Adobe Photoshop® CC 

Level 1 Absolute 

Beginner Tutorials 1 - 5

Donna L. Cyboron, MA, MFA

http://www.DonnaCyboron.com

Copryrights

Adobe Photoshop® CC Level 1 Absolute Beginner Tutorials 1 - 5

Donna L. Cyboron, MA, MFA

For more about the author visit:

http://www.DonnaCyboron.com

First Kindle Edition

Copyright 2016

COPYRIGHTS

Adobe Photoshop ® CC Level 1 Absolute Beginner Tutorials 1 - 5

Copyright 2016: Donna L. Cyboron. All Rights Reserved

WORLDWIDE RIGHTS

Published: January 2015

ASIN: 

Publisher: DLB Publishing

No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

“Adobe” and “the Adobe logo” used in Adobe Photoshop ® CC Level 1 Absolute Beginner Tutorials 1 - 5 are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Who is This Book For?

This easy book is for people who need a step-by-step explanation. If you are looking for super challenging projects, this book is not for you. If you have used Adobe Photoshop before, this book is not for you. This book is for the absolute beginners. I don’t skip steps and I visually show everything.  I have designed each tutorial to train you to work as efficiently as possible as you gain more and more knowledge and skill.  You will get it.  Just keep working.  

I’ve limited the tutorials to the first five must have tutorials because I know, if you’ve chosen this book, you want to take things a little bit at a time. So, why pay for 300 pages when you know you’ll never finish the book?  Do a little work with this book and then buy the next set of tutorials when you’re ready.

What the Book Covers

Absolutely no knowledge of Adobe Photoshop required. 

In Level 1, learn about file management, cropping images, resizing images, correcting basic lighting and the transform tool for rotation and scaling. Images are available for free download for use in the tutorial lessons. 

What version of Adobe Photoshop do I need?

You may use any version of Adobe Photoshop for these tutorials.  Advanced versions of Adobe Photoshop usually add features that enhance features for advanced users.  The beginner level knowledge is pretty much the same for the different versions of Photoshop.  However, Adobe updates Photoshop all the time.  So, you may have an older version of Photoshop and your version may look different from the images in this book. Don’t worry. Everything is essentially the same, you may simply have to look in the interface to see where the item is located in your version.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: The author of this book, Donna Cyboron is a visual effects artist and teaches visual effects and graphics on the graduate and undergraduate levels using Autodesk Maya, Adobe After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator and numerous other programs as an adjunct professor at many colleges in New York City. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in 3D Animation and a Master of Arts in Film, Broadcasting and Broadband. She is a freelance photographer and visual effects artist based Manhattan. She is a member of SIGGRAPH and also dabbles in Virtual Reality and game development. You can view her portfolio at http://www.DonnaCyboron.com.

CONNECT WITH ME

comments@DonnaCyboron.com

CHAPTER 1: Always Start With These Steps

I want you to learn to be efficient and learn how to work like a professional right from the beginning.  Learning to manage files using basic computer skills is essential to professional work.  You’ll be glad you took the time to follow steps EACH time you tackle a new project.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN:  Shut down all programs on your computer.  You should not have Adobe Photoshop open at this time.  Everything begins before you open the program.

STEP 1 - CREATE A FOLDER

Always create a folder for each and every project you start.  Professionals often have to open projects on different computers.  If you don’t practice creating a new folder for each project and then diligently placing all of the files for that project in the folder, you may find that you are unable to open a complete project.  

Click into the DOCUMENTS FOLDER on your computer. 

(You may find it under Start - Documents or you may click on the Windows button find it in the list.  MAC users may have to click on File - New Finder Window.

Click your right mouse button (MAC users can turn on the right click feature or click Control - Left Click)

Select NEW - FOLDER and name the folder MAIN_PROJECT_1

SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU MADE A FOLDER:  

A percentage of students do not think it is important to make a folder and skip it to get to the good stuff.  You may not think this is important now, but training yourself to name files and folders properly from the beginning will save you a lot of frustration when you move on to more advanced projects. You may select any location to store your folder, but if you don’t know where to store your folder, make a folder in the Documents folder in Windows following the instructions above.  So go back up to the beginning of the chapter and make the folder.

