Guide Few Words About Photoshop's Tools

[Morian]

Hello guys, I made this topic for tools, I think before start to use photoshop you must know what I can with one tool.

The tools is A-Z for photoshops users!

Let's Start, Few Words about photoshop's Tools

 

Move Tool (V)

The Photoshop Move tool lets you drag a selection or layer to a new location in the image or to other images. With the Info palette open, you can track the exact distance of the move. You can also use the Move tool to align selections and layers and distribute layers within an image.

 

  Tip:You can access Move tool by press (V) in your keyboard or within any tools you can use move tool by hold-down Ctrl(Windows) or Command(Mac) Keys. When hold-down Ctrl(Command) key your cursor will change to Move Cursor .

 

 

 

Marquee Tool (M)

The marquee tool et you select rectangles, ellipses, and 1-pixel rows and columns. By default, a selection border is dragged from its corner. Use this tool to make selections on your image, in a each shape.

You can select Marquee tool by press “M” or use Shift + M to switch between each Rectangular Marquee Tool and Elliptical Marquee Tool Or use Single Row Marquee Tool and Single Column Marquee Tool to make a 1px row or column selection.

 

Short Cuts:

 

When using any marquee tool, you can hold-down keyboard key while dragging mouse to make selection for perform specific option.

 

   * Shift+Drag: To constrain the marquee to a square or circle (release the mouse button before Shift to keep the shape constrained).With the Rectangle tool, the Rounded Rectangle tool, or the Elliptical Marquee tool.

   * Alt+Drag (Option for Mac): To start drag marquee from center (from corner by default).

   * Alt+Shift+Drag: To start drag selection form center and constrain to square.

   * Space-bar: Hold down space-bar while making selection (keep pressing mouse button) To reposition selection.

 

   Note: After you make section you can re-position it by move your cursor over your selection your cursor will change to .

 

 

 

Lasso Tool (L)

The Lasso tool and the Polygonal Lasso tool et you draw both straight-edged and freehand segments of a selection border. With the Magnetic Lasso tool the border snaps to the edges of defined areas in the image. The Magnetic Lasso tool is especially useful for quickly selecting objects with complex edges set against high-contrast backgrounds.

   Tip: While you are using Lasso tool you can hold-down Alt(Option) key to draw straight-edged. By press and hold-down Alt(option) and then release mouse button. Now you can click to draw straight selection edges as long as you hold-down Alt(option) key.

   To go back to draw free hand, just hold-down mouse button and release Alt(option) key. To close selection just release mouse button and Alt(Option) key.

 

Lasso Tool Option Short Cuts

 

If you already have selection in your picture you can use following key to perform Add, Subtract or Intersect. Press and hold the key before making selection. See Lasso tool option below for more detail for each operation..

 

   * Shift: To add area to current selection.

   * Alt: To remove area form current selection.

   * Alt+Shift: To select only overlap(intersected) area of your current selection with new selection area.

 

   Note: You may notice that when you hold down key your cross-hair cursor will change, form default depend on each operation. Add Subtract ntersect And also selection mode button in tool option bar will temporary switch to each mode depend on key pressing.

 

Magnetic Lasso Short-Cuts:

 

Following short-cuts are available for use with Magnetic Lasso tool only

 

   * Cap Lock: To change the lasso cursor to indicate the lasso width. Change the cursor while the tool is selected but not in use.

   * [ or ] :Press ] while creating a selection to increase the Magnetic Lasso edge width by 1 pixel. Press [ to decrease the width by 1 pixel.

 

 

 

Magic wand Tool (W)

The Magic Wand tool lets you select a area by color range without having to trace its outline. You can specify the color range, or tolerance, for the Magic Wand tool’s selection at tool’s option bar. Enter a low value to select the few colors very similar to the pixel you click, or enter a higher value to select a broader range of colors. To use Magic Wand tool, in the image, click the color you want to select.

 

   Note: You cannot use the Magic Wand tool on an image in Bitmap mode.

 

Magic Wand Tool Short Cuts

 

If you already have selection in your picture you can use following key to perform Add, Subtract or Intersect. Press and hold the key and click on color you want to select.

