Interface Introduction to Adobe Photoshop Class -1  [Adobe Photoshop for Beginners]

Assalam.o.Alaikum

 Hello and welcome to Tech Learning 4U

in this beginner's guide to Adobe Photoshop.

In this tutorial we are going to kick things off

from the very start.

In this Blog we are going to take a look

at the Adobe Photoshop interface.

Now the first version of Photoshop was released

in the late 1980s.

With all the innovations and new features

that have been introduced over the years,

up until now the interface itself

has not changed all that much.

For those of you that are completely new to Photoshop,

I'm going to tell you around and introduce you to some

of the things you need to be aware of.

Now I'm currently using Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 for Mac.

If you're using an earlier version or Windows,

some things may be a little different in parts

but in principle it should be the same.

So if you have Photoshop open and wish to follow along,

you will need to first come up to Window,

scroll down to Workspace

and scroll down and select Essentials.

Then to make sure we all have the same setup,

we must again go to Window, Workspace,

and then scroll down and select Reset Essentials.

This will then set the interface

to the Essentials default layout

and you should have something that looks like this.

Now don't worry if your setup

is not exactly the same as mine here,

what you should have is the default settings.

Just follow along and you should be fine.

What you will come to learn later on is

that you can customize this layout

but what would help right now is for you to have the same

or similar layout so you can follow along with me.

Now one other thing you need to make sure you have active

is the application frame.

The application frame is the gray space

you see here in the background.

If we come again to Window and scroll down to the bottom,

we have the Application Frame here.

So if I click this to turn it off, we can see the desktop.

Now we can work like this but I find it must easier

to work with the application frame on.

So for the duration of this course,

we will need the application frame on.

So I'll come back to Window, scroll down

and click to activate it there, perfect.

So this is Adobe CC

and with CS6 and CC we have this dark interface.

If you're using an earlier version,

you'll be looking at the light interface.

Now if for whatever reason you wish

to toggle the interface color,

if you come to Photoshop on the top toolbar,

I believe this is in Edit for Windows,

scroll down to Preferences and select Interface.

It's here you can toggle the lightness and darkness

at the top of this menu.

I like it dark so I'm going to select the darkest option

and click OK.

So to begin, I'm going to open up a document,

this document is going help me demonstrate

various functionality of the program

which we are going to be covering

a little later on in this video

so be sure to open this up and follow along.

Now this document can be found in the introduction folder

in the project folder.

Now you can download this project folder for free.

The download link is in the description.

So with the project folder open,

click on Introduction, Interface Introduction

and open the Interface Introduction file

and you should have something that looks like this.

Okay so let's take a closer look at the interface.

So on the far left we have this tall, slim panel.

This is the tools panel and contains all the tools

that can be used in Photoshop.

As you can see, we have lots of icons here.

To activate the tool, we simply click it

or press one of the many shortcut buttons on the keyboard.

We know which tool is active

because it will have a highlight square behind it

on the tools panel.

In Photoshop we will be using many tools

and most tools have their own unique mouse-cursor icon.

You will notice that as we use the tool,

the mouse cursor will change,

indicating which tool we have activated.

So if we look carefully,

we can see that almost all the icons

have a little white arrow in the bottom right corner.

If we click and hold an icon with a white arrow,

this will reveal more tools in that set.

For example, if I click and hold on the pen tool,

we can see an extra four tools within that set.

If I click and hold on the shape tool,

we can see a variety of tools

that can be created very easily.

So keep in mind that some tools work in sets.

Now if we take a closer look at the bottom of this panel,

we can see two overlapping squares.

Now if you're new to Photoshop,

you may not be familiar with this.

What this represents is a foreground color

and a background color.

The top square is the foreground

and the bottom square is the background color.

So right now we can see that the foreground color

on the top is black and the background color is white.

Now if you look closely, just above the foreground

and background color in the tools panel,

we have this little button

called swap foreground and background.

And if I press this, it's going to swap the foreground

and background color like so.

So very easily, we can swap the foreground color

and the background color.

Now to the left of the swap foreground and background

we have another little button

and this is the Default Foreground and Background.

If I press this, it's going to set the foreground

and background squares to black and white.