STEP 2 - LABEL FILES CLEARLY WITH  DATES OR VERSION NUMBERS

I usually start my folders with either a 01_myprojectfilename or 2016_myprojectfilename or even better, 2016_01_myprojectfilename.  It works better for me to label with numbers in the front.  You can figure out your own system.  It is very important to place a version number into your filename and file - save as every once in awhile and change the version number from 01 to 02, 02, and so forth.  Some of my advanced tutorials are over 100 pages long. Can you imagine working hard until page 90 and losing all of your work or making a mistake that you can’t recover from?  Saving multiple versions helps avoid those situations when you are learning. 

Always save versions inside of your folder.  For instance.  Save the first file as 01_yourfilename.psd, then File - Save As and name the new file 02_yourfilename.psd.  It may seem like a big waste of time and space, but getting in this habit will help you when you move on to more advanced, intense programs such as After Effects or Autodesk Maya.  I usually require my students to make at least 8 versions per project.  Eventually, they come back and thank me for making the multiple versions because they really messed up one or two steps and didn’t have to start the project over again from scratch. You will get a feel for when to do this and when it is a waste of time.

STEP 3 - SAVE YOUR DOCUMENT BEFORE YOU START

A. File - Save (Yes, save the empty document and it seems silly to save now.  Save anyway. Keep going.)

B. Navigate to My Documents by clicking on ALL PROGRAMS, COMPUTER, DOCUMENTS or Local Disk (C:) - Users - The name of your computer or username - My Documents and find the folder you made in Step 1.

C. Type 01_photoshop_lesson

NOTE: If you clicked too fast and end up with an untitled folder, just right click on the words new folder and select Rename.

D. Click on the newly renamed folder to enter the folder. Click the SAVE button in the lower right corner.

Saving without selecting a file format will save your document as a PSD file which is the working document for all Adobe Photoshop projects. It is the default for saving any document in Photoshop. 

WORKING DOCUMENT:  A working document is a document that can always be changed at some point in the future. This type of file is never delivered to a client and is never the finished file format of any Photoshop project. 

PSD = PhotoShop Document

STEP 4 - UNLOCKING THE BACKGROUND LAYER 

Every time you open an image in Adobe Photoshop the image will appear as a background layer in the layers panel.  If you don’t see the layers panel on the right side, click on WINDOW - LAYERS.

When the layer says background and is locked you will see a little lock on the right side.  If the layer is locked, you are limited and restricted from performing certain tasks when editing an image.  You never want to be restricted or limited when editing.  So, it is very important to turn the layer into an unlocked normal layer.  You will have to do this every time you open an new image.

HOW TO UNLOCK A LAYER:  Place your mouse cursor over the lock in the layers panel (WINDOW - LAYERS) and either drag the lock to the trashcan below or click once on the lock after first opening an image. This will unlock any limitations that exist on the layer and make the image layer just like every other layer.

NOTE:  In older versions of Photoshop, you may have to double-click instead of clicking once.  A dialog box may come up asking you to OK naming your layer Layer 0.  Just click OK. 

CHAPTER 2:  When You Get Stuck

It is normal to be entirely confused with Photoshop when you are first learning.  So, if you begin to feel overwhelmed, don’t worry. It’s not you. Everyone makes mistakes when learning Photoshop.  If you’re not making mistakes, you need more advanced work.  Great job.  

Beginners sometimes click a wrong button, forget to turn off a function that is on, or they simply don’t complete a process. So, they get stuck. The tools won’t work and the student often has no clue what to do next. When you get stuck, follow this procedure:

STEP 1: RESET ESSENTIALS

In the upper right corner, you will see a drop down menu.  Click on the menu and select RESET ESSENTIALS.  I you can’t find that menu, you can also reset by clicking Window - Workspace - Reset Essentials.