 

   * Shift+Click: To add area to current selection.

   * Alt+Click: To remove area form current selection.

   * Alt+Shift+Click: To select only overlap(intersected) area of your current selection with new selection area.

 

   Note: You may notice that when you hold down key your cursor will change, form default depend on each operation. Add Subtract Intersect And also selection mode button in tool option bar will temporary switch to each mode depend on key pressing.

 

 

Crop Tool ©

Crop Tool is just below the Lassoo tools. Cropping is the process of removing portions of an image to strengthen the composition,similarly we can crop an image using crop tool. We can increse & decrese the file size by this tool.

 

 

 

Slice Tool (K)

The slice tool allows you to create multiple images from one image or a layered Photoshop file. You can slice up the image using areas that you create using the slice tool or by using guides that you have applied. This allows you to save out images in preparation for the web very quickly. You can see what the Photoshop team were trying to do with this tool but unfortunately turning designs into XTHML and CSS is not quite so simple.

 

 

 

Spot Healing Brush Tool (J)

The Spot Healing Brush tool quickly removes blemishes and other imperfections in your photos. The Spot Healing Brush works similarly to the Healing Brush: it paints with sampled pixels from an image or pattern and matches the texture, lighting, transparency, and shading of the sampled pixels to the pixels being healed. Unlike the Healing Brush, the Spot Healing Brush doesn’t require you to specify a sample spot. The Spot Healing Brush automatically samples from around the retouched area.

 

 

 

Brush Tool (B)

You use the Brush tool to brush strokes with the current color, ink, and fill pattern. To select a different size and brush shape, you use the Brush Settings dialog box. The selections you make in the Brush Settings dialog box are assigned to the menu item in the pop-up menu and remain in effect until you change them. Each of the five settings in the pop-up menu can be defined so you can have several types of spray available without opening the Brush Settings dialog box.

 

 

 

Clone Stamp Tool (S)

The Clone Stamp tool generally use to cover up or smooth over imperfections area and also repair damaged images. It’s takes a sample of an image, which you can then apply over another image or part of the same image. You can also clone part of one Photoshop layer over another layer.

 

You can select brush for clone stamp tool just like other painting tool as well as adjusting brush shape brush dynamic or even create your own brush. If you’re new for Clone Stamp tool you may refer to the quick step of using Clone Stamp Tool below in this page and also at eyesondesign.com, there’re comprehensive tutorial about using Healing Brush and Patch Tool.

 

In Photoshop CS3 the Cloning and Healing have many new improvements, such as preview overlay, option to ignore adjustment layer and new sample mode. Moreover with photoshop CS3 you are now enable to clone with specify output scale and angle that you can set in the new Clone Source palette.

 

 

 

History Brush Tool (Y)

The history brush uses a previous state or snapshot of an image. The tool makes a copy of the image as it was in a previous state, then uses the content of this copy to paint with.

 

 

 

Eraser Tool (E)

The eraser tool shortcut is E. The standard eraser tool has four painting modes to choose from: paintbrush, airbrush, pencil, and block. These modes work just like their painting tool counterparts, except for the block tool, which as you can probably guess, is a simple square block. The difference is, instead of painting the foreground color onto your document, the eraser tool paints in transparency... Unless your layer is a background, in which case, the eraser tool paints with the current background color.

 

The eraser tool options are basically the same as the painting tools, with the addition of one new option: Erase to history. When you erase to history, it works just like the history brush. Instead of painting in transparency or the background color, you are painting from the active history state in the history palette. You can temporarily switch to Erase to History by holding the Alt/Option key down while the erase tool is active.

 

The Magic Eraser

The Magic Eraser works just like the magic wand, but instead of making a selection, it immediately converts the pixels to transparent. It's also very similar to using the paint bucket in clear mode. The areas to be erased are controlled by adjusting the tolerance and contiguous options. Clicking once erases all the the pixels that fall within the tolerance range. If the magic eraser is used on a background layer, the background is automatically promoted to a layer.

