Understanding Photoshop Toolbox
 

Introduction

Adobe Photoshop, a great software for photo editing, photo retouching etc. using this software we can convert Black n’ White pictures to colored one or we can make the inverse! We can make a picture brighter or we can create special effect on it! But how? Here in this series of articles, I’ll describe it! (If Approved) I’m sure that, all articles in this series will be helpful for those who are known to Photoshop as a photo editing software but never touched it or for beginners! ;)
Okay guys! Let’s begin with the tool box of Photoshop. The tool box can be found at the left of your Photoshop wizard.

Background

In internet, if you search Google, you can find lots of tutorials of Photoshop but here I'm trying to deliver the most easiest method for beginners! For those, who are expert in this software, please co-operate here with me to deliver this thing! :D

http://www.go4expert.com/images/arti...photoshop1.jpg

Toolbox In Brief

Now follow the numberings on the picture and I’m describing about these tools available on the tool box.

1. Adobe Online – This is nothing but a hyper link button connected to the Adobe Homepage.
2. Rectangular Marquee Tool – Using this tool we can select any part of a picture and then we can move that selected part of that particular picture to any where of the workspace.
3. Lasso Tool – This tool also helps to select any portion of a picture. In this tool you will find three types of lasso tool, Normal Lasso Tool, Polygonal Lasso Tool and Magnetic Lasso Tool.
4. Crop Tool – By name of this tool you can imagine that it helps us to crop or resize a photo.
5. Airbrush Tool - Similar as the airbrush of MS Paint which all of us have used at the very begging class of Windows, using this we can spray color on any part of picture.
6. Clone Stamp Tool – This a simple but most powerful stamp tool means it helps to create a photo copy any portion of a picture to a targeted place of that picture. For using this tool, just hold ALT and then click to the area of which you want to make a copy then click on the target area to create the copy.
7. Eraser Tool – It helps to erase any portion of a picture.
8. Blur Tool – It helps to soft hard edges of a image.
9. Path Component Selection Tool – It helps to select path of a shape.
10. Pen Tool – It creates lines by using some dots.
11. Notes Tool – It helps to add notes to a picture or image.
12. Hand Tool – Helps to move a zoomed image or in normal size
13. Move Tool – Helps to move a selected or cutting portion of a image.
14. Magic Wand Tool – It helps to select a particular area automatically, means if we try to select a small area with lasso tool, it may be incorrect selection or may take huge time. So use this tool and just click on the desired area, Photoshop will select it!
15. Slice Tool – It helps to cut any portion of a image.
16. Paint Brush Tool – Simple tool for painting on any portion of a picture.
17. History Brush Tool – It helps to create a picture from its reflection! Suppose you have a damaged picture with a reflection on it. Now if the main portion of the photo is damaged but the reflected portion is still correct, so in this case you can re-create the main portion of the photo using this tool.
18. Gradient Tool – It helps to create gradients on the picture.
19. Dodge Tool – By using this tool you can adjust lights on the picture of any portion.
20. Type Tool – Simple text tool helps to create visible texts on the image.
21. Rectangle Tool – It helps to create a rectangle shape on the image.
22. Eyedropper Tool – Helps to pick up colors from the image or from any portion of the image.
23. Zoom Tool – Helps to zoom pictures.

This was all about the tools available on Photoshop, without it, on the attached image as well as on the toolbox; we can find two colors, which are marked as Foreground Color and background Color. Now to fill the background with a selected color, Just press CTRL + Backspace and to fill the foreground with a selected color press ALT + Backspace.

This is for this lesson only! Please, use those tools on any image, from next lesson, I'll provide some small projects for learning photoshop. Another thing, before experimenting with a image, please make a duplicate copy of it by Right click on the image windwo -> Duplicate so, if you duplicate it, then the main image will be untouched,if you did any mistake! :p

Re: Understanding Photoshop Toolbox
 

There are many other tools which are in toolbox but there are under one level like Rectangle tool also has a line tool

Re: Understanding Photoshop Toolbox
 

@Pankaj: Nice Info.
Personally I'm not much into photo editing, but as a beginner, I prefer Paint.Net

Almost all the tools mentioned here are also present in Paint.Net
It's small and easy to use.

I think Photoshop is a heavy tool for normal usage or beginners.

Re: Understanding Photoshop Toolbox
 

Hi! Thanks For Sharing This Information!
:D
But may be photoshop is heavy but I think its the best photo editing software ever!:lipsrseal

Re: Understanding Photoshop Toolbox
 

yes, Photoshop's definitely the best

But I don't want such software which eats 1gb of my harddisk space, more than half of my ram, which I use rarely.
for day to day small tasks I find "Paint.Net" as best.

I think Photoshop is for the professionals who work on large projects and has good system configuration for such softwares.

I always go for small and effective softwares.

Re: Understanding Photoshop Toolbox
 

Paint.Net is free
Can be expanded by adding freely available plugins

Re: Understanding Photoshop Toolbox
 

I Don't Think So That Photoshop Shares A Huge RAM of A System, Because on my desktop I'm running on only 512 MB of RAM, a simple Celeron 2.0 GHz processor and I work with Photoshop smoothly! Even in CS2!

Re: Understanding Photoshop Toolbox
 

Very nicely written and hope you will write other articles on how to use this controls

Re: Understanding Photoshop Toolbox
 

Thanks...
I'll post my next article soon on this topic... :smug:

Re: Understanding Photoshop Toolbox
 

Nominate this article for Article of the month - Dec 2009