The area which is of 100% opacity red is needed to blurred a lot and the area which is of 50% opacity red is needed to be blurred less relatively

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

177

Sharpen Tool This tool is available in the same group as the Blur Tool. It helps you to sharpen parts of an image.

• Protect Details:- If you would check on this option, photoshop will prevent pixelation of sharpened areas. Example: You don’t need to open a new document this time. Just open the previous document. • Select the sharpen Tool. • Set the strength as you want. • Now paint over the eyes of the subject to make them sharper, with this tool selected.

Photoshop from Scratch



Notice that eyes are sharper

178

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

179

Smudge Tool This tool helps you to smudge things that are extending or retracting pixels. By default, it should be in the same group as the Blur Tool and the Sharpen Tool.

• Finger printing:- Whenever you would smudge, it would add the foreground color to the brush stroke. Example: Again we would use the same image as before. We need to push the cheeks of the subject inwards. See what I did in the following images.

Photoshop from Scratch



Original Image

180

Chapter - 04 Tools Part - 02

Notice that I pushed her lower parts of cheeks inwards

181

Photoshop from Scratch



182

• Select the Smudge Tool. • Set the strength below 10%(You can mess around with this as you like) • Push the lower parts of the subject’s cheeks by dragging them in. The strength of the brush is very(If you have set it to 10%) low so, you would need to drag more times compared to if it was high. The advantage of low strength is accuracy. You can make more precise smudges by keeping the strength low rather than keeping it high.

183

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Dodge Tool Burn Tool Sponge Tool Difference Between Saturation and Vibrance Pen Tool Freeform Pen Tool Curvature Pen Tool Add Anchor Point tool Delete Anchor Point Tool Convert Anchor Point Tool How to Save a Path What I Recommend Horizontal Type Tool Vertical Type Tool Vertical Type Mask Tool Horizontal Type Mask Tool Path Selection Tool Direct Selection Tool Rectangle Tool Hand Tool Rotate View Tool Zoom Tool

Photoshop from Scratch

Chapter 05



186

Tools Part - 03

Dodge Tool Dodging means brightening. That means the dodge tool brightens up parts of images. The shortcut key to this tool ground is “O“. To see where the pen tool is located, turn the page. For learning this tool, you need to know what are highlights, mid-tones, and shadows. • Highlights:- Brighter areas of an image. • Midtones:- The parts which are in between dark parts and bright parts. • Shadows:- Dark parts of an image.

• Range:- You can specify which area you want to brighten. • Exposure:-The exposure by which it brightens up parts of layers • Protect tones:- It prevents colors from changing their hue and also prevents clipping(shadows turning 100% black and highlights turning 100% white) in shadows and highlights. Example: Open the image from the Dodge Tool folder from the sample images file into a new photoshop document. We need to make the bright areas brighter. Look at the sample image closely. You would see that the face of the subject has mostly bright areas, and also some

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03



187

Photoshop from Scratch



188

shadows are forming on her left cheek, eyes, and beneath her lips. • • • • • •

Select the Dodge Tool. Duplicate the original image layer(by ctrl or cammand + J). Select the Range as Midtones. Keep the Exposure below 10%. Keep Protect Tones on. Now, suppose that it’s just a brush and then paint over the areas which are bright on the face of the subject. Don’t go all in! Just keep it subtle. • Try turning the layer on and off, which you did dodging on. That is to see the difference. If you think that it is too much, then you can simply, decrease the opacity of that layer. • Keep in mind that it might not look great out of the box, but it would after you would do some burning, which is our next topic.

Burn Tool In terms of photoshop, burning means darkening. So, the burn tool darkens up parts of an image. It’s just the inverse of the dodge tool, and all the options available for this are the same as the dodge tool. So we are not going to repeat it. The dodge tool and the burn tool help us to add dimension to the images. We make dark parts of an image darker with the burn tool and make the bright parts brighter with the dodge tool. Example: We are going to use the same document as we did for dodging. • Select the Burn Tool.(It is in the same group with the dodge tool) • Keep the Range on Midtones, Exposure under 10%, Protect Tones on. • Paint on the same layer on which you did dodging. • Paint only the areas which are dark. • Now, try turning the dodging and burning layer on and off. You would be able to see the difference. What you did in this document is called dodging and burning.

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03

Original Image



189

Photoshop from Scratch



This is the image after Dodging and Burning

190

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03



191

This method of Dodging and burning is good for when you are starting out but I use another method which is out of the scope of this but available in the next part of this book(Photoshop CC 2020 Become The Pro). The reason why I am telling this to you is that I want you to see the difference between the two techniques. The next two images would show that to you. They are edited by my method.

This is the original image

Photoshop from Scratch



This after the dodging and burning

192

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03



193

Sponge Tool The Sponge tool allows us to change the saturation of parts of an image. For understanding the options in the sponge tool, you need to know what are the differences between saturation and vibrance.

Difference between Saturation and Vibrance Saturation means “how much color?”, and vibrance is just a subtle version of saturation because it only changes the number of colors in the areas which are dull.

• Mode:- You can choose from two modes and they are, desaturate and saturate. • Vibrance:- If you would check this option on, photoshop will change vibrance instead of saturation. You can think of vibrance as saturation but for dull colors. That’s all there is. Example: Open the sample image in a new photoshop document. We need to desaturate the hand band which she’s wearing on her right wrist. There is a simple rule in photography that the more saturated parts of an image attracts attention of the viewer more than the desaturated parts. This means that your subject should always be more or at least equally saturated than your background. In this sample image the wrist band is way too saturated so we need to desaturate it. • Make a duplicate layer of the background layer. • Rasterize it, if its not already. • Select the Sponge Tool.

Photoshop from Scratch

• • • •



Set the Mode to Desaturate. Set the Flow as you want. Vibrance: off Paint on the wrist band.

This is the original image

194

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03



This is the image after desaturating the wrist band

195

Photoshop from Scratch



196

Example 2: As I said earlier we need to saturate the parts of the image on which we want our viewer to look at and desaturate the parts which we don’t want them to look at. We have covered the desaturate part in the previous example. Now we are going to look at saturation of parts of an image. So, the parts that you would want to saturate are; eyes of the subject or in general any special feature. In this example we are going to use the same document as before but this time we are going saturate the eyes of the subject. • Select the Sponge Tool • Make sure that the duplicate layer is selected(the layer on which you desaturated the wrist band) • Paint on the iris of the subject.

