Joshua Smith

Photoshop Tools and Features User Log

The purpose of this log is for you to record what tools and features you used in the creation of your digital graphics. You should try to use as many as possible and you
must record how, why and when you used them. You do not need to record repeated actions but each single new action should be recorded. An example of this would
be setting up a new Photoshop file/image which would cover the ranges; “Image Settings” (all) and part of “Menus” (some of). You only need to do this once. Remember
that where the “e.g.” appears in a range, as many of the items should be covered as possible but not all of them; your tutor will guide you here. Where possible you
should also provide a screen dump to illustrate the action (see sample image below).
Tools and features  How, why and when used. Screen dump
Menus: 
Open; To open a file, go to the top left and click
on file. Then go down to open. You can
then go through your folders until you find
your psd. File or image you want to open.
When you find a file press open, it will
open as a new document. This is used by
everyone who has ever used Photoshop
and used frequently.
save; Saving is an important part. If you wish to
keep a document, you will have to save it.
Go to the top left of the screen, press file,
then save as or save. Select a place to save
it, name the document then save it.
import; Import is to open other things other than a
psd. File or images. I don’t think it is
commonly used for the casual photo
manipulator.

export; Exporting is like a simple way of saving a

file in a different format without going up
to file>save as. If you have a transparent,
you have an option to do a quick export as
a PNG. I can see the being used a good
amount.

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edit; Under Edit, there is a lot to be done. One

of the many options is transform. A
shortcut to this is ctrl+t. with transport you
can rotate, change the size and move the
layer you selected to transform.

Puppet warp is a tool under edit. You can

select something and put a mesh round it.
You can then put pins on areas you don’t
want to move then drag the pins to move
parts of the image. To the right is a
demonstration I did with the puppet warp.

view; View is there so you can change how you

view the document or if you want to view
guides to help you accurately place
something. You can press either f or go to
view>screen mode and select one of the
three and you can have a choice if you
want to work on your document in full
screen. This is best if you know the
shortcuts or else you’ll keep swapping out
of full screen mode. I think screen mode
would be used a small amount. You can
also change the screen mode from the
bottom of the tool box.

You can also create guide lines from the

view tab. Guide lines can be made by
dragging your mouse from the rulers
along the x or y ruler. It will create a
straight line from one side to the other.

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help From help, you can get all sorts of help.

You can check what hardware is in your
computer, see what your computer can
handle, by going to view> system info.

You can also get help by clicking on online

help. This will direct you to a website to
give you help and see if you can
troubleshoot a problem. I did not find this
useful in the making of my graphics.
Image settings: 
size; In the image size setting, you can see
everything you need to know about the
specific image. The image size is the file
size it will be on the computer. The one I
have on as a demo is 11.9mb.
Resolution; The image resolution is how many pixels
are in an inch. The more there are, the
higher quality it is. My demo image is 300
ppi. The dimensions are 1920 x 1080. This
is classed as high definition.
width; Width is the size of the image you want to
go across the x axis. The demo is at a
width of 6.4 centimetres.
height; Height is the size of the image you want to
go across the y axis. The demo is at a
width of 3.6 centimetres.
colour mode; Colour mode, this is the difference of
Adobe RBG, RGB, CYMK, greyscale. RGB is
Red, Blue, Green. This is standard with
most images. Adobe RGB usually has more
range of colours. CYMK, Cyan, Yellow,
Magenta, Black. Black Is created by the
other three colours. CYMK is better for
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printing because those are the colours

printers work with. Greyscale is a mix of
black and white to create grey.
background; Background, this is changing what you
want as the bottom layer. There are three
to pick from. Transparent means, you can
create PNG format documents and the
background would be see-through. The
next backgrounds are white and black.
transparency; Transparency is for people who want to
use the image their working on and apply
it over something because there would be
no background for their image they are
putting on top. Transparency is for PNG
files.
aspect ratio,
file name The file name is to name the file to what
you want it to be named as. It is best if you
name it something it is about
Drawing tools: 
tool options; There is a wide range of tool option in
Photoshop. There tools that will draw
round a layer, tools to fill layer, tools to
copy parts to other areas.

brush; The brush is a common tool used by all.

This tool allows you to use your mouse to
paint where the mouse goes. You can
change the size and opacity and the type
of brush you can use. You can also change
the softness and roundness of the brush.

