Learning about Adobe Photoshop CS5.1

Learning about Adobe Photoshop CS5.1

1.      Move Tool (V) – use this tool to move things. Usually you use it to move a Layer around after it has been placed. Hold the [Shift] key to limit the movements to vertical or horizontal.

2.      Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) – use this tool to make selections on your image in a rectangular or square shape. You can therefore move the shape around in order to place it in the order or your choice. Holding the [Shift] key while dragging your selection, restricts the shape to a perfect square. Holding the [Alt] key while dragging sets the center of the rectangle to where your cursor started.

3.      Lasso Tool (L) – Use this to select images in any shape you like edit it or crop it. To close the selection, either click on the beginning point (you’ll see the cursor change when you’re on it), or just double-click. When holding the [Ctrl] key, you’ll see the cursor change, and the next time you click, it will close your selection.

4.      Quick Selection Tool (W) – It is related to pen tool. You can select any shape or object easily.

5.      Crop Tool (C) - The difference is when you press the [Enter/Return] key, it crops your image to the size of the box. Any information that was on the outside of the box is now gone. Not permanently, you can still undo.

6.      Eyedropper Tool (I) - This tool works by changing your foreground color to whatever color you click on. Holding the [Alt] key will change your background color.

7.      Spot Healing Brush Tool (J) – It is a mildy advanced tool which is used to repair scratches and specs in order to perfect the image to make it look even better. You choose your cursor size, then holding the [Alt] key, you select a nice/clean area of your image. Let go of the [Alt] key and paint over the bad area. It basically copies the info from the first area to the second, in the form of the Brush tool. Only, at the end, it averages the information, so it blends.

8.      Brush Tool (B) – It is the basic tool that Photoshop was once based on. It is pretty simple. It paints one your image, in whatever color you have selected, and whatever size you have selected.

9.      Clone Stamp Tool (S) – This is very similar to Healing Brush Tool except it doesn’t blend colours at the end of the process.

10.  History Brush Tool (Y) – This tool is just like the Brush Tool except the information that it paints with it is from the original state of your image.