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03



197

Notice the subtle change in the saturation of her eyes. This image looks more appealing than the original one in my opinion.

Photoshop from Scratch



198

Pen Tool The pen tool allows you to create paths, and also allows you to convert them into a selection by right-clicking it and choosing “make selection”. By the way, the pen tool is my favorite tool for making accurate selections. Making selections with the pen tool might take more time than the other selection tools such as the quick selection tool. But the selections made with this tool are super accurate! The shortcut key for this tool is “P”. Learning the pen tool will require practice. So I urge you to open photoshop right now and follow this book. And get excited because after reading this book you are definitely going to master the pen tool.

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03



199

Photoshop from Scratch



200

1. Suppose you want to select this shape. You need to select the pen tool and click on any corner of the shape to create an anchor point over there. Here in this example, I have created an anchor point on the upper left-hand side of the shape.

If you have created a shape with the shape tool in photoshop, then your pen tool will delete the shape with its path. So, you have to create a new work path from the path window to solve this.

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03

2.



Similarly select all the corners

201

Photoshop from Scratch

3.



202

When you would click the first point, you would see a circle near your pen tool, and that means, after clicking that point, the path would be completed.

Congratulations! You have created your first path! If you want, you can convert this path into a selection by right-clicking anywhere inside the area of that path and selecting the ‘make selection’ option. In the above example, we taught you to draw a path of an area with straight edges. And now, we are going to step up and move ahead to learn how to make paths of curves edges.

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03

tool.



203

In this example, we are going to select this shape with the pen

Photoshop from Scratch



204

1. Make this first move:- Make a Point anywhere you like. Here I am creating a point in the center of the shape.

2. Play with handles:- Now click and drag wherever you want to create a point. When you would click and drag, you would see two lines emerging from the point.

This is how a complete click and drag result should look like.

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03

This handle is responsible for the curve of the current point(nearest to the recent point)



205

This handle is responsible for the curve of the future point.

Current curve

Recent point

You’d get two handles when you’d click and drag to create a point. The handle nearest to the most recent point is the handle, which is responsible for the current curve on which you are working. You can create any curve that you want with the pen tool. Let me make it clear for you. You can extend the handles for making the curve long and vice versa. You can rotate the handle for rotating the curve.

Photoshop from Scratch



206

If you accidentally made a point, you can delete it by pressing and holding alt or option and then clicking on that point. The alternative is that you can select the delete anchor point tool and then click that point.

Do not opt for a perfect selection now (if you are following along) because I am going to show you later how to fine-tune it.

3. Go ahead:- Your selection should look like this(If your selection is a bit off then do not worry, I am going to tell you how to fine-tune it.)

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03



207

4. Complete the path:- After clicking the first point that you created, you should see a blue outline like in this example. 5. Fine tuning:- Suppose you want to move an anchor point. You can do so by pressing and holding command or ctrl and then dragging the anchor point to a different place. You can do this whenever you want .i.e. you can do it after completing the path or just right away while creating that point. If you want, you can break any handle. That means if you want, you can adjust one curve individually. Suppose you created a path, and then you wished to make changes to the first curve, but it is also interfering with the curve after it. So, you can press and hold option or alt and then drag the handles to adjust them.

Photoshop from Scratch



208 This handle has been broken

Congratulations! You have almost mastered the pen tool! I said almost because you still do not know how to use the options bar of this tool. So, let’s do just that!

• Path/Shape:- You can choose from path or shape. If you’d choose the path option, it would draw a path, and if you would choose the shape option, it would fill that path with your foreground color while creating a shape. • Make:- You can decide what you want from the path. You can

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03





209

choose from Selection, Mask, and Shape. Selection:- It would turn your path into a selection. Mask:- It would turn your path into a mask. Shape:- It would turn your path into a shape. It would fill your path with the foreground color.

1

2

3

4

5

• 1) These options are the same as we have seen in the selection tools. • 2) Alignment options • 3) Suppose you have two shapes, shape A and shape B, and such that both are overlapping each other. Suppose shape A is beneath shape B. Now you want the inverse of that. So, you can select any shape and bring it in front or backward accordingly with the help of these options. • 4) These are settings for your path. You can change the color and stroke of your path. It also has an option called ’rubber band’. What it does is that it shows you the preview of that path before you make an anchor point. • 5) If this option is checked on, then whenever you’d click an existing point, it would delete that point. (Fact - I always keep it checked on)

Photoshop from Scratch





210

Congratulations! You have mastered the pen tool!

Freeform Pen Tool Think about the freeform pen tool as if the lasso tool and the pen tool married and had a baby! This tool is just a lasso tool that turns into a path.

Curvature Pen Tool The curvature pen tool is just a limited and easy to use version of the regular pen tool. Although I still recommend the regular pen tool.

Add Anchor Point Tool If you want, you can insert an anchor point to any existing path. If you would select the regular pen tool and check the ‘auto Add/delete’ option, it would do the same thing.

Delete Anchor Point Tool You can delete any point in your path with the help of this tool. This performs exactly the same as if you have selected the ‘Auto Add/ Delete’ anchor points. If this option is checked, and you clicked on an anchor point, then that anchor point would be deleted.

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03



211

Convert Point Tool This tool performs exactly the same as if you have held the ctrl or command key in the pen tool. What it does is it edits and move the point that you click on. Suppose you want to move a point in your path. You can do it with this tool, and also you can edit the point by creating handles by dragging from that point. After saying all this, I’d recommend using the regular pen tool and pressing the respective keys.

How to Save a Path If you create a new path without saving the previous one, then the last path would be deleted. To prevent that, you can do a simple thing. Open the paths window(If you do not have it, then go to Windows > Paths), and you would see a “work path”. You just need to rename this path, in order to save it. You can name this path whatever you want. Whenever you create a new path photoshop keeps it as a “work path”. And when you create another path, the previous path would get deleted. And the latest path would be named “work path”. So renaming it, saves it.

What I Recommend? You might be overwhelmed by looking at so many tools in the group of pen tool! But calm down. I have got you covered. I’d recommend you to stick with the regular pen tool as it would give you the ultimate control. Just make sure that you know the right options to select, and the shortcuts. I am going to help you revise that too. So, remember to check the ‘Auto Add/Delete’ option. This would enable you to create or delete anchor points without going to the delete anchor point tool or the add anchor point tool. To delete an anchor point you’d just need to click that anchor point. And to add an anchor point, you can click on the part of the path where you want another anchor point.

