Welcome to the tutorial for the basics of Photoshop! In this tutorial, we are going learn the purpose of most of the tools in this program.

In the middle, there should be nothing but the color gray. In this area, we should be able to see our picture, and see any changes we make to it. For now, instead of placing an image, we are going to create a new tab. Click on file in the very top left, and select new. A new window should pop up, asking you about what size the picture should be. For now, make it 5x7 inches, or 504x360 pixels. You can also do this by clicking the preset option, and selecting the Default Photoshop Size. Name your tab, and click ok, once finished editing. If done correctly, your screen should now look like this.

You should now be able to edit this area, using the toolbar to the right. Let's go over a few important tools, that are used the most.

Select Tool: Allows you to select or move an image or text.

Paint tool: Allows you to paint or draw with different colors, on your image.

Eyedropper Tool: Takes a color from an image, and makes it the new paint brush color.

Marquee Tool: Used to select a part of an image, and edit that specific part. It comes in a variety of shapes.

Pen Tool: Similar to the Marquee tool, but with custom shapes, rather than preset ones.

Magic Wand Tool: Let's you select a specific color, and edit only the areas that have only that color.

Earaser Tool: Erases sections of images.

Text Tool: Creates Text, with handfull of font and color options.

Magnifying glass tool: Zooms in or out of a picture.

Select the paint tool, and give it a try! Left click and drag on the white box in the center.

Great! Now that you've done that, you might see that the information on top has changed.

Depending on which tool is selected, said information will change. This will allow you to change how the tool works. For example, with the paint brush, you can change it's opacity, size, flow, and mode, among other options. If a tool doesn't work the way you'd like it to, experiment with the options on top, and change it to your liking.

Above the tool options, is another toolbar, if you can call it that. It's a bit different, though. Most of the options edit the image in the middle. The only exceptions being the edit, 3D, filter, and image options. Here's a rundown of some of the usable tools.

File: Let's you place, open, print, import, export, and save images. It can also be used to create a new tab, and many other tasks.

Edit: Used to copy, paste, cut, undo brush tool, transform, free transform, and fill.

Filter: Used to add fliters to your images such as Noise, Blur, Sharpen, Distort, and pixleate.

Windows: Offers a list of windows to automatically open.

Help: Find help on how to use Photoshop.

Now, for the final main part of the photoshop interface, the layer, Channel, and Path tabs.

First, let's look at the layer tab. A layer is something that you can edit, and the changes you make will be specific to that layer. For example, If you paint the color green on layer 1, and paint the color orange on layer 2, you should be able to see both colors. Let's give this a try. Click the drop down box, to the right of the three tabs, and click on new layer.

Name it what you want, and click ok. Now, make sure the new layer is selected, and draw over the white box, preferably with another color other than black.

Great! Now, click the eye icon, the left to the new layer.

If done correctly, the layer should now be invisible, and you can see the first layer perfically. Now, press the square, where the eye used to be. It should be visible once more. Next, right click on the first layer, and click convert to smart object. This should allow you to edit it, just like any other layer. After that, click and drag the new layer below the first layer.

You may have seen, that the drawing on the new layer is no longer there. What happened, is that the first layer has a white background, while the second had none. Thus, the white background is hiding the second drawing. Select the eraser tool, and erase part of the background, to reveal the layer. Make sure the First layer is selected, otherwise you might accidently erase the New layer, instead!

It should look something like this.

As you can see, the layers are very useful. They're mostly used to edit a specific part. So, let's say you draw an x with one line being red, the other green. If the two lines were on seperate layers, you can edit them much easier, if they were on the same one. For example, let's say the color of one of the lines just isn't right. If they were on seperate layers, you could erase one line, and redraw it. If it was just one layer, you would have to erase the entire thing, and redraw it.......Well, it'd actually be best to use the Magic Wand tool, and change the color of the line. But, you get the idea.

The next tab is the channels tab. This is used for colors. The 4 channels already there are titled RGB, Red, Green, and Blue. Hiding the blue channel will lower the blue colors in the image, making the entire image more of a yellow color.

Before

After

It is a bit confusing of how the channel tab works, but, we'll learn more of it's uses in future tutorials.

The final tab is the paths tab. This is used to track any paths made with the Pen Tool. Once more you can hide or move the paths, just like the channels and layers. Nothing more to say here.

We have just covered the basics of Adobe Photoshop. If you want us to cover a specific tutorial, email us, or post it on our Facebook page. Thank you, for your time.