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pencil; The pencil tool is like the brush tool and

commonly used. You can change the size
and opacity and the type of brush you can
use. You can also change the softness and
roundness of the pencil.
duplicate; Duplicate means to copy a layer/ part of a
layer onto a new layer. To duplicate a
layer, press the layer in the layers’ tab then
on the keyboard press ctrl+J. To duplicate
a part of a layer, use a selection tool and
press the keyboard shortcut.
clone; The clone stamp is used to remove
something or to add a part using the other
parts of the image to hide it A good
example of this would be the removal of a
spot. You can use the clone stamp to select
the skin, clean area by pressing alt+click
while you have a good size clone then
click over the spot and it should be
removed.
fill; Fill is the use of the paint bucket to fill and
area selected or whole layer. In the box to
the right, I have filled in areas that is not
occupied by the image that is already
present. I have also shown in the
demonstration that I have filled an area by
selecting it with the marquee tool first. To
switch to the paint bucket, press ‘g’ on the
keyboard.
Fill is also an option under edit. This allows
you to change everything to how you
want with the fill instead of using the

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bucket and should change the mode and

transparency after.
text; Text can be found in the tool box. The text
tool is used to place text where you want
on its own layer. You can modify the size,
opacity, font, where it aligns, colour, create
warped text (making it bend or stretch
etc.).
line;
stroke; Stroke means the type of brush stroke you
want to use with your brush and pencil.
You can change it easily by clicking the
brush type and size you are using in the
top right corner. In that menu, you can
change the everything you need in the
brush. There is a lot of different types of
brush strokes you can select from. To the
right is a type of stroke being used.
shape; Shape is used to create a shape instead of
using the marquee or pen tool you can
create the tool from its own tool found in
the tool box. There are many shapes to
pick from.

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zoom; I found zooming Photoshop at first was a

bit struggling and hard to work out. To
zoom in using the keyboard you can
either, alt+ mouse wheel. You can also use
the menu under view to zoom in by 100%
and 200%. The final way of zooming in is
with the zoom tool. Just click with the
zoom tool to zoom in. this gives great
control on where I want to zoom in.
guides and rulers; Guide lines can be made by dragging your
mouse from the rulers along the x or y
ruler. It will create a straight line from one
side to the other. You can enable rulers to
draw a straight line across the document
with view>rulers. This enables them when
ticked and shows the rules at the X and Y
of screen edges. You can clear all the
guides at once in the same view menu.
You can also get the exact measurements
of where you want the line if you cannot
get it exactly where you want.
Grid; The grid is like the guidelines, you have
lines with equal spaces covering your
document. The grid is useful for the user to
line things up without going into the effort
of making a guideline for every centimetre
or 5 centimetres etc.

Snap;

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Palettes, e.g. Gradient- A gradient is when you use the

colour, gradients, gradient tool to make one colour mix and
layers, object, turn in to the other like with the example
brushes, history, to the right. The tool even allows the user
actions, size, to use the selected colour and do a
resolution; gradient between it and transparency.

Colour- with photoshop there are endless

colours and even more depending on
what bit depth the colours are set to. If you
know the colour’s number then it will be
easier to get the colour you want.

Gradients- A gradient tool is used to mix

two colours together. You draw a line from
one area to another on the
image/document or just does a gradient in
the selected area. In the demonstration, I
have used layer mode to change it so the
colours blend.

Brushes- Brushes was one of the main

tools I used. It can be changed to different
size, sharpness, boldness and
transparency. You can also download
brushes from the internet for you to use.
Layers, e.g. Flattening- This is for when you are
copying, saving, finished with the document and you want
arranging; to format the image to a JPEG which only
flattening; colour uses 1 layer. When you flatten the image, it
selection, will remove any hidden layers and put a
padlock on the layer. It is best to keep a
saved version with all the layers if you
want to go back and edit it in the future.
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Arranging- Arranging layers can be tricky if

you don’t keep them organised at the
start. You can make folders for your layers
to keep them in groups. You can also
rename your layers so you get a good idea
which layer has done what on the
document.

Saving- A file of many formats can be

saved by going to file>save or file>save as. I
saved my files in a layered file, a psd file
and when I finished I created a seco0nd
version which is a JPEG that only supports
one layer.

Colour selection, Background- Background, this is changing

e.g. foreground, what you want as the bottom layer. There
background, are three to pick from. Transparent means,
colour swatch, you can create PNG format documents
eyedropper and the background would be see-
through. The next backgrounds are white
and black.

Eyedropper- The eyedropper is a tool that

you can use to select the exact pixel’s
colour. It is helpful for when you want to
get the perfect colour.

Colour swatch- This is the pallet of colour

you can select from. The colour on the left
is the foreground and the colour on the
right is the background. If you know the

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colour’s number then it will be easier to

get the colour you want.

Foreground- In a photograph the

foreground is the area closest to the
viewer. The foreground colour will be the
first colour.
Editing tools: 
Selection, e.g. Marquee- This tool is a selection tool. The
marquee, lasso, tool is a rectangle selection. It is used for
magic wand, selecting areas you may want to copy,
magnetic lasso, delete or duplicate. I find myself using the
deselect; tool a lot and I used it a lot making the
graphics.

Magic wand- the magic wand is to select a

colour. It is used by changing the
tolerance of the tool so it knows if it should
be selecting different shades of the colour
you want to select. Tolerance set to 1
means it will pick the one shade of colour.
A tolerance set to 50 will select a much
larger area because it selects more of the
colour.