Photoshop from Scratch



212

If you’d move or edit any anchor point you can do so by pressing and holding ctrl or command, and then you can drag and edit the anchor point. You can also break the handle by the alt or option key and dragging the point to the desired position. You might be thinking that why would you ever need to break handles? Well, that is because the anchor point has two handles, and each of them handles different curves. So sometimes you want to affect only one curve, at that time you will need to break the handles. Breaking any handle would result in you having full control of one specific curve/handle.

Horizontal Type Tool

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03



213

The Horizontal type tool is used for typing horizontally(Surprise surprise). The shortcut key for this tool is ‘T’. You can click anywhere in your image with this tool selected, and then you can type whatever you want. You can also create a text box by dragging and making a rectangle. Text box might be helpful to you if you want to type in a constrained area, meaning your text should not go outside a certain limit. For example, when I designed the cover for this book. I created a text box for the title so that if I even increase the font size just a tat bit, it would go out of the text box, and I would know it. Hence, I would be able to correct it. All of this is because the front cover’s text should not expel out certain boundaries. The text should fit inside the front cover, if it goes out, Amazon would not let me publish it. According to me, the text box approach is better, but if you want convenience then you should click anywhere on the canvas and type as much as you want. Whenever you would use this tool and type, then you need to click a tick icon to accept changes.

Click this to accept changes Click this to go back reject changes

Photoshop from Scratch



214

Here in this example, I clicked on the center of the layer and as you can see that my text is expelled out. The original text is “Deep Kumawat is an author!!!”

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03



This time I created a text box, and as you can see, the text was not able to fit inside it. This tells me that either I have to increase the size of the text box or reduce the font size of the text. I like text boxes over the clicking method because text boxes give you more control over where your text would be.

215

Photoshop from Scratch



216

I expanded the text box and now you can see that the text is visible.

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03

Choose any font

Font size



217

Choose the font type

Font look

Align left

Font color

Align centre

Align centre

Photoshop from Scratch



218

Warp text Character panel

Make 3D text

• Warp Text:- You can wrap text into many shapes. Click the warp text icon and select the shape that you want to it warp to. You can get really creative with this option. • Character Panel:- You can control each and everything about the text that you are typing in this window. • Make 3D Text:- We are not going to cover 3D in this book, but just for information, you can convert your text into 3D text just by clicking this button.

Vertical Type Tool The vertical type has the same option as the horizontal type tool. The only difference between these two tools is the orientation of typing.

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03



219

Vertical Type Mask Tool This tool allows you to make masks out of the vertical text. Whenever you’d type something using this tool, you’d not see the text, but you’d see the selection of the text. With this selection, you can create a mask. All the option on the options bar is the same as the other two tools.

Horizontal Type Mask Tool This is the exact copy of the previous tool but only the orientations different.

Path Selection Tool As the name suggests, this tool allows you to select paths. By selecting this tool, you can move your path.

Photoshop from Scratch



220

Direct Selection Tool You can edit the paths with this tool and if you want you can select this tool by pressing ctrl or command while the path selection tool is selected.

Rectangle Tool

You can create rectangles with it! (surprise surprise). This tool is quite simple and straight forward.

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03



221

Modes:- You can select from three modes, and they are shape, path, and pixels. Shape mode draws a shape, and path mode creates paths. The pixels mode make a rectangle of the fill color the same as the foreground color. All the other shape tools are the same, the only difference is well the shape itself, but the options and functionality are the same.

Hand Tool

The hand tool allows you to move around the canvas. You can also do it by pressing and holding the space-bar key and dragging when you would release the space-bar. You will be back to the tool that you selected previously. So, I recommend using this shortcut.

Photoshop from Scratch



222

Rotate View Tool You can use this tool for rotating your view. You might think that this tool is of no use. Why would anybody want to rotate their canvas? Well, I do so! I do it for using the brush tool. Often I am not comfortable making a stroke in a particular direction. So, I use the rotate view tool to do so. The shortcut key for this tool is ‘R’.

Zoom Tool

The zoom tool allows you to zoom in and out on the canvas. It’s a useful tool, but I never use it directly! It is because I use a shortcut, and that shortcut is ctrl + space-bar or command + space-bar. With the shortcut, you can zoom in and out easily. You can drag your cursor

Chapter - 05 Tools Part - 03



223

right to zoom in and left to zoom out. And the best part is that after you lift off both the keys, you would be back to the tool which was selected previously. Hey, we have covered all the tools! Now I can say that you have almost master photoshop!

225

Chapter - 06 Some Basic Things

• • • • •

Opacity Fill Difference Between Opacity and Fill Masks How to Separate Subject from the Background. • Clipping Masks • Modify Selection • How to Create Custom Shapes.

Chapter - 06 Some Basic Things

Chapter 06



227

Some Basic Things

Opacity Opacity refers to the transparency of the layer. If the layer has 100% opacity, it would be visibly completely, and if the layer opacity 0%, then it would be invisible completely. Opacity is normally used to adjust the strength of an effect or layer.

Fill Fill only controls the color’s opacity. Now you might think that every image has colors! So, what is the difference between opacity and fill?

Difference Between Fill and Opacity Opacity controls the transparency of everything contained in that layer i.e. all effects and everything. Whereas fill controls the

Photoshop from Scratch



228

amount of color contained in that layer. It would not medal with the effects applied to the layer, just the original bare layer itself. I know you are still confused, so let me explain it to you with help of an example. To explain this, I would show you an image that has two layers. The first is a background layer, and the layer above it is a layer of text and, that text has a drop shadow(you can learn more about the drop in page number ).

This is the example image with Opacity and Fill at 100%

Chapter - 06 Some Basic Things



This is the example image with Opacity 0% and fill 100%

This is the example image with Fill 0%

The conclusion is that fill keeps the effects untouched but opacity does not!

229

Photoshop from Scratch



230

How to Separate Subject from The Background There can be two approaches to executing this. The first would be removing the background completely from the image The second approach could be hiding the background with a mask. I like the second approach as it is non-destructive. To separate the subject from the background, we need to select one of those. After selecting one of those clicks on the mask button. You will see that the area that you selected is visible, but the area which was not selected is not visible. You might be thinking that what if you selected the background instead of the subject, as I asked you to select one of those. If you do so, just press the shortcut ctrl + I or command + I. This shortcut would invert your mask. So, suppose you selected the background and created a mask, then after inverting it, you would see that the subject is showing up and the background is hidden. The key is to select the one which is easier, background, or the subject. If you do not want to use the shortcut you can also go to Image > adjustments > Invert. Masks are non-destructive because you can always paint white in the areas that you need, and then you will have them. Now let’s move to the destructive stuff! So, in this technique, the background would be removed from the image not hidden. For this technique, it is necessary to have the layer rasterized, because you are deleting the pixels. So, select the subject or the background. If you have selected the subject then press ctrl + shift + I or command + shift + I to invert the selection. You can also do it by going to select > inverse. Now, just press the delete key on the keyboard! You will find that the background is deleted. If you find any mistake in the selection after deleting the background go back by pressing ctrl + Z or Command + Z or else go to edit > Undo.