Don’t worry, resetting will not change your current work.  But, always save before taking new steps, just in case.  

NOTE: If you have just opened Photoshop, you will not see Reset Essentials.  Switch your workspace to Painting and then go to Window - Workspace again and you will see Reset Essentials.

If resetting essentials does not solve the problem, move to the next step.

Sometimes clicking around on the screen causes you to select something on the screen.  You may not even see that you made a selection.  You might see little lines moving around on the screen. Those are called “marching ants.”  Marching ants indicate that something is selected.  You want to turn off all selections by clicking on the top menu, select - deselect.

NOTE: If you are unable to click on the word deselect because it is greyed out, then the problem is not selection. 

Move on to the next step.

STEP 2: MOVE TOOL

Click the Move Tool (Location: upper left)

If a message pops up, select the button that has the word don’t. Don’t crop, Don’t apply, etc.  If a dialog box does show up, this means that you started something that needs to be completed before you can continue editing.

If no dialog box comes up, this is not the problem.  Move on to the next step.

STEP 3: MAKE SURE LAYERS IS CHECKED

Locate the layers panel by selecting Window - Layers.  If there is a check next to the word Layers, then the Layers Panel is already open.  

Locate the layers panel and find the layer that has a tiny picture on it.  Select the layer with the tiny picture by clicking on it and the layer should turn blue.  You must always make sure you have selected the proper layer to work on.

If a message pops up, select the button that has the word don’t. Don’t crop, Don’t apply, etc.  If a dialog box does show up, this means that you started something that needs to be completed before you can continue editing.

If no dialog box comes up, this is not the problem.  Move on to the next step.

STEP 4: MAKE SURE LAYERS IS CHECKED

Locate the layers panel by selecting Window - Layers.  If there is a check next to the word Layers, then the Layers Panel is already open.  

Locate the layers panel and find the layer that has a tiny picture on it.  Select the layer with the tiny picture by clicking on it and the layer should turn blue.  You must always make sure you have selected the proper layer to work on.

How do I know what layer to click on? The correct layer to click will always change and will be determined by your project and what you want to accomplish. All you need to know, for now, is that the reason you may be stuck is that you might have the wrong layer selected.

LOCATE LAYERS BY TURNING THE EYES ON AND OFF

You can locate the layer you may need by clicking on the eye located next to each layer.  Click it off then click it on and watch the screen.  Start from the top and turn one eye off, then test to see if the problem is solved.  Turn the next eye off, test again and so forth.  

Remember to turn all they eyes back on when you finish testing.

STEP 5: EDIT - UNDO

EDIT - UNDO - If you make an error, click on Edit - Undo or Edit - Step Backwards. You can go back many steps. So, keep clicking Edit - Step Backwards and you can undo until you have undone most everything.

You may also undo multiple steps at a time by selecting WINDOW - HISTORY and clicking on the procedures that you’ve done.  If you see nothing in history, then you haven’t performed any tasks.

STEP 6: CLICK WINDOW FOR MISSING PANELS

If you don’t see the panel you want, click WINDOW and select the panel you are missing.

STEP 7:  IF ALL ELSE FAILS SHUT DOWN PROGRAM

Try to File - Save.  If you can’t save and nothing else will work, you should shut down Adobe Photoshop and restart the program.  

WARNING: If you shut down the program, you will probably lose all the work you have completed after the last time you saved. Shutting down the program is a last resort and should only be used once all the above steps have been taken.

There are many other tricks to troubleshooting. I’ve given you the basics. We should get started with the tutorials so you can learn about workflow.

CHAPTER 3: Cropping

TUTORIAL 1: Using the Crop Tool

GET THE FILE:  Open an internet browser.  Type in http://www.DonnaCyboron.com and scroll to the bottom of the page.  Click DOWNLOADS. Look for the book title in the list. Then click on the thumbnail image and right click - Save As on the large image.  You also may use your own image for this tutorial.