 

This tool is best for when you have a background that is fairly solid in color. It just takes one click with the magic eraser and your background is gone. In general, though, you'll need to experiment with the tolerance settings until you get better at being able to eyeball the correct tolerance level.

 

The Background Eraser

The background eraser also erases to transparency, but instead of using only the tolerance range, it continuously samples the background colors in your document as you erase. It's useful for backgrounds that have a range of colors in the background, but where the background colors are still distinct from the foreground object you want to isolate. It works best with a fairly large brush.

 

To use it you would position the crosshair over the color you want to be erased, and use a series of single clicks to eat away at the background, or slowly drag along the edges of the object you're trying to isolate.

 

The most important thing to remember with this tool is to be very careful to keep the crosshairs away from the object you want to keep. When using this tool, you may notice some bits of the foreground object becoming slightly transparent along the edges. You needn't be terribly concerned with this, because you can always paint those bits back in using the Erase to History option or the History Brush.

 

The background eraser is a great tool for quickly isolating an object, but it does have a tendency to leave stray translucent pixels in the background. You'll almost always want to drop a solid white background layer behind the object and do some cleanup after using this tool.

 

 

 

Gradient Tool (G)

By using gradient tool we can create nice color fill with smooth color changing effects. Such images can be used as background image of tables, creating buttons, creating banners and in many other applications. We can select a portion of a image and apply gradient tool to it to create a change over of colors.

 

 

 

Blur Tool ®

The keyboard shortcut is R and you can toggle between the three tools using Shift R.

 

   * Blur - blurs the area where you paint.

   * Sharpen - increases contrast in the areas where you paint.

   * Smudge - blends the pixels where you paint simulating the action of dragging a finger through wet paint.

 

Each of these tools has a mode option and a pressure setting. The pressure setting determines how strong the effect is applied. With the sharpen tool especially, you will want to keep the pressure setting very low. Too much sharpening can have some really disastrous results. If you need to see it to believe it, just crank that pressure up to 100 and make a couple swipes across any image.

 

I think you'll find you will not use the sharpen tool very often at all. The Unsharp Mask filter is much better at overall sharpening. The sharpen tool is useful primarily for popping out highlights on shiny objects, or maybe to give an important object a little extra "pop" after you've resampled an image. Remember to use it sparingly, though, and always create a snapshot first because it's so easy to overdo it.

 

The blur tool is useful for removing small facial blemishes and smoothing out wrinkles. It's easy to get a bit carried away with the blur tool when working on a face. Things will be looking great as you start, but if you overdo it, your image will begin to have an obvious retouched appearance if you're not careful. One way to avoid overdoing it is by using the lighten and darken blend modes with the blur tool. For instance, if you want to tone down freckles or diminish a pimple, you would use the blur tool in the lighten mode. In lighten mode, only darker pixels are blended and it will tone down freckles and blemishes without completely removing them. By the way, once you blur pixels with the blur tool, those pixels are permanently altered and you can't bring them back into focus again with the sharpen tool.

 

The smudge tool is grouped with the retouching tools, but it's actually used more often in painting. For retouching purposes is can be use to quickly rub out a minor blemish, touch up the shine on someone's lip stick, and so on. It can also be useful for blending out the jaggies that can sometimes occur when sizing up an image. This is another tool you want to be careful not to overdo and be sure to keep the pressure setting low. The smudge tool has a finger painting option that applies a dab of the foreground paint color each time you click.

 

 

 

[Morian]

Dodge Tool (O)

This Photoshop tutorial is designed to instruct on the use of Photoshop's Burn and Dodge Tool to adjust highlight and shadow tone in a defined area. Unlike Levels, Curves, and Brightness/Contrast, which globally adjust tonal value, the Burn and Dodge tools use Photoshop Brushes to selectively alter color, with their effectiveness being adjustable in the same way that the paintbrush is.

 

Burning & Dodging to Adjust Highlight, Midtones, & Shadow

 

Burning a photograph with the "Burn Tool (O)" darkens an area, while dodging a photograph with the "Dodge Tool (O)" lightens the area. You can adjust the tonal range that each tool effects by altering the "Range" setting in the menu-bar's pull-down menu. Both the Burn Tool and Dodge Tool have three range settings: Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows. You can also adjust the intensity of the tool by adjusting its "Exposure" setting.