Chapter - 06 Some Basic Things



231

Clipping Mask To understand it better, let’s break these words apart. So, let’s start with what we are already familiar with, which is ‘Mask’. They help you hide or show a certain part of an image. ‘Clipping’ means to attach something to some other thing. Let me make it clear to you with an example. You can use any image for this example, it doesn’t matter.

This is the background image

This is the text layer

Photoshop from Scratch



232

This is how my layer panel looks

So, now I want to create a clipping mask of the background layer so that it clips(limits) itself to the layer below it, which is the text layer. The desired result is the background layer should only be visible where the text layer is visible.

Chapter - 06 Some Basic Things



This is what you will see when would right click on a layer

233

Photoshop from Scratch



234

You can also create a clipping mask by pressing and holding alt or option and then clicking the line between the two layers. According to the example above, you would need to click the line between the ‘background’ layer and ‘This is GREAT’ layer. When you will hover your courser while holding alt or option between two-layer your courser would change. Both the technique gives exactly the same result. It just comes down to personal preference.

This is the resultant image

This how my layers panel looks after creating the clipping mask. Notice the arrow on the left hand side of the background layer.

Chapter - 06 Some Basic Things



235

Modify Selection You can modify your selection as you want! And that is pretty easy too! So, let’s do it! You can modify your selection after creating it by going to the Select > Modify. Here, you will see five different options, and they are Border, Smooth, Expand, Contract, Feather. Let’s talk about them one by one. (In every option, you would get a dialog box to set the sizes)

This is my selection

• Border:- It will create a border form your selection

Photoshop from Scratch



Border dialog box

Selection after modifying

236

Chapter - 06 Some Basic Things



237

• Smooth:- It smooths your selection. It really helps when you are using the magic wand tool as it has rough selections. The image used is included in the sample images file.

Magic wand tool selection with tolerance at 10 without smoothing

Smooth selection dialog box

Photoshop from Scratch



238

Selection with 50 pixel smoothing applied

In the above example, you can see that the smoothing option really smooths the rough selections. • Expand:- This is used to expand your selection by a number of pixels.

Expand Dialog box

Chapter - 06 Some Basic Things



239

Selection expanded by 100 pixels

• Contract:- This is exactly opposite to the expand option. This contract the selection.

Contract dialog box

Photoshop from Scratch



240

The selection in previous image is contracted by 200 pixels

• Feather:- This is like smoothing, but it interferes more with the curves of the selection as compared to smooth. There is a shortcut for this tool, and that is shift + F6.

Chapter - 06 Some Basic Things



241

This selection is feathered by 20 pixels

How to Create Custom Shapes Creating custom shapes could be very useful. Suppose you always need the shape of a road. Theoretically, you can create it by the pen tool easily every time but would you? So, here comes photoshop for the rescue! Photoshop allows you to create custom shapes and save them so that you can use them easily whenever you want. Let’s learn how to create them. • Create a path:- Create a path with the pen tool for your shape. For

Photoshop from Scratch



242

this, after creating the path, click the shape button in the options bar of the pen tool

The menu that will appear after right clicking the shape

Chapter - 06 Some Basic Things



243

Click on the ‘Define Custom Shape...’ option to create a custom shape.

This is the dialog box which would appear after you would click the ‘Define Custom Shape...’ button.

Here in this dialog box, you give your shape a name and finally create it by pressing ‘OK’. Now, to use that shape, you can go to the custom shape tool and use that shape.

Photoshop from Scratch



244

245

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Layer Adjustments Brightness Contrast Levels Curves Exposure Vibrance Hue/Saturation Color Balance Black and White Photo Filter Channel Mixer Color Lookup Invert Posterize Threshold Gradient Map Selective Color

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

Chapter 07

247

Layer Adjustments

Layer Adjustments Layer adjustments allow you to make the layer look a certain way. That means you can change the colors, tones, and almost every aspect of the look of the layer. Photoshop gives 22 layer adjustments. These 22 layer adjustments are divided into five groups, which are separated by a line. Here in this book, we are gonna know about the first three sections. You can use these adjustments by going to Image > Adjustments.

Brightness/Contrast This layer adjustment helps you control the brightness and the contrast of an image. It’s pretty simple!

Photoshop from Scratch

248

Brightness/Contrast dialog box

Levels This layer adjustment has a shortcut, ctrl + L, or command + L. Don’t get overwhelmed by these many options. It’s pretty simple. Let’s break it down! • Preset:- Here you can choose from photoshop’s own inbuilt presets. • Channel:- Here you can choose the channel that you want to target. You can choose from RGB, Red, Blue, and Green. From these three, the RGB channel controls the brightness. And by selecting the different channels, you can target individual colors.

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

249

3 1

2

Levels adjustment layer dialog box

• Input levels:- The input level shows you a graph. This graph is here for you to know how many pixels are in which areas. To clearly understanding what I am trying to say, you need to know the three sliders below the graph. Notice the color of the sliders. The first is black, the second is gray, and the third one is white. That means the black marker controls the black parts of the image or in photoshop way “Shadows”, the gray marker controls “Midtones” and the white marker controls the bright parts AKA “Highlights”. So, with these markers, when you would increase the value inside the box, you actually making brighter pixels look dark. For example, the sample color of any area with the eyedropper tool, which is close

Photoshop from Scratch

250

to black but not completely black. After you have sampled the color, go to the color picker by clicking the two squares, one above the other residing below the toolbar. You can control all aspects of an image. Moving the markers to the right darkens and, moving them to the left brightens. I am going to dig deeper into input levels and going to explain it by examples. But if even then, if you don’t understand, then read and practice with me again. Make sure to follow along. Open the image for levels from the sample images file into the new Photoshop document. Duplicate the background layer and make it a smart object. So, let’s start! The first slider(1) allows you to control shadows. When you would move it to the right, it would make the image darker. You can also see three boxes beneath the graph. Whenever you would slider the three sliders, you would see the values on side those box changes. We would talk about the first box first. In the previous screenshot, you can see that it has a value of 0. The value 0 means that the areas with 0 level of brightness would be completely black.