Navigate to the download folder and immediately place the downloaded image into the folder you made in Chapter 1.  If you are using your own image, then place that image into the folder.  If you have not made a folder, the select NEW FOLDER, click into the folder and save the image inside the folder.

WHAT IS CROPPING?  

Trimming away the outer parts of the image that you don’t want and keeping and area of the inside of the image that you do want.  Cropping allows you to focus on a specific area of the image.  Cropping is not usually used to create the end size of an image.  It is used in preparing the end product and is a valuable skill to know.  You will learn more about image preparation as you move forward in the tutorials.

Open Photoshop

1. Click FILE - OPEN

2. Navigate to the folder that contains your image and double click on the image to open.   

NOTE:  DO NOT DRAG THE FILE INTO THE PROGRAM.  Be sure to click on File - Open from inside of the Adobe Photoshop program.

3. The goal is to crop the picture so that most of the grass is gone.  See the steps below.

THE CROP TOOL

4. Select the crop tool from the toolbar which should be located on the left side of your screen (Shortcut - click C on the keyboard)

I CAN’T FIND IT: That’s because it may be hidden in a submenu. Look on the toolbar and notice the little triangle in the lower right of some of the tool options. The triangle means there is a hidden submenu. Hold the left mouse button down with your cursor arrow over the tool icon that contains the triangle and you should see a flyout menu. Keep searching by clicking on the tools with the triangle until you find the crop tool.  If you can’t find the tool bar at all, click on WINDOW - TOOLS.

5. After you click the crop tool a dashed line will surround the image. 

5. After you click the crop tool a dashed line will surround the image. 

6.  Place your mouse over the upper left corner of the dashed line.  Your mouse arrow should turn into a black double arrow. 

7. Once your mouse arrow turns to the double black arrow, hold the left mouse button down and drag the arrow in toward the turtle to the place you want to start the crop. You can drag the arrow to any place you want the crop trimming to start.  You may have to try different start points in order to get it right.  

NOTE:  Look for the thicker parts of the dashed line in the upper and lower corners and the middle top, middle bottom and middle sides of the image. If you place your mouse over any of these thicker areas, your mouse will turn into a double arrow allowing you to drag that area inward to set the crop boundaries.

8. You now need to decide if you want to totally delete the cropped pixels or maintain the ability to uncrop at some future time by saving the cropped pixels.

WARNING:  Once you delete the cropped pixels and save, you cannot go back.  The image will be permanently changed.  You may want to keep the check mark unchecked until you work with cropping a little bit more.  The choice is yours.

9.  Size of the crop.  I do not use this feature because there are, in my opinion, better workflow steps to use.  However, you are free to play around with it.  If you click the drop down, you will see many sizes to choose from to restrict the cropped area to a specific size.  You can also input a custom size.  I will not cover this further in this tutorial other than to point out the option to use this sizing option.  You may move on to the next step.

The following is a reference image to show you the general location topics discussed in this tutorial.

10. Click on the Move Tool and a popup box will appear.

Move Tool - The arrow located at the top of the tool bar.

11. Click on the Crop Button if you are ready to complete the crop. 

RESULT: The picture should now be cropped.  The image should look similar to the image below.

12. File - Save As - Browse to find the folder for this project.

13. Name the file 01_Cropped_Turtle.psd

PSD - PhotoShop Document.  This is the type of file you use to save your working file.  A working file should never be given to clients unless they pay you for it.  It is a valuable file since it is the file that will allow you to further make changes to an image without losing image quality.  A psd file saves layers and most of the changes made to the image can be easily changed again once you reopen the file.  A PSD file cannot be used for the web or in documents.  Once you’re done editing and want to create a file to upload to a website or to place into a document, you need to save a second file which can be saved in a few file types.  For now, we will save our image as a JPEG file which is always used to save photographs and images.