N

ow we can't really see this happening at the moment

as our colors are already black and white,

though should the foreground

and background color be set to other colors,

clicking this will set them to black and white.

So as you can see, the tools menu

is currently in one column.

If we look closely up to the top left of the tools panel,

we can see these little arrows pointing right.

If I come and click this once,

we can change the panel to a double column

and if we press this again,

we can go back to the single column.

For the duration of this course,

I'm going to click and set my tools panel to a single row.

Now if we move to the top of our window,

we can see the standard toolbar across the top.

F

rom here we can access various properties, controls,

and initiate some of the creative features in Photoshop.

But we're not going to go into this too much right now.

Just under the top bar, we have the control panel.

The control panel spans the entire width of the screen,

just under the main menu at the top.

Now this control panel is really useful

as this will display various properties and options

of a particular tool you have selected at any given time.

You will soon realize that this is one

of the most key panels in the program

and as you use Photoshop,

you will be referring to this panel a lot.

So if I move down through the tools menu

and click on each tool,

notice how the control panel changes.

This is displaying all the various tools

and options of that tool

that can be toggled and used accordingly.

Later in the course you will be learning

how we will use this panel

as we start to use the various tools in the tools panel.

So keep in mind, as you use your tools, keep an eye

on the control panel as this is really useful.

Moving over the the right-hand side,

we have some panel visible

and another slim panel with icons.

These icons represent panels that can be made visible

by clicking on them.

Here we have history and properties.

If I click on the icon once, the panel will snap out.],

if I click the icon below,

this will snap to reveal that panel.

If I click the icon again, the panel will snap back in.

Next to this we have some panels that are already visible.

Here we can currently see the layers, libraries,

and color panel.

Now if you look carefully,

these panels also include other panels as tabs.

For example, on this layers panel,

we also have the channels panel and the paths panel.

What you will soon discover is that these panels,

like the control panel, are essential

in order to produce work in Adobe Photoshop.

In order to have a swift workflow in this program,

it will help to have a comfortable setup of these panels.

Now in Photoshop you can arrange

and customize these panels in various ways.

I'll be demonstrating how to do this in the next episode

and I'll be recommending an effective setup

though what you see here is a default setup.

Now if I come to the very bottom of the window,

we have this thin strip.

This also contains some useful tools and visual aids.

If we look over on the far left,

we have the magnification of our document.

This will give you an indication

 at a glance,

of what percentage we are looking

at the artwork in, the canvas area.

We can also use this to zoom in and out

of our document precisely.

We can do this by clicking in the box

and typing in a specific value.

For example, I can type in 50 and press enter

and I will see my artwork at 50%.

To the right of this, we have a visual aid box.

To the right of this, we can see a little white arrow.

Now if I click this, we can choose from a list

of what we want to display in this box,

for example, I'm going to choose Document Dimensions.

In here I can see the size of my document.

If I click and hold on this box,

it will also give me a quick glance at the width, height

and resolution of my document, convenient.

So next I want to touch on document tabs.

Now what are document tabs?

Well currently we have this document open

and if we look carefully

in the top left corner just under the control panel

we have a tab that shows the document name.

Now sometimes you may find yourself

using multiple documents at any time.

In Photoshop you can have multiple documents open at once.

For example, let's quickly create a new document.

I'm going to come to File, New and just click OK

and there it is.

And let's make one more, File, New, and click OK

and we have another.Now look again closely at the top left just under the control panel,

this time we have three tabs.

Now we can click these to navigate to other documents.

If I click the far left tab,

we are back to our first document.

If I click the next tab along to the right,

we can see the new document

and if I click the next tab along,

we can see the other document.

So as we use multiple documents,

we can simply click on these tabs to navigate around.

So when we start to use multiple documents

later on in the course,

we will be using document tabs in this way.

So I'm going to close these two documents down

by clicking on the x icon on the far left of the tabs

until I am back to my original document.

So that's a brief overview of the Adobe Photoshop interface.

In the next Blog, we will be taking a closer look

at the work panels where I will be showing you

how you can customize your panel layout

to get a more comfortable and tailored workspace.

See you in the next Blog.