The dot shows the area which I sampled

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

251

The highlighted part is showing the Brightness of the color In the color picker, you need to look for Brightness. Note the Brightness value. In this example, it was 13%. Now, we would do some math here. We can see the brightness value in the percentage here in the color picker. We need to convert it into a number ranging from 0 to 255, which is total. To obtain a number between that range, we would divide 13 by 100 and then multiply it to 255. This would give us 33.15. We needed to do this conversion because the levels adjustment input levels take in only these numbers ranging from 0 to 255. Now, we would enter the value that we got into the first box(which represents shadows). I entered 34, just because you cannot enter decimal values. Now, resample the color of the exact same spot. We would get 100% black. So, what does it all mean? It means that whatever value of brightness entered would be converted to 0% brightness, and everything between that number that you entered(in this case 34) and 255, would be darkened.

Similarly, for highlights whatever, brightness level you would

Photoshop from Scratch

252

enter would become 255 or 100% white, and the rest in between would get brightened. You should try it for yourself and experiment with it to make it clear. • Output Levels:- This controls the overall brightness of the image. You can see that it ranges from 0 to 255. As you would move the slider towards 255(AKA right side), the image would become brighter. Similarly, as you would move the slider towards 0(AKA left side), the image would get darker.

Curves This is just levels on steroids. Curves are just an advanced version of levels. The shortcut key for this is Ctrl + M or command + M. Let’s break it down and understand it! (Figures on page number 124 and 125) • Presets:- You can choose from photoshop’s own presets if you want. • Channel:- This is the same as the levels layer adjustment. So, I am not going to repeat it:) • Input and out put values:- Think of the two gradient bars alongside the graph as the scale of colors forms 0 to 255. You know that 0 means black and 255 means white. So, if you will change the input value to suppose 251(almost white), and the output value is 0(complete black) then all the pixels in the image which are between 0 and 251 will turn their value to 0(black). This is the same as the levels layer adjustment. So, I am not going to repeat it:)

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

253

Point 2

255 Point 1

0

0

255

Dialog box of curves layer adjustment 1

Photoshop from Scratch

Dialog box of curves layer adjustment 2

254

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

Input value at 251

255

Photoshop from Scratch

256

Original Image

Image after input value at 251 and out put value at 0

We would understand the curves adjustments with this example. You can see that almost the whole image went black due to the

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

257

curves adjustments. This is because most of the pixels were between 0 and 251. The white parts which are still visible in the image are above 251 as we had 251 in our input value, and because of having the value between 251 and 255, they appear white. • Graph:- You can see the graph has a diagonal line. This line the ultimate control. Sorry for being dramatic:) This line controls all

Photoshop from Scratch

258

the adjustments. You can create various points in the line to edit the line from that location. The figure that I showed you has two points. These points can be used for controlling different areas of an image. Think of the graph as the representation of highlights, shadows, and mid-tones of the image. The area, where point 1 is the dark area and point 2 is the light area, and the parts between them are the parts of mid-tones. The diagonal line that you are seeing right now on the previous figure on the graph represents the pixels in the image from 0 to 255. If you would hover your cursor over that diagonal line, you will notice that the input values are changing. This is the reason why the bottom part controls the shadows, the middle part controls the mid-tones, and the top part controls the highlights. Now the question is how you would use this layer adjustment for your advantage. Well, it is easy! Click anywhere you want on the diagonal line and move it. The principal is that when you click, you create a point on the line, and when you would move that point upwards it would lighten the pixels, and when you would drag it down, it would darken the pixels. This happens because moving the point results in changing the output numbers. Hence, the pixels change their value to the output number. (The best way to know this layer adjustment is to play with it!) The figure that you are seeing in your right is a curves layer adjustment, which I have created to brighten up an image. You can see here that the point on the diagonal line is upwards, and the output level is more than the input level. This is a complex way to say that this is brightening up the pixels.

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

259

Photoshop from Scratch

260

Original Image

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

Image with curves layer adjustment on page 245

261

Photoshop from Scratch

262

The image is darkened using the curves layer adjustment in the left

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

This curves layer adjustment is darkening the previous image

263

Photoshop from Scratch

•

264

Show Clipping:- Well, clipping means loss of detail. So, it’s clear that when this option is checked, it would show us which areas are clipped(lost details). This would show you some artifacts, and the area which has the artifacts are the areas that are losing details.

This is showing the clipping(you might not see it in print)

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

You can also do it by pressing and holding alt or option.

Original image

265

Photoshop from Scratch

266

• Show Amount of:- Here you can choose from Light and Pigment/ Ink. Default is light, and if you will choose Pigment/Ink, then everything would be the opposite. If you would drag a point downwards, it would brighten pixels, and if you would drag it upwards it would darken.

Exposure Exposure layer adjustment allows you to control the exposure, offset and gamma correction. If you are dealing with RAW images then with this layer adjustment, you would be able to change your exposure after you have clicked your photo.

Vibrance Vibrance is the saturation of dull colors and it really helps your image to pop.

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

267

Hue/Saturation This layer adjustment controls the hue and saturation of an image. Now, you might ask that the saturation option is there in the vibrance layer adjustment too. So, why should I use it? The answer is simple, saturation option is more powerful in hue/saturation layer adjustment than in the vibrance. This layer adjustment also gives you control over the hue and lightness of the image. The shortcut key for this tool is Ctrl + U or command + U.

Photoshop from Scratch

268

Hand Tool

Input

Output

• Master:- You can choose various specific colors to target. • Hand Tool:- This tool helps you to select a range of colors. Select this tool and then click anywhere in your image, and it will take a color range. • You can see two color bars at the bottom. The first one in the input bar and the second one is the output bar. Let’s go in-depth!

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

269

Range markers

Transition markers

This is a color range selected by the pen tool

When you create a range with the hand tool you can edit it also. You have two sets of markers. The first is the range markers. With these markers, you can select how much big the range would be. Then next are the transition markers. These markers decide the transition between colors. The more the transition, the smoother it looks.

Photoshop from Scratch

Input output bar example

270

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

Original image

271

Photoshop from Scratch

Image after layer adjustment

272

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

273

In this example, you can see that the area above the selected color range on the input bar had blue in it where the color range marker was. And then I moved if to a place where the area below the range markers had yellow on the output bar. Because of this, the car turned yellow. What happened here was that the blues(input bar) changed into yellows. • Colorize:- It just gives color to your entire image, and you can customize that color with Hue/Saturation layer adjustment.