14. File - Save As a second time

15. Click the Save As Type at the bottom of the Dialogue Box.

12. File - Save As - Browse to find the folder for this project.

13. Name the file 01_Cropped_Turtle.psd

PSD - PhotoShop Document.  This is the type of file you use to save your working file.  A working file should never be given to clients unless they pay you for it.  It is a valuable file since it is the file that will allow you to further make changes to an image without losing image quality.  A psd file saves layers and most of the changes made to the image can be easily changed again once you reopen the file.  A PSD file cannot be used for the web or in documents.  Once you’re done editing and want to create a file to upload to a website or to place into a document, you need to save a second file which can be saved in a few file types.  For now, we will save our image as a JPEG file which is always used to save photographs and images.

14. File - Save As a second time

15. Click the Save As Type at the bottom of the Dialogue Box.

16. Name it Cropped_Turtle.jpg

17.  Click the SAVE button on the bottom right.

18.  Push the quality all the way to 12

This jpg file can now be delivered, uploaded to a website or placed in a document. The final output of the finished product is called a deliverable.  A deliverable is the final size and format of the completed, edited file which can be delivered to a client. Most of the time, the client will tell you the deliverable size and format.  I did not give you a deliverable size in this tutorial.  Get in the habit of saving both types of files when a project is complete.

You may now close this document.  To close the document, look for the little gray tab at the top of the image.  There should be a light X in the right of the tab.  Don’t click on the X in the upper right of the program.  That will shut the entire program down. You can also click on File - Close.  Closing files that you are not using becomes important once you start working on very large documents.  So, keep the program screen as clear as possible by keeping only the necessary files open at one time.

Move on to the next tutorial.

CHAPTER 4:  Free Transform Mode

TUTORIAL 2:  Free Transform

GET THE FILE:  Open an internet browser.  Type in http://www.DonnaCyboron.com and scroll to the bottom of the page.  Click DOWNLOADS. Look for the book title in the list. Then click on the thumbnail image and right click - Save As on the large image.  You also may use your own image for this tutorial.

WHAT IS THE FREE TRANSFORM MODE?  

The Free Transform Mode is one of the most valuable modes in Photoshop.  It is often called The Free Transform Tool, but is not actually a tool.  Whatever you call it, it allows you to easily increase and decrease the image within a fixed size.  For instance, if you wanted to fit an image into an 8X10 size, but you also wanted to decrease the amount of space over someone’s head, you can easily accomplish the resizing using the Free Transform Tool.

EVALUATING THE IMAGE

In evaluating the image above, there are a number of things I want to eliminate.  There is too much sky.  A portion of another flower is located in the lower right corner and I don’t want any half parts in this image.  Also, the stem of this flower looks kind of dead.  The overall image is not framed well and I want the flower to be the beautiful when I’m done editing.

CHOOSING THE DELIVERABLE SIZE

The deliverable size is the image size at the end of your project.  It is the size the buyer orders and the size you will deliver to the buyer.  Brochures, magazines, newsletters, websites and other media require specific sized images to fit in with the design elements depending on the design column sizes of the specific magazine, newspaper or website.  The specific sizes required to fit into the end product are the deliverable sizes.

STEP 1:  HOW TO DETERMINE DELIVERABLE SIZE

Ask where the final image will appear.  In print?   On the web?  On an iPhone or iPad?  Some other screen?

Determine Resolution.  Will the image be printed or be on a screen such as a television, cell phone, tablet, computer monitor?  Print will always be a minimum of 300 pixels resolution.  Images for screens such as movies, websites, iPhones will be 72 pixels.

Determine measurement size in pixels.  Will the image be High Definition for television (1920X1080)?  Or, will the image be projected with Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides (1280X720 or 1920X1080)?  Many web, newspaper and magazine advertising companies have a list of how big the advertisement or images have to be for submission.

What if there is more than one deliverable size because the image will be placed in many different media publications?  Then create the largest version first.  Save versions and scale the images down using the Free Transform Mode.