 

 

 

Pen Tool (P)

The Photoshop Shape Tool and Pen Tool are use to create Shape Layer, Path or Fill Pixels. There are different in the form or shape of object that you want to create. The Pen Tool and Freeform Pen tool enerally use to create freeform shape. There are really useful to draft outline of organic object to separate it from background. And the Shape tool re basically use to create draw geometric and predefined shapes. There are six shape tools in Photoshop but when combine it with tool options you are enable to create much more geometric shape.

 

    Note: Photoshop Pen tool works pretty much the same across Adobe product such as Illustrator and InDesign. If you’re new to the Pen tool you may refer to comprehensive tutorial about Using Photoshop Pen tool at JoeUser.com. Or if you’re in a hurry you might want to download the free quick reference chart in pdf at Creativetechs.com. The Adobe Pen Tool Cheatsheet, shown in thumbnail below, is complete reference for short-cut and how to create shape using Pen tool for all Adobe product not only Photoshop.

 

 

 

Horizontal Type Tool (T)

Whenever you want to add text to a Photoshop document, whether it's a single letter or several lengthy paragraphs, you use Photoshop's Type Tool, which is found along with all of Photoshop's other tools in the Tools palette. It's the icon roughly halfway down the right column of the Tools palette, which has a capital letter T as its icon.

A quick and easy way to access the Type Tool, rather than selecting it directly from the Tools palette, is to simply press the letter "T" on your keyboard (as in "T" for "Type Tool").

 

If you look closely at the screenshot of the Tools palette above, you'll see in the "tool tip" which appears whenever you hold your mouse over something in Photoshop (unless you've disabled tool tips in the Preferences) that the Type Tool actually has a longer official name, the "Horizontal Type Tool". That's because when you use it to enter text into your Photoshop document, the text will appear horizontally, rather than vertically, as you'd normally expect. Of course, that might bring up the question, "Does that mean there's a 'Vertical Type Tool' as well? And the answer would be yes.

 

 

 

Path Selection Tool (A)

You can reposition a path component (including a shape in a shape layer) anywhere within an image. You can copy components within an image or between two Photoshop images. Using the path selection tool, you can merge overlapping components into a single component. All vector objects, whether they are described by a saved path, a work path, or a vector mask, can be moved, reshaped, copied, or deleted. You can also use the Copy and Paste commands to duplicate vector objects between a Photoshop image and an image in another application, such as Adobe Illustrator.

To move a path or path component:

Select the path name in the Paths palette, and use the path selection tool to select the path in the image. To select multiple path components, Shift-click each additional path component to add it to the selection. Drag the path to its new location. If you move any part of a path beyond the canvas boundaries, the hidden part of the path is still available. Note: If you drag a path so that the move pointer is over another open image, the path will be copied to that image.

To reshape a path component:

Select the path name in the Paths palette, and use the direct selection tool to select an anchor point in the path. Drag the point or its handles to a new location. (See Adding, deleting, and converting anchor points.)

To merge overlapping path components:

Select the path name in the Paths palette, and select the path selection tool . Click Combine in the options bar to create a single component from all overlapping components.

To copy a path component or path:

Do any of the following: To copy a path component as you move it, select the path name in the Paths palette, and click a path component with the path selection tool . Then Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac OS) the selected path. To copy a path without renaming it, drag the path name in the Paths palette to the New Path button at the bottom of the palette. To copy and rename a path, Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac OS) the path in the Paths palette to the New Path button at the bottom of the palette. Or select the path to copy, and choose Duplicate Path from the Paths palette menu. Enter a new name for the path in the Duplicate Path dialog box, and click OK. To copy a path or path component into another path, select the path or path component you want to copy, and choose Edit > Copy. Then select the destination path, and choose Edit > Paste.