Hue/saturation Layer Adjustment for giving a purple look

Notice that the input bar has every color but the output bar has only purple. This is means that every color would be converted to purple.

Photoshop from Scratch

274

Image after Hue/Saturation Layer Adjustment

Example 3: Do you remember that when we were learning about the Color Replacement Tool, I said that there is a better way to change colors rather than using it? Well, this is it! With Hue/Saturation Layer Adjustment, you can do this easily. Let’s do it step by step. • Open the original image(it would be in the Color Replacement Tool folder) into a new photoshop document. • Duplicate the background layer. • Convert it into a smart object.

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

275

• Go to image > adjustments > Hue/Saturation. • You should now see the Hue/Saturation dialog box. • Turn the saturation and hue to its maximum, which is +100 and +180 respectively. • You would see that your image is now just a hot pile of garbage. • Don’t worry. We will fix that later • Move the dialog box such that you could see the image clearly.

That’s what I’m talking about. Move the dialog box such that you can see what you are doing. • Click on the hand tool. • Double click on the area whose color you want to change. In this case, we need to double click on her dress.

Photoshop from Scratch

276

After double clicking, you should see these sliders between the input and output bar. • Now drag the outer sliders(which were circled in the previous image) close to each other, and make it look like as shown in the image below.

like this

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

277

After the previos step, the image looks like this.

• Move the slider such that the color of the dress is changed. See the next screenshot to get an idea.

Photoshop from Scratch

278

You can see that I moved the slider, and that resulted in a color change of her dress. You don’t need to worry about which color it changes into. You can change that later. Just make sure to move as such most of the dress’s color has changed.

• Now take those sliders apart. Refer to the next screenshots.

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

279

This is what I did. The outer two sliders just smoothen the transition between changed and unchanged colors. The inner two sliders control which color to change. You don’t need to worry about it changing the color of the areas that you don’t want it to. For example, in this screenshot itself, you can see that the color of parts of her face and hands are changed, even though I don’t want it to. You don’t need to worry because we are going to change it later with masking. You just need to make it as close as possible. You’d get the hang of it after experimenting with it.

• Now turn the saturation to 0. • Set the hue such the color turn to the one which you want. In simpler words, just slide the hue slider and stop wherever you see your desired color. Set the lightness if you want. • See my result in the next screenshot.

Photoshop from Scratch

280

This is what I got. You can see my settings in the next screenshot.

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

281

These are my settings

• Press the OK button. • Now make a mask on the layer on which you applied this layer adjustment. • Select the brush tool. • Select black as your foreground color. • Paint the the areas with black wherever you don’t want the color change. Here I would pant on her face and hands.

Photoshop from Scratch

282

Result!!!! This definatly looks better than what I got after using the color replacement tool.

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

283

Color Balance Color balance layer adjustment helps you adjust individual tones separately. This means you can edit mid-tones, highlights, and shadows separately. This layer adjustment is curves on sliders. So, the only specialty of this layer adjustment is that you can preserve luminosity in it. You can see a check box which says, ‘Preserve Luminosity’. If you would check it on, then the brightness levels of the colors would remain the same no matter how much you edit. You might think, what am I trying to say? The thing is that if you are using curves for editing, then it would mess up with the brightness levels, but if the preserve luminosity check box is checked, then it would not mess with it. Now, you might think that, why should you use curves? The answer is simple curves give you better control, and not all the time you want to preserve luminosity.

Color balance layer adjustment dialog box.

Photoshop from Scratch

284

Example: Open the image for the color balance adjustment layer into a new photoshop document. Duplicate the layer and convert it into a smart object. • Go to image > Adjustments > Color Balance.

My adjustments

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

Original Image

285

Photoshop from Scratch

286

This is how the image looks like after the Color Balance Layer Adjustment

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

287

As you can see that after the Color Balance layer Adjustment the image looks a lot moodier(if that’s a word). I love how those highlights look so red. Let’s see what happened in this example. So, the first slider was for Cyan and Red. I moved it towards red. What does that do? The answer is that it reduces cyan, and increases Reds in mid-tones(as mid-tones were selected) of the image. Cyan and red are both complementary colors to each other. This means that if you would decrease one then the other would increase. Because of this, when I moved the slider towards the right, which is towards red, I increased Reds and decreased Cyan. You can see in the original image that the sky was cyan a bit. But after Color Balance Layer Adjustment, Reds increased, and Cyans reduced from the sky. Similarly, for the Yellow and Blue slider, I moved it towards the right which is towards blue, as I wanted some blue in the image to make it look more natural. You can see that the image turned out pretty well, but I don’t like the red shadows of the boats. Shadows should be bluish. So, this time we would select Shadows in the Color Balance Dialog box(last time we selected mid-tones)

This is the Color Balance Layer Adjustment dialog box after editing for making the shadows bluish

Photoshop from Scratch

This is how the image turned out to be

288

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

289

Black & White This layer adjustment allows you to create stunning black & white images. Basically, this layer adjustment gives you controls on every single color. Now, you might be thinking that this makes an image black and white. So how does it affect other colors? What this layer adjustment does is that when you edit any color from it just increases or decreases the brightness of that color.

Photoshop from Scratch

290

Original Image

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

Created this with black and white layer adjustment

291

Photoshop from Scratch

This is Black and White layer adjustment that I used

292

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

293

You can see in this example that I have given the value of cyan and blue very high, and that is because the car is bluish, and I wanted it to look white. So, increasing the values of cyan and blue, which gave me brightness(after all 100% brightness is white). Then I wanted the background to be dark. So I reduced the values of the colors which were in the background to make them darker.

Photo Filter The photo filter gives you a tone of a specific color in your image. For example, if I want a cold tone in my image, I would give a photo filter of blue color. See the below example:-

Photoshop from Scratch

294

Final image

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

295

In the photo filter dialog box, you can choose from filter and color options. I have shown you the color option in the example but you can also use the filter option where you can choose from various different predefined filters available in photoshop.

