Adobe Photoshop CS3 Basics Tutorial

Adobe Photoshop CS3 Basics Tutorial​

Introduction: Hello, this is a guide to getting started with Adobe Photoshop CS3. This will be one of my most extensive, in depth, and detailed guides that I will ever make. This is going to teach you what is what on Adobe Photoshop CS3, and help you learn where certain options are located. Now don't worry this is long but, there will be many visuals guiding you through, and following the guide should be amazingly simple. Adobe Photoshop CS3 can be downloaded at www.Adobe.com, and if your not going to buy it, you can "Try" it for 30 days, that download should be on that page also. I believe that the "Try" download is under the "Trial Downloads" section and looks like this:
. You should select the "Try" option, which should bring you to the download. Once you have it installed you can begin reading and following the guide.

The Default Workspace: This main 'page', one could say, is where you will do all your work. I will label the following points on the visual below and then break down what each number stands for.

1. Menu Bar- This is where most of your basic program commands are located.
2. Tool Options Bar- This is where, whatever tool selected, options will come up for that tool. This would be the very specific options of each individually selected tool.
3. Adobe Bridge Button- This will take you to your Adobe Bridge.
4. The Tool Box- This is where each and every individual tool is located, which you may select to edit your graphics.
5. Floating Pallets- This is where you can select certain layers of the specific graphic and much more.

The Menu Bar: The menu bar holds nine individual menus; File, Edit, Image, Layer, Select, Filter, View, Window, and Help. You should take a few moments to familiarize yourself with the nine individual menus. Now let's just break down one menu quickly. We are going to use "Select" individual menu.

1. (...)- These 3 dots represent how there is a dialog box, which is just another menu for more options within that option. Anytime one of these dialog boxes is present, you will need to specify more throughly what you want to be done.
2. (->)- This small arrow after a specific topic represent a sub menu, again this is just to be more specific about what you would like.
3. Keyboard Shortcuts- These are keyboard shortcuts, if you type in what it tells you to, it will take you directly to that option.

The Tool Options Bar: The tool options bar is where you would go to adjust certain settings for the tool which is selected. This bar changes accordingly with the tool which have selected. This bar can be dragged onto anywhere in the workspace. Below I will use the marquee tool as an example.


The Tool Box: This is where each tool is listed. If there is a smaller arrow in the lower right hand corner of each tool, that means that there are hidden tools within that tool which can be accessed by right clicking on the tool as shown below. You should spend a fair amount of time familiarizing yourself with each tool's name by holding your cursor over the image of each tool.

1. Hidden Tools- These are the hidden tools within the marquee tool which we used as an example. These hidden tools can be accessed by right clicking on the specific tool you want, permitting it has a small arrow in it's bottom right hand corner.

Breaking Down The Tool Box: This will be the most agonizing part of the tutorial, I will be breaking down the individual jobs of each tool.

Rectangular Marquee Tool-

All the marquees are grouped together inside the rectangular marquee tool, since the rectangular marquee is the most often used. When trying to centralize on a specific object you can use the rectangular marquee tool by clicking and dragging the outlined square to the desired size. This will cut out or select the specific section you wanted. You can also do this with another marquee tool but, for example we will use the elliptical marquee tool, you will now have a circular outlined image and you can drag that to the specified size you would like. If you hold down the 'Alt' button while dragging, the selection will draw outward from that point. This just means you initial click will be now located in the center, and work outward from that position. Make sure your on the original image or you might end up with multiple layers of outward points.

Lasso Tool-

The lasso has 3 sub categories. You can use the polygonal, regular lasso, or magnetic lasso, each preforms the some process but just different shapes. You can drag the regular lasso and make a free-handed selection. So you can draw any shape you want out of a specified image. You can hold down the 'Alt' button and click where corners are going to be located. You can go from lasso tool to lasso tool throughout the process but once you let go of the mouse (and 'Alt' button) you will complete your selection. Make sure you have exactly what you want before you release off of the 'Alt' button.

Crop Tool-

You will use the tool to delete certain parts of an image. You drag the tool over a selected portion and then hit the 'Enter' button and it will delete the selected portion. If you need to create odd shapes, before hitting enter you can drag certain points on the dotted lines and change up the desired shape. if you hold the 'Shift' key, you will maintain length and width proportions within the specified selection.

Healing Brush Tool-

The healing brush and patch tool are formed together in the tool box (along with the red eye tool), so you will have to select which of the two you would like to use. Chose a brush shape and size to begin (Click on the thumbnail). This tool allows you to customize the brush tip, accordingly to what you would like.

Clone Stamp Tool-

With the clone tool you can copy certain portions of a selected work and then clone them to be pasted onto a new section of the selected graphic. The size of the clone tool depends on the size of the brush you select, when you are presented with the option. You can decipher how you want the duplicate to be added to the image in the options bar.

Eraser Tool-

The eraser is probably the most self explained tool of all, if you don't know how to use an eraser, i'm sorry. You choose a brush from the pop-up pallet, and now you use the eraser to remove the specified portions. You can select the size of the brush you want, it just acts like an eraser.

Blur Tool-

The blur tool is grouped along with the sharpen and smudge tools. These tools harden or soften images, or in other words retouching the traits of a graphic. This tool can also be used to smoothen specified sections of an unclear image transfer. This tool also uses a brush to soften or sharpen a certain portion of a graphic. You can edit how quickly blurring occurs by editing the speed of that the brush blurs in the options bar.