STEP 2: CREATE DELIVERABLE SIZE FIRST

1. File - New

2. Enter the Width & Height (1920X1080 or whatever your project image size is.)

Resolution (72 for Screens)(300 for Print)

3. Resolution (72 for Screens)(300 for Print)

4. File - Open and navigate to the image you want to alter.

5. Window - Arrange - Tile All Horizontally

This will allow the images to be placed next to the other so you can see both images on the screen at one time.  You can also do this by pulling down the tabs at the top and arranging them with a left click drag of the mouse if you know how to manage the arrangement.

6. Select the Move Tool (Location:  top or top left on the toolbar)

7. Place the mouse cursor over the photo.  Hold down the Left Mouse Button and drag the image onto the blank white document.

NOTE:  You might have to try this a couple of times when you are first starting out.  If it does not work, try again.  

8. DON’T PANIC.  Your image might look HUGE on the screen at this point.  That is normal.  You might also have the opposite problem and your image looks too small on a large white background.  We’ll start fixing those problems in the next step.

9. Close your original image by clicking the little X at the right of the image name tab located above the image.

10. Highlight the percentage located in the lower left of the image. (I usually will highlight this percentage holding the left mouse button down and moving the mouse from from right to left because I can quickly highlight the entire number including the percent sign.)

11. Type in 11 and press the ENTER key on the keyboard

NOTE: Type in a double number such as 11, 22, 33, 44, 55 and then ENTER.  I usually will select 33 or 22 and 11 when the image is super large. By using a double number, you will work much more quickly and won’t have to think about what exact percentage to type in.  Also, do not click on the number and delete the numbers while keeping the percent sign there.  Highlight everything from right to left and quickly type in any double number and hit the enter key. Time is money.

The result is an image in the middle with gray on all four sides.  The gray space is the area scribbled on in the image below.  Now we have some room to see how big the image actually is in the next step.

12. Click Edit - Free Transform

You should now see bounding boxes surrounding the image.  The size of the bounding box area is how large the image is compared to how large it needs to be in order to fit into the deliverable size. 

13. Unlock the layer

14. Hold the shift key down on the keyboard.  Keep it held down until you are COMPLETELY done with the next step.  This will constrain the proportions of your image so it does not look stretched or squished (making the image look unprofessional).

15. Place your mouse cursor on one of the corners.  Any corner.  The cursor will turn into a double arrow.

16. Left click drag the corner in toward where you see the image until almost the entire image fits into the frame so you can see it.

NOTE:  You will not fit the entire image.

WARNING:  DO NOT EVER drag from the sides, top or bottom.  Ever.  Did I say never?  Ever.  CORNERS ONLY.

As I said in the evaluation of the image, I want to get rid of some of the sky and eliminate the lower right area that contains a small part of another flower.  I also want to eliminate the dead area near the bottom of the image.  To do this we will readjust the bounding boxes again.

17. Hold the shift key down to constrain proportions.  

18. Left click drag on of the corners and drag outward a little.  Then move your mouse to one of the other corners and drag outward or inward, depending on the result you need.  You may and left click drag in the center of the image to move the image around.

19. When you are finished click on the move tool or double click on the image to accept the changes and get out of the free transform mode.

20. Double click on the zoom tool which looks like a magnifying glass.  Whenever you double click on the zoom tool, the image will display at 100%.  This is helpful and allows you to inspect your image to be sure that the image is still nice and clear.

IMPORTANT:  When you pull the corners out as you did in this tutorial, you should never take a small image and drag the corners out.  Always work from a very large image to a smaller image.  Otherwise, the image will start to look sharp and blurry.  

EXTRA TIP:  If you place the cursor over the corners outside of the image, you will see the cursor change into a curve indicating that you can also rotate the image.  It would be a great time to practice rotating the image.  When you see the rotation icon, hold down the left mouse button and drag up or down and the image will rotate. Then click on EDIT - UNDO to undo whatever rotation you’ve done.  Getting control of the tools is important.  

21. File - Save 

22. Name: Free_Transform_firstname_lastname.psd

END OF TUTORIAL

CHAPTER 5: Adjustment Levels

TUTORIAL 3 - Adjustment Levels

GET THE FILE:  Open an Internet browser.  Type in http://www.DonnaCyboron.com and scroll to the bottom of the page.  Click DOWNLOADS. Look for the book title in the list. Then click on the thumbnail image and right click - Save As on the large image.  You also may use your own image for this tutorial.

