How to use Photoshop

Surely if you are an expert in the world of design, you will know Photoshop like the back of your hand. But nevertheless, not everyone knows the functions of this program that has offered so much help to designers. illustrators or photographers.

That is why, in this tutorial, we are going to show you a mini guide so that you can guide yourself even more about this program and it will be of great help to you when carrying out your projects. Below we explain more about this tool that Adobe designed exclusively for you and for all those who are lovers of graphics and design.

Photoshop: What is it?

Photoshop is defined as a kind of image software where graphic design is very important. It is a tool that is currently used by thousands and thousands of people around the world.

It is not only linked to photo editing, but can be designed for purposes such as web design, but also serves to edit videos and create 3D graphics. What is perhaps not worth it about this application is that Photoshop is not free, but since it is part of Adobe, you will need to pay the monthly or annual pack.

What this application guarantees is that despite being paid for, once you get hold of the pack, you can download it to multiple devices at the same time through your Adobe account. Thus you can enjoy the app through different screens.

Basic functions

To begin to know more about this tool, it is necessary to know first-hand the basic functions of Photoshop. For this reason, it is interesting that you know that, once you open the application, it will show you what the main menu will be at the top.

On the left side a sidebar will be displayed on your screen, it's about the toolbar along with some of the tools that will help you edit your projects. Finally, on the right side, you will see the color tool and the layers tool. 

Open Photoshop document

To create a new document or open a file on your computer, click on “File” in the top left menu. Select “New” to create a new empty document. Or click "Open" to access your computer and open an existing file.

When you create a new document, a dialog will appear. In this window you can name the file and select the desired size and resolution. This is useful if your website requires a certain file size to properly display photos. Note that the software will "freeze" this new document, preventing you from making changes directly to that layer. To unlock it, click the lock icon on the layer name and it will disappear.

Toolbox

The toolbox on the left sidebar will be your best friend. Tools are organized into groups based on what they do:

The top section features selection, cropping, and cutting tools: use them to select the parts of the images you want to edit or enhance, or crop the parts you want to exclude. The second section introduces retouching and painting tools: Use them to remove unwanted spots, draw on the image, erase some parts, color it, or enhance it with sharpness or blur.

The third section is dedicated to drawing and typing tools: Use these tools to write text on your image or draw images on them manually with the pencil tool. Every time you click on one of the tools in the left sidebar, you'll see the tool's options appear in the main menu at the top.

Pen tool

The Pen Tool allows you to draw your shapes. When using it, you will get four different options:

• Standard boom to draw curves and straight segments.
• of curvature to draw straight and curved segments intuitively
• freehand pen to draw freely, as if you were using pen and paper
• magnetic pen to draw paths that snap to the edges of certain defined edges, for greater precision

Select the standard pen tool by clicking and holding the pen icon and choosing the one that says "Pen Tool." You can also cycle through the different pen tools by clicking the main icon in the toolbox menu and then pressing “Shift + P” as a keyboard shortcut. 

text tool

The text tool allows you to write words on the image. When you hold down the Text tool icon in the left toolbox, you'll see the option to write horizontally or vertically. Like all other tools, when you click on it, more options will appear in the main menu. You can also edit using the Character panel, which gives you some other options.

gradient tool

A gradient is a Smooth color transition between two or more colors. Gradients are great backgrounds for photography or advertising products. They can be an easy way to add a little color and a professional look.

The layers

Layers are the basic element of Photoshop, everything you work with will be made up of layers. When you use multiple layers, it's easier to modify one part of the image without ruining the rest of the final product.

You can add or remove layers easily and “hide” them by clicking the eyeball icon to the left of each layer name. In many cases, Photoshop will automatically create a new layer for your action. For example, if you use the text tool to write on the background image or paste another image into the document, a separate, unnamed layer will be created.

Photoshop Resources

The resources that we show you below are small templates located on various web pages that can provide you with even more material for your projects. It is always important to know where to download brushes, vectors etc. that can help you improve your technique day by day.

Devian Art

The largest social network of artists in the world not only serves for young artists to show their works to submit them to comments and criticism from the rest of the community, Deviant Art is also a place to share your own resources.

This website, which has been active since the year 2000, created a resource category among its many categories, which has given rise to artists from all over the world sharing their resources so that others can use it completely free of charge.

Within the category of web resources there are 6 subcategories designated especially for Photoshop: psds, brushes, gradients and patterns, actions, custom shapes and color palettes.

Although Deviant Art is not a resource page as such, the enormous number of users it has means that this website does not stop growing day by day, adding more and more free material for artists, graphic designers and architects, among others. others.

Freepik

If you don't know where to find a resource, your best option to find it is through Freepik. This website has one of the largest free libraries of graphic resources in the world and, according to them, they are also the largest community of graphic designers in the world.

These assumptions are not so far-fetched when you see the figures handled by this website of Spanish origin and based in Malaga. With 20 million monthly visits and clients like Google or Adobe, it is not surprising the extraordinary growth of Freepik.

But not everything is so good on this website, as they themselves say, the page works with a freemium business model, that is, free but not entirely. Most of the resources can be downloaded for free by attributing rights to the web, but the full experience is accompanied by a subscription.

skalgubbar

It is one of the simplest pages where they exist. Skalgubbar is a website created by an architecture student from Sweden, Teodor Javanaud Emdén, in which he offers us hundreds of cropped images of people in multiple situations.

All images can be downloaded individually and free of charge in .png format and with large size and resolution. Also, if you are going to use any of these images, keep in mind that they are solely and exclusively for use in photomontages of unbuilt architecture.

Conclusion

If this little guide has been insufficient or very brief, remember that you can consult some of the posts that we designed for you and that they are also part of some of the resources that can be used in Photoshop.

If you dedicate yourself to working with vectors, layers, and in general you like the world of graphics and design, you can choose to buy the Adobe pack where this tool is included.

Also, if you want to get more free tools and resources, take a look at the ones we have recommended and let your creativity take over.