Notes Tool-

Audio annotations are also grouped under the notes tool. This somewhat acts as footnotes for you images, almost like stickies. If you click on an image while you have the notes tool selected, a small box will pop up in which you can type your notes in. You can always change the text option with the font options selection. If users want to see your notes there will be a small notes logo which one can click to read or listen to your specific notes for that portion.

Hand Tool-

The hand tool can grab any image a move it around in any direction almost like a joystick. If you double click the hand tool, the presented image's magnification will increase.

Magic Wand Tool-

The magic wand selects any of the same color throughout an image. You can choose whether or not you want the colors to be semi-close or exact in the options of the tool. As you click a section you can see what it will entail and if you would like to delete that and what not. I mostly use this tool to remove the background off of a google image.

Path Section Tool-

The two tools grouped together are used to edit paths and so forth. It will select any specific component. With the direct selection tool it will select a very specific path component.

Gradient Tool-

The space is chosen by where and how far you drag the tool across the image. Linear- initial shades from first click to ending shades at last click, radial- shades in a circular format, angle- shades in a left spiral, reflected- creates a mirror image of the image on the opposing side, and diamond- shades created in a diamond pattern. This tool has to do with all forms of certain shading for a graphic.

Background and Foreground Tools-

The white square, posted above, is the foreground selection color. If you click on a color in the color picker you will have that set as your foreground color. Clicking on the black box will allow you to chose your background color inside of a specified color picker. Clicking the smaller two squares in the upper left hand corner will restore the background and foreground colors to white and black. Clicking the two opposite pointing arrows will reverse the two color selections.

Pen Tool-

The pen, and sub-pens are used for creating and editing certain paths. These are specific outlines which can be stroked, filled with color, or cut out. The pain has many sub tools which perform the same task, just in different shapes.

Zoom Tool-

Clicking the tool with enable you to use it, also it will allow you to increase the magnification of a specified section of work due to the percentage by which you set it. You can choose how much or how little you want the image to be magnified. The amount of times you click the specified portion will be the amount of times it increases. There is a maximum and you will notice that it has been reached when the center of the tool because clear. T do the opposite hold down the 'Alt' key and begin to click.

Eye Dropper Tool-

The eye dropper and it's sub tools can be used to establish specific colors data for comparison and preference purposes. This also sets the tone development levels in specified areas. The eye dropper tool can be temporarily accessed while using any other tool in the box.

Move Tool-

Simply move this tool to the section where you would like to use it, then click and begin to drag your selection wherever you may please. If you please to move multiple selections you may drag them and they will move at the same time, to do this hold the shift key and select another section of the image. You can drag the image from one set graphic space to another by dragging it from image box image.

Slice Tool-

With the slice tool you can cut certain sections out of a specific piece of work and then you may save that selected portion as itself. This is how you can break certain pieces of artwork into separate links in one work of art. Sliced images are recreated with almost no flaws.

Rectangle Tool-

This grouping of specifically shaped tools creates a path depending upon which tool you use to create this path, I have previously described what 'paths' are. Lines or shapes created with this tool create something called vector images. With a vector you can change size no matter what since it has nothing to do with pixels.

Text Tool-

When you use the text tool you will have a box as your tool, with this you will drag the size of the box you want created for your text. There will be a line across the I, which is where the text begins, and this will be where the bottom of you specified text will be. This tool is basically only used to place customized text onto a specified piece of artwork. if you drag the tool over previously written text on the same layer you will be able to edit your customized text.

History Brush Tool-

This tool paints from an earlier specified portion of an image to a later stage portion of an image. This is often used for retouching with a heavier or light filter.

Well, if some of you have been wondering where I have been here is your answer.

 

Woah 10/10 Thanks !!!

First one to post

 

Haha, yeah. Thanks a lot too, it's good to see people appreciate 5+ hours worth of work. It's very hard to put it into words what's what, you know? Well I'm happy you think it's useful.

 

Well usually most editorialist's write separate guides on using just the pen tool. It's obviously one of the most difficult tools to master. Also if I would have written a guide showing how to use every tool, it might take 2 weeks, but perhaps in the future.

 

This is an excellent guide. If you could expand each specific section on how to use the tools with an example use case, this would probably be the best guide on the site.

 

Yeah, I just might. But I figure that would take me 2-3 weeks, and maybe I'll do it if I get the chance. Until then, I want to continue to create some more small good quality guides.

 

This is a decent guide. I know way beyond this stuff but this would be great for amatuers. The pen tool is the best tool to work with once you master it.

 

Well that's why it's called a 'basics guide'. It breaks down the tool box, tool by tool. It just shows exactly your surroundings once you enter into CS3. I had to teach myself Photoshop, but if I had something like this, I would have been much better off, thank you though .

 

Actually, once you master the pen tool, you realise it's just a vector tool that's been kicked in the balls and get inkscape.

 

Haha, yeah. It took me sometime to actually learn how to use the pen tool. I had to teach myself by reading online tutorials and such. I'm decent with the pen tool, just somethings i'm not the greatest with.

 

awesome guide man, your really good at making guides dude, 10/10 id say keep em coming

 

Thanks, I got an new one coming out tomorrow.

 

Wow excellent guide. Greatly typed with extensive detail. Pictures when needed. Great job i'd give it a 9.99/10

 

Was that really necessary to sing your own praises?

And well done with the guide. Good ammount of effort put into it, try break it down into more specific sections with examples. And like Darby said, it could possibly be the best guide on the site.