Open Photoshop

When preparing an image one of the first steps is to fix the lighting or highlights and lowlights of the image. We start this process by using the levels adjustment layer.  

1. Open the helicopter.jpg photograph from the Downloads Page. I chose this picture because it demonstrates bad levels and you will clearly see what needs to be done in the first stages of trying to fix bad levels.  Most image will not be this extreme.

2. Look at the Layers Panel located on the right. (If you don’t see it, click on WINDOW - LAYERS.)

3. Click on the MOVE tool at the top of the tool bar.

4. Double click on the lock icon on the background layer to unlock it. From now until forever, you will always unlock the background layer when you open a file. Unlocking the background layer removes limitations and makes the background layer just like any other layer in the project.

If you are using an older version of Photoshop, a New Layer dialogue box will appear.  Just click OK - you don’t have to put a new name in the text box.

5. And select LEVELS from the adjustment layer menu.

6. You will see a histogram appear which is a visual representation of the low lights, midtones and highlights in any image, controlled by three arrows directly below the histogram. 

Play around with these arrows and push the one on the left way to the right. What happens? Then return it to it’s original position.

Push the one of the right way to the left. What happens? Then return it to it’s original position.

7. Now we can start to fix the lighting. To do that, look for empty space on either side of the histogram. 

Notice on the left side that there is a lack of visual light information. The left side of the histogram is completely empty.  There is no information on the left or the right side as shown in the next image. 

8. Drag the left arrow to the point where you begin to see information.  The flat white line is the beginning of the information.  Drag the left arrow to where the flat line begins and then stop.

9. Drag the right arrow to the left to the point where the histogram information starts on the right side. Then stop.

The picture below demonstrates the end result of where the arrows should be when you complete this step. The result will be a darker blue in this case. The lighting has been fixed on a very basic level.

ADVANTAGES OF ADJUSTMENT LAYERS

Click the EYE to the left of the levels layer as you see in the image below. Turning off the eye turns off the adjustment. This means that when the eye is off, the state of the original picture remains the same and is unchanged and undamaged. This is called non-destructive editing. Non-destructive means that that making changes does not permanently damage the picture.

Extra Note: There is another place to find adjustments in the menu to the upper left of the interface. IMAGE - ADJUSTMENTS. DO NOT USE THIS FEATURE. Why? The adjustments that are made from the top menu bar are destructive to the layer and permanently make changes to the image and you can never recover the original image. There are times to use the feature from the top menu bar. But, most of the time, you should use the adjustment layers menu below the layers panel.

SAVE AS LEVELS_Lastname_firstname.jpg

END OF TUTORIAL

CHAPTER 6: Filters

TUTORIAL 4 - Filters

GET THE FILE:  Open an Internet browser.  Type in http://www.DonnaCyboron.com and scroll to the bottom of the page.  Click DOWNLOADS. Look for the book title in the list.  Then click on the thumbnail image and right click - Save As on the large image.  You also may use your own image for this tutorial.

Open Photoshop

1. Open the image of the heron bird.

 2. In the Layers Panel, unlock the layer by clicking on the lock.

3. Place your cursor over toward the right side of the layer in an empty space and click the RIGHT mouse button to bring up the menu. (Control - Click for Mac users).

4. Select DUPLICATE LAYER.

5.  When the new layer dialogue box comes up, just click OK.

6. Click the EYE on the bottom layer and shut it off to ensure that nothing you do will change the bottom layer.

7. Select the top layer layer by clicking on it. It will turn blue like in the image above.

8. On the top menu click FILTER - FILTER GALLERY

9. You will see the heron bird image and a list of icons and folders on the right.

10. Twirl down the arrow next to the folder that says ARTISTIC and click on the first selection COLORED PENCIL. 

Start clicking on filter icons one by one and find one you like. 