Channel Mixer As the name suggests, this layer adjustment mixes the channels. This means that you can apply different colors to specify a color. For example, with this layer adjustment, I can apply green to any red area. That’s pretty cool! In the upcoming example, I am going to show you how I will turn the blue car into red! But first, let’s break it down and understand it. The example image is included in the sample images file. • Output channel:- This means which channel would be affected. • Source Channels:- Here you get three channels to use in the target channel. This means that from these sliders, you are going to insert colors in the output channel. For example, if you want to add green where it is red, then you can select the output channel as red, and in the source channel, you can bump up the greens, and it would increase greens. • Total:- This is the total value of colors. As a default, it shows 100%. If it exceeds 100%, then it means that you are adding colors to the image which were not there. If it is lower than 100%, then it means that you have subtracted colors from the original image. • Constant:- It means the overall color content of the target channel. If you have selected red as the output channel, then constant controls the overall content of red in the image. • Monochrome:- By checking on this option, you convert the image to black and white, and the RGB sliders would just control the brightness of each color.

Photoshop from Scratch

296

Example image

This is the image when I reduced reds in the red channel

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

This how is how I converted the red rectangle into black

297

Photoshop from Scratch

Channel mixer dialog box

298

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

Channel mixer setting I used in the red channel for this example

299

Photoshop from Scratch

Image after channel mixer layer adjustment

300

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

Channel mixer setting I used in the blue channel for this example

301

Photoshop from Scratch

302

Color Lookup Color lookup layer adjustment allows you to use color lookup tables in photoshop. Color lookup tables are also called LUTs. Now, think of LUTs as filters that you get on Instagram. This means you can use these filters to make your image look a certain way.

Color lookup dialog box

By default 3DLUT File would be checked. If you’d click the dropdown menu, you will get to choose from various different LUTs included with photoshop. You can get more LUTs on the internet. Example: Open any image in a photoshop document(any image doesn’t matter). • Convert the layer into a smart object. • Go to image > Adjustments > Color Lookup. • Click the “ Load 3D LUT... “ drop down menu. • Choose any of them. • Try each and everyone if you want.

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

303

Invert As the name suggests, it inverts everything. This means if you use invert layer adjustment on any layer, then it inverts its colors. You can also use this on layer masks. I suggest using the shortcut of this layer adjustment which, is ctrl + I or command + I.

Original image

Photoshop from Scratch

304

Image after invert layer adjustment

Posterize Posterize layer adjustment allows you to create a paster type look. This layer adjustment gives you just one slider, which decides how much of a poster look you would get. The lower the value, the more the poster type look.

Posterize dialog box

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

Original image

Posterized image with value 4

305

Photoshop from Scratch

306

Threshold

Threshold coverts any image into 100% white and 100% black.

Threshold dialog box

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

307

Image after threshold value 128

Gradient Map As the name suggests, the gradient map maps the gradient to an image. This means that this layer adjustment helps you locate colors to specific brightness levels. For example, you want a specific color for brightness location 0 to 50 on a scale of 100. And then you want another color 70 to 100.

Photoshop from Scratch

308

Gradient Map dialog box

You can click the drop-down menu of the gradient bar and choose yo desired gradient, or else if you want, you can create another new gradient by clicking the gradient bar.

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

Gradient Editor dialog box for the black and white gradient

309

Photoshop from Scratch

310

Image after black and white gradient map

With the help of the location option, you can define where the color would be. Here is an example where the location of 100% black is at location 0. This means that anything which is of brightness level 0 would of the defined color of the marker which 100% black in this case. As the value of location increases black turns into white. So, with this layer adjustment, you can give colors with respect to the brightness levels.

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

311

This image has black on the location 50

The image you can see above has the black color at the location of 50%. This means that every color below brightness 50% would be black and would get brighter if it is brighter than 50%.

Selective Color As the name suggests, this layer adjustment helps you edit individual colors at a time. This layer adjustment is awesome. You can do some serious color grading with this layer adjustment.

Photoshop from Scratch

312

Selective Color layer adjustment dialog box



Here, you can see that you have four sliders Cyan, Magenta, Yel-

low, and Black. These are sliders through which you can edit any specif-

ic color.

• Colors:- Here you can define any target color. Target color means the color that you want to edit through the four sliders. • Method:- You can choose from Relative and Absolute methods. The difference between these two is simple absolute is more powerful than relative.

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

Original image

313

Photoshop from Scratch

Image after Selective Color Layer Adjustment

314

Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments

315

This is how the Selective Color Layer Adjustment dialog box looks like after my editing for this example

In this example, you can see that if have selected yellow as my target channel, and I have set black at -100%. This makes the yellows lighter. Similarly, you can target any color and add or subtract other colors from it to edit them.

317

Chapter - 08 Some Advanced Things

• Adjustment Layers • Custom Keyboard Shortcut • How to Apply Blur Non-Destructively • How to Apply Sharpening Non-Destructively • Quick Mask • Color Range • Layer Style

Chapter - 08 Some Advanced Things

Chapter 08



319

Some Advanced Things

Adjustment Layers You have mastered layer adjustments now! So, it’s time to know what are the adjustment layer. As the name suggests, the adjustment layer means a layer, which does some adjustments. The difference between layer adjustment and adjustment layer is that unlike the layer adjustment, an adjustment layer is a separate layer on the layers panel. This makes the adjustment layers nondestructive because you can change values any time you want by click on the layer icon. The thing is that layer adjustment helps you to keep the size of the document low.

This is how an adjustment layer looks like

Photoshop from Scratch



320

Creating an adjustment layer is easy. Just go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > (Choose your adjustment Layer), or else you, can click the icon shown in the figure below to open any adjustment layer. Whenever you want to change the values, you can click on the adjust-

This the icon from where you can open any adjustment layer

ment layer icon, and then it would open in the properties window. The white rectangle that, you are looking at besides the adjustment layer is a mask an adjustment layer comes free with a mask.

Chapter - 08 Some Advanced Things



321

Custom Keyboard Shortcuts Yes! You can create your own keyboard shortcuts in photoshop. Its very simple just go to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts or use the shortcut ctrl + shift + alt + K or command + shift + option + K. Keyboard shortcuts dialog box will open.

Keyboard Shortcuts dialog box

You can create a custom shortcut of almost anything in this window. For example, let’s create a custom shortcut for the color balance adjustment layer. Choose ‘Application Menu’ from ‘Shortcuts For’, then

Photoshop from Scratch



322

navigate to the color balance adjustment layer and then click color balance. Now, you can type any shortcut key that you desire. After that, you can click Accept. If the shortcut key that you typed is already in use with another function, it will show you a warning. If you will click ‘Accept’ then, the shortcut would be removed from the previous function and would be applied to the new function, you just created.

