Learn Photoshop Now: A Basic Tutorial

The basics of Photoshop are relatively easy to pick up, but can seem a bit of a mystery when you first come to the program, thanks to its somewhat unintuitive interface and lack of simple tutorials.

Upon first inspection you will see that Photoshop is basically made up of four areas: the menu bar, at the top, the tool bar just below it, the toolbox on the left and the palettes on the right. The different modes and options you can choose are located in the menu bar and toolbox which always stay the same. The tool bar will change with the context.

The palettes are designed to display an up-to-date status of your image. Palettes include a history of all of the actions you have performed and a thumbnail view of your project's current status.

As an example of how the interface changes as you use it, select the type tool from the toolbox (looks like a capital T). Note how the tool bar changes completely to permit changes to the font name, size etc.

As you make these changes, they are noted in the history palette. The use of the type tool will be added to your history, and the layers palette will list the addition of a new layer for your text.

Whatever you're trying to do in Photoshop, then, the chances are that your starting point will be either the toolbox or the menus. While the toolbox contains everyday tools such as selecting, filling and making shapes, the menus have more complicated functions like blurring, sharpening, and all the other effects Photoshop can achieve (mostly to be found under the Filter menu).

You can adjust the settings of tools from the toolbox using the tool bar. When doing this, options from the menu will typically open a dialog box. Should you want to change any actions you have made to your image, simply do so through your palettes. While the palette history is helpful, palettes have other uses also such as changing colors.

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