Deselect- This is when you have something

selected but you want to have it
highlighted as being selected anymore.
You can either press the shortcut, ctrl+d or
you can go to select>deselect.

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Transform, e.g. To rotate an image, ctrl+t then put your

scale, rotate, skew, mouse to any side of the highlighted area
flip; cut; copy; so the arrows become curved. You can
paste; crop; trim; then drag round the image and rotate
erase; undo; fill how you want. You can also right click
while you are transforming and right click
and press rotate that way.
Scale- To scale an image press ctrl+t and
move by the arrows. You can hold shift+alt
while you move the corners to keep the
shape/image at its original shape.

Flip- To flip something on Photoshop. Go

to Image>image rotation then select either
horizontally or vertically.

Skew- this is an unusual tool. The tool

allows you to take the corners of an image
and completely change the perspective of
the image like the demonstration to the
right.

Copy, cut and paste- these three parts are

very easy to accomplish. You can go into
edit and do all three on them. Copy means
you copy the selected layer/s and you
paste them somewhere else. Paste is the
action you do when you have copied
something and you want to place it
somewhere else. Cut is just like copy
except the image you selected gets
removed until you paste it again.

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Crop- This tool allows you to only keep the

inside part of the area you selected. Use
the marquee tool to select the area you
want to keep then go to edit>crop to crop
around the marquee.

Undo- This process is press ctrl+z to go

back one step or ctrl+alt+z to go back
further.

Fill- With the fill tool you can select an area

with any of the selecting tools and then go
to edit>fill. From there you can fill the
selected area with any colour and any
layer mode like overlay, screen, lighten and
many more.
Advanced tools: 
Effects, e.g. layer Layer effects- Layer effects are something
effects, filters, you can do to the layer that will affect how
channels; image it will look and how it will mix with other
adjustments, layers. The demonstration shows that I
have a blue layer at the top but with
overlay mode on the layer it shows
everything through the layer and makes
everything appear below it slightly bluer.

Filters- Filters allows me to change images

completely it offers you to add simple
things to your images/layers like blue to
the layer or selected area, sharpen to the
selected area or layer add noise to a layer
and many more filters. A slightly harder
filter to do is on the right. It uses the polar

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coordinates filter and allows you to make a

“little planet” effect.

Channels- Channels in Photoshop is the

colour channels and is to do with the
colour mode you are in. If you go next to
the layer tab and click channels, there will
be 4 channels; blue, red, green and RGB. If
you deselect one of them, it will change
the colour of the image because you are
removing one of the layers meaning the
other two layers are mixing. When green is
removed. The image becomes pink, when
red is removed it goes blue and when blue
is removed it goes yellow. Removing 2 of
the colours makes the image go grey.

Image Adjustments- Image adjustments

allow the user to change many parts of the
image. A lot of image adjustments is to do
with colour adjusting for the image. Some
features it offers is desaturate and invert or
brightness and contrast.

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Image Brightness and contrast- these options

adjustments, e.g. allow the user to change the brightness
brightness and and contrast of the image. The
contrast, hue and demonstration shows the image at 100%
saturation, colour brightness and 0% contrast.
balance, gradients,
transparency, Hue and saturation- Hue and saturations
invert; masks; allows the user to change the colours of
the image and how saturated the colours
will be. It also allows the user to change
the brightness of the colours.

Gradients- A gradient tool is used to mix

two colours together. You draw a line from
one area to another on the
image/document or just does a gradient in
the selected area. In the demonstration, I
have used layer mode to change it so the
colours blend.

Transparency- Transparency is when

something is see-through. Transparency is
for PNG files that means there is no
backgrounds in PNG files. Transparency is
made from creating a new document or
you can delete areas from the document’s
background to show the transparency.
Transparency on Ps looks like white and
grey squares.

Masks- Masks is at the bottom of the layer

tab and looks like the Japan flag. You use
the brush, paint brush or gradient or even
anything else that fills the page to mask a
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layer. When you click the mask, it will

change your brush colours to black and
white. Black is to remove and white is to
bring back. I found myself using this a lot
because it is easier than using the eraser
tool.

Invert- This is found under image

adjustments. When you are on mask it will
bring back anything removed and
removed anything else. If you add colour
to something like orange and press invert
the colour will go to blue.

Colour balance- This tool is used for when

you want to change the colours slightly.
You can use the sliders to change the
balance of colours with how much of a
colour is shown, adding shadows to
colours and adding highlights.
Paths, e.g. vector Image slicing- this is used to quicken the
paths, converting time it takes to load an image. By slicing it
text to paths; in to 2 or into quarters, the image loads by
image slicing. section which is much quicker.

Text to path- this is when you want to get

your text into a path. You right click the
text layer and click work path. This
changes it to a path so you can use it in
masks and have the path to create a cut
out on another layer by having the path
selected.

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