How to Apply Blur Non-Destructively You have seen how to apply blur with the blur tool but the catch is it is a destructive way. The non-destructive way of doing it is by applying a smart filter. To do so first convert your layer into a smart object and then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur (You can play with various different types of blurs in this blur group). Now you will see the Gaussian blur dialog box. Here, you get the radius slider, as you increase the radius, the area where the blur would affect would increase.

Chapter - 08 Some Advanced Things



323

Gaussian Blur dialog box

How to Apply Sharpening Non-Destructively Applying to sharpen is not as simple as applying blur. For this, you need to make a copy of the layer. Then make it a smart object. Now, go to Filter > Other > High Pass. Now choose the sharpening that you want. Now, change the blending of the layer to overlay.

Photoshop from Scratch



324

High Pass dialog box

Quick Mask Quick mask mode helps you create selections with the brush tool. You can click on its icon, or else you can press ‘Q’. Select the brush tool and paint in the areas that you don’t want to be selected. Now, exit the quick mask mode by pressing ‘Q’ or by clicking on its icon. Now you will have a selection.

Chapter - 08 Some Advanced Things



325

Quick Mask Icon

Quick Mask icon

Color Range The color range allows you to create a selection based on colors. You can open the color range dialog box by going to Select > Color Range.

Photoshop from Scratch



326

Add colors

Subtract Colors

Color Range dialog box

Chapter - 08 Some Advanced Things



327

If you have selected ‘sampled colors’, you can sample colors from the image then, it would select those colors. The other option is that you can also select individual colors. Suppose you selected red, then the color range would select everything red in your image. There is one awesome feature in the color range which is called ’Skin Tones’. You can select it in the drop-down menu of ‘Select’. It will select the skin tone in the image. Now, let’s understand the black and white image that you are seeing. This is the visual representation of the selection that you have made. Here whit is the areas that are selected, and black are the areas that are not selected. You also have a range, and fuzziness slider fuzziness means the transition between the areas which are selected and the areas which are not selected. The range slider controls the overall range of selected colors. Another option available;l is invert. This inverts the selection. For previewing your selection better, you can choose from various options in the ‘Selection Previews’ drop-down menu.

Layer Styles Layer styles help you to give style to any layer. You can give drop shadow, stroke, bevel & emboss, etc. You can open the layer styles dialog box by double-clicking the right side of the layer.



328

Layer Styles dialog box

Photoshop from Scratch

Chapter - 08 Some Advanced Things





Here, you get various different options:-

• Bevel & Emboss:- This used to give dimensions to the layer.

Bevel & Emboss dialog box

329

Photoshop from Scratch



• Stroke:- This gives an outline to the image.

Stroke dialog box

330

Chapter - 08 Some Advanced Things



331

• Inner Shadow:- This gives you a shadow type effect on the outline of the image.

Inner Shadow dialog box

Example image

Photoshop from Scratch



After Inner Shadow

• Inner Glow:- This is just like inner shadow with white color.

332

Chapter - 08 Some Advanced Things

Inner Glow dialog box



333

Photoshop from Scratch



334

• Satin:- As the name suggests it gives a satin look to the image.

Satin dialog box

• You can give a color overlay to any image. This means that any color of your choice would be applied to the image.

Chapter - 08 Some Advanced Things



335

• Gradient Overlay:- This is similar to the color overlay, but the difference is it overlays gradient instead of color.

Gradient Overlay dialog box

• Pattern Overlay:- It is also similar to the color overlay, but instead, it has a pattern.

Photoshop from Scratch



336

Pattern Overlay dialog box

• Outer Glow:- This creates an outline of bright color(generally white), which is very soft and feathered.

Chapter - 08 Some Advanced Things



337

Outer Glow dialog box

• Drop shadow:- It gives a shadow to your image. By giving this effect, the subject seems to pop out of the canvas.

Photoshop from Scratch



Drop Shadow dialog box

338

Chapter - 08 Some Advanced Things



339

Properties Tab Properties tab is available for every layer. It is a very important tab as it gives you total control over the layer. Let’s look at an example and master it!

Fixes the aspect ratio of the image

Transparency and grid options

Show\Hide Grids

Properties tab for background layer

Photoshop from Scratch



340

If you have read this book completely up until now, you would understand every option in this properties tab. But I will teach you this in detail anyway because, for some readers, some options might be confusing.

Canvas: Here you can tweak the dimensions, orientation, color mode, bit rate, and fill with the image. Rulers and Grids: You can customize the rulers and grids here. The first button would enable or disable the rulers. The second one would do the same for the grids, but The third one would let you customize the grid. The drop-down menu next to it just lets you choose the measuring unit. Guides: The first button is to hide or show the guides. Well, alternatively, you can also use the shortcut key Ctrl +; for windows and command +; on mac. The second button locks the guides. The third button enables or disables smart guides. Now before you wonder, smart guides are guides that connect to edges of objects automatically. The drop-down menu allows you to choose from a slid line or a broken line for the guide. Quick Actions: Image size, clicking this button, a dialog box for image size would open up(snapshot of the image size dialog box is on the next page). The second button is for cropping. The third button is for trim. Trim allows you to trim out any area around the image which is colored or transparent. I would rather recommend you use the crop tool for this instead. The last one is to Rotate. Well, it is self-explanatory. The image of the rotate dialog box is given on the next page.

Chapter - 08 Some Advanced Things

Image size dialog box

Rotate dialog box



341

Photoshop from Scratch



342

Align and Distribute: you can use align for, obviously aligning something with respect to the canvas or a selection. Let’s dig deeper into it!

1

2

3

4

5

6

Align and distribute on properties tab



1) Align left edges 2) Align horizontal centers 3) Align right edges 4) Align top edges 5) Align vertical centers 6) Align bottom edges



To align an image with respect to the canvas, you will need to,

Chapter - 08 Some Advanced Things



343

first select the image. Then click on the button as per your requirement. To distribute, you’ll need more than two selected layers, each on different layers. So, what it does is that it distributes all those images as per your requirement in the canvas. Just try them, and you will get the idea. 1) Distribute left edges 2) Distribute horizontal centers 3) Distribute right edges 4) Distribute top edges 5) Distribute vertical centers 6) Distribute bottom edges

Note from me for you! Congratulations, you made it! You successfully completed this book. Now, you are on a stage that you can learn anything more about photoshop fairly easily. Now, you are familiar with most of the technical terms used in photoshop and photo editing in general. I hope your journey with editing goes well!