11. Click OK when you’re done.

12. Note that each filter also has slide tools to adjust sharpness and other features. You can find that on the right side.

13. Have fun and when you’ve found a filter you like a lot, apply it

14. Click OK to apply your selection.

15. You can duplicate the original picture again and try another filter if you like, continuing to turn the EYE on and off as needed.

16. When you have finished, SAVE twice. Once as a PSD file and once as a JPG. filters_Lastname_firstname.psd

17. Name it filters_Lastname_firstname.jpg

END OF TUTORIAL

CHAPTER 7: Change Image Size

TUTORIAL 5: Image Size

GET THE FILE:  Open an Internet browser.  Type in http://www.DonnaCyboron.com and scroll to the bottom of the page.  Click DOWNLOADS. Look for the book title in the list.  Then click on the thumbnail image and right click - Save As on the large image.  You also may use your own image for this tutorial.

Open Photoshop

1. FILE - OPEN and open the image.

The purpose of this tutorial is to demonstrate that it is easy to decrease the size of an image and have an image look great, but it is impossible to increase the size of an image and make it look, even passable.  NEVER INCREASE IMAGE DIMENSIONS.

The important thing to take from this tutorial is that your original image must be as large as you can get it.  If you are doing work on an image your client has supplied to you, ask for the original image at its largest size.  You do not want cropped or already edited images, if at all possible.  You want the image right out of the camera.

Most of the time, you should use pixels as a unit of measurement.  You will not use inches.  Sometimes you will need to use inches, but you should get used to working in pixels.

2. IMAGE - IMAGE SIZE

3. Write down the size of the image in pixels before you make any changes? 

Before size: 3072 pixels X 2304 pixels

4. Write down the resolution?  Resolution of 72

Note: There are two basic resolutions for photos.

A. Resolution 72 which is for the web and screens.

B. Resolution 300 for images that will be printed.

5. What is the file size of the image?

The file size is not the physical dimensions of the image. The file size is the actual size of the file when it is stored on a drive. 

FINDING THE FILE SIZE

To find the file size, minimize the Photoshop screen 

PC: Click the minimize bar in the upper right corner 

Navigate to the location of your file which is located in the downloads folder in this case. 

>> locate and click on COMPUTER (or My Computer)

>> Navigate to the DOWNLOADS folder (or the location where your image file is located). 

>> Click on the More Options icon

>> Move the slider to Details

>> Look in the SIZE column to read the size of the file.

DUPLICATE THE IMAGE

With the image open in Photoshop:

1. Click on IMAGE - DUPLICATE

REDUCE SIZE OF DUPLICATE IMAGE

2. IMAGE - IMAGE SIZE

3. Click in the Width Box. 

4. Change the number of pixels from 3072 to 1280.

NOTE: You will notice that when the Width is changed, the Height automatically adjusts to a new number.  The new image size is not stretched or squashed. This is called CONSTRAINING PROPORTIONS.  you can change either the width or the height by unlinking the width and height by clicking on the link and then manually changing both values.  You normally, do not want to do this.

OBSERVATION:

After you reduce the image, look at the size of the reduced californiapier.jpg file? What changes happened to the beachpalm.jpg photograph after you increased the size?

REDUCE SIZE OF DUPLICATED IMAGE

1. Image - Image Size

2. Reduce the image size to 1157 X 768

3. File - Save As

4. Name:  reduced_lastname.jpg

5. OK

INCREASE THE SIZE OF THE IMAGE

1. Open the provided file beachpalm.jpg in photoshop.

2. Increase the size (image - image size) to 1000 pixels wide (don't worry about the height).

3. Save As, increased_beachpalm.jpg

You may now close all documents that are open.

This is the end of the tutorial.  

This is the end of the book. Look for the next book Adobe Photoshop ® CC Level 1 Absolute Beginner Tutorials 5 - 10. A link will be available at http://www.DonnaCyboron.com at the bottom of the page.

NEXT STEPS:

Look for my next book which will cover the next set of tutorials.