To copy path components between two Adobe Photoshop files:

Open both images. Use the path selection tool to select the entire path or the path components in the source image you want to copy. To copy the path component, do any of the following: Drag the path component from the source image to the destination image. The path component is copied to the active path in the Paths palette. In the source image, select the path's name in the Paths palette and choose Edit > Copy to copy the path. In the destination image, choose Edit > Paste. You can also use this method to combine paths in the same image. To paste the path component into the center of the destination image, select the path component in the source image, and choose Edit > Copy. In the destination image, choose Edit > Paste.

To delete a path component:

Select the path name in the Paths palette, and click a path component with the path selection tool . Press backspace (Windows) or Delete (Mac OS) to delete the selected path component.

 

 

 

Rectangle Tool (U)

Rectangle Tool is just below the Type tool and beside the path selection tool.This tool is a shape tool.With the help of Rectangle Tool, we can draw rectangular shape of any size.We can also draw shape of a square with the help of this tool.In the options bar, we can change the opacity of the shape and also we can change the mode of the shape.

 

 

 

Notes Tool (N)

Sometimes you play around in Photoshop, make something neat, and then can’t remember how you did it. What was that filter again? And which setting? Or maybe you’re sending a file to someone and need to explain something;

What you need is the often overlooked Note Tool.

 

The Note Tool is in the Toolbox, on the lower left, right above the Hand. The purpose of the Note Tool is to attach little notes to your .psd files. Think of it like attaching a Post-It to a paper report. There are two versions of Photoshop Notes: text and audio.

To create a text note, click on the Note Tool when it is shaped as a sheet of notepaper. If it’s shaped like a loudspeaker, right click and toggle to the notepaper. Your mousepointer will now become a note icon.

 

Now click anywhere on your document. A note window will popup. If you look just below the top menu of Photoshop, you will see how you can adjust the author, font, font size, and colour of the note. Adjusting the colour could be useful for sorting at a glance–Green for To-Dos, Blue for settings, White for reminders, Red for jots to a co-designer, and so on.

 

 

 

Eyedropper Tool (I)

he eyedropper tool is ideal for quickly picking up with a color you were using earlier. No more remembering RGB values or recording palettes, just click on the color you're looking for. There are definite limitations with this method if used incorrectly though, as discussed further down.

 

 

 

Hand Tool (H)

You can really make short work of your job with the Hand Tool. It’s for moving your entire image within a window. So if you’re zoomed in and your image area is larger than the window, you can use the Hand Tool to navigate around your image. Just click and drag. You can get to this tool at any time when using any other tool by pressing and holding the [spacebar].

 

 

 

Zoom Tool (Z)

Pretty obvious what this tool does. It allows you to zoom into your image. Don’t be dumb, it doesn’t actually change the size of your image. Hold the [Alt] key to zoom out. Holding the [shift] key will zoom all of the windows you have open at the same time. Double-click on the Zoom Tool in the palette to go back to 100% view.

 

 

The end.

 

Credits go to anywhere cause I collect this informations from a lot of sites of Internet...

 

 

 

 

[xKenji]

this is a great guide...

 

i suggest a sticky as it is very important :)

 

gj morian :P

 

PS: kalo pasxa kai kali anastasi :) as ksekourastoume ligo apo tis gkomenes tora... axxx

[Emrys]

GJ morian!!! That is very usefull!!!!!!

[gr]Kalo pasxa !!

[CriticalError]

very nice info Morian gratefull really thanks for this mate

[Morian]

Thanks for the good words guys!

[GR] Geia sou kenji gkomeniari!!! axaxa :P

kalo Pasxa se olous!

[K4rMa]

topic stickied!

 

Gj

[ManiakMike]

Nice guide for newbs to get started !

PS : Maybe some day's i will be powned at photoshop :/

[mweinz]

very nice really i think many ppl ho want learn to use better the photoshop need see this,aniway gj !

[ult7ras]

i hadnt noticed that PS has somany tools..again GJ

[giorgarakis]

translated in greek?

[KinG187]

thx alot , i gust learned about the (Smudge~Tool)

[GODJKA]

ty alot

[milosina]

topic stickied!

 

Gj

Stickied with right reason :P Swesome guide!

[~Sensei~]

lool someone was bored?(for days) xD

 

gj man.. its a very nice asset to the ps section =))