Photoshop starter elephant compressed

2. Your Challenge: Recreate a daft image
like this one using Photoshop tools…
• Once you’ve all successfully imported the images into a saved
Photoshop (psd) file, and been shown how to resize, move
and remove the background, have a go yourselves!
• Use the screenshots in the PowerPoint (on the blog post) to
help you … and try to find your own solution before putting
your hand up!!! (Common issues are listed on the blog post)

3. 1: Log in, new folder
• Log in to Windows using your normal log-in
• If the computer is on Mac, you need to restart
and hold in the ALT key to then select
Windows
• In My Documents create a folder called Media
• Save your work in here.
• You can add sub-folders if you wish!

4. Save images to this folder
• Save the images from my blog post into your
folder. You can use any of these for the exercise
that follows. The elephant image shown is the
simplest to edit!
• As I take a step you should follow using the
images you picked.

5. 2: Open Photoshop
• Click on Start
• All programmes
• Find + click on Adobe CS6
• You should find the link in this folder for
Photoshop … click and open it, but don’t click
on anything else until we’ve looked at the next
step as a class…
• Do NOT work ahead unless you’ve been asked
to do so

6. 3: File, new…
• Click on <FILE> then <NEW>…

7. 4: Set up, save, new document
• You need to click and change a few settings on
your new blank document. Once you have and
it opens, click CTRL+S and save it in your
Media folder 1: Change the file name to
Elephant
2: Click on ‘Preset:’ and
select International paper;
this will set up an A4
document (and the ‘preset’
will then change to ‘Custom’)
3: Make it a landscape
document: swap the width
and height numbers!
4: Change background
contents to transparent
THEN click OK, and save it
into your Media folder
Change to
landscape
by
switching
these
width +
height
numbers!

8. 5: Adding an image file
• This is fundamental to how Photoshop works
but can be confusing! Follow the instructions
carefully…
• There are several ways of doing this
• Using ‘the bridge’ is one [screenshots next slide]
• Look for ‘Bridge’ on the bottom of the screen
and click to connect; this will open up access
to My Docs. If its missing, click Window-
Extensions-Mini Bridge

9. 5: Adding an image file (1) Bridge
• Click connect bridge to open the Bridge
browser along the bottom of the Photoshop
window

10. 5: Adding an image file (1) Bridge
• This will load up a folder list from which you
can access My Docs, My Pictures etc

11. 5: Adding an image file (1) Bridge
• Click the ‘Br’ button to open a window like
Windows explorer to easily pick from your
saved files and access handy tools

12. 5: Adding an image file (1) Bridge
• Select the image/s you want (hold in CTRL and
click on each image you want to load), and
open via Tools-Photoshop-Load Files…

13. 5: Adding an image file (1) Bridge
• Your chosen images now appear in the Layers
toolbar. You can add as many as you like

14. 5: Adding an image file (2) File-Open
• You can use Bridge OR this technique. In My Documents, right-click on
any saved picture file and select ‘Open in Photoshop’.
• You can also click File-Open in Photoshop and locate the image to open

15. 6: Loading open images into your document
• Find the image you want to add, which you’ve already
opened in Photoshop.
• Either right-click on the layer you want from the Layers
toolbar or click Layer from the top toolbar, and select
Duplicate Layer
• This allows you to select which Photoshop document
to add this to (see next screenshot)

16. 6: Loading open images into your document
• You can rename the layer, but also choose
which document to open it in: Click on the
arrow by ‘Document’ and look for Elephant
practice.psd. ‘.psd’ denotes (means) a
Photoshop document

17. 7: Changing Layers order
• Open any 2 images in one Photoshop document. Try
dragging and dropping above or below to change the
order. The higher layer will block out the one below!
• The ‘green screen’
layer is on top here;
the next screenshot
shows this reversed

18. 7: Changing Layers order
• Open any 2 images in one Photoshop document. Try
dragging and dropping above or below to change the
order. The higher layer will block out the one below!
• Here I have changed
the order. The top layer
was blocked out before

19. 7: Changing Layers order
• In more complicated documents than this one it
is a good idea to change layer names so you can
quickly find them again! Just select a layer and
click Layer-rename layer
• In designing this 2014 film DVD sleeve I had well
over 100 layers (Photoshop screenshot from an
earlier example)

20. 8: Resizing a layer
• The keyboard shortcut CTRL+T brings up the Free
Transform tool (or Edit-Transform). CRUCIAL:
Hold the SHIFT key when making bigger or
smaller, otherwise the shape distorts!!!!!
• In this example I didn’t
hold SHIFT, so the coke ad
stretched out.
• Hold SHIFT and drag from
the corners
• NOW: Resize the coke ad
so that it fills the frame,
but keeps it original shape
• You can also rotate it and move it around – click and move
the mouse from outside the box (look for the handle)

21. 9: Undo + ticking
• When you’re making changes like transform
you can’t do anything else until you’ve either
clicked the tick (to keep the changes) or the
circle (to scrap the changes. You can also click
EDIT-UNDO (Ctrl+Z) to undo a mistake!
You can also click Window-History to
see the steps you’ve made and delete
one or more of these!

22. 10: Eyeball to hide layers
• You can hide any other layers simply by
clicking on the eyeball in the Layers toolbox
• To show it again … just click again on the
eyeball!
• Below: the top layer is now hidden

23. 11: Magic Wand tool
• Load up the Coke ad as your bottom layer, and add the
elephant image on top of it.
• Hide any other layers simply by clicking on the eyeball
in the Layers toolbox!
• One of the key tasks you’ll do in Photoshop is remove
the background. Make sure you have the image below
loaded and we’ll use tools to end up with an image like
the one on the right

24. 11: Magic Wand tool
• Have the elephant as the active layer
(click on it on the Layers toolbox)
• Click the magic wand tool. If you don’t
see it, click + hold the mouse button and
you’ll see multiple icons appear!
• Click in the image but not on the
elephant and you should see this:
• If I used the CUT tool
now you can see that
bits of the
background remain
• Click Edit-Cut or
CTRL+X to cut
• You can also paste
this in as a new layer:
CTRL+V

25. 11: Magic Wand tool
• That hasn’t quite selected the right areas. Click Select-
Deselect.
• Look along the top and change the tolerance to 64; a
higher number means the software is less fussy in
looking for the same colour to select!
• Try CUT now (EDIT-CUT or CTRL+X)
• Now all bar one corner has disappeared!
• If you tried this on the other
elephant images it wouldn’t work
so well – that should make YOU
think when YOU are taking photos…

26. 12: Eraser tool
• The magic wand can quickly get rid of a lot of
background; you can click and cut several
times in different parts of the image
• Unless you’ve shot against a single colour
background, you will need to zoom in and
use the eraser tool
• You can change the brush type and size from
the eraser menu
• I’ve changed the brush size to a huge 453, so I can
get rid of the remaining background quickly. You
have a go – and use CTRL+Z if you make a mistake!

27. 13: Zoom tool
• When you’re using the eraser, you’ll
usually need to zoom in to see what
you’re doing!
• Use CTRL+ either the + or - key
• I’ve changed the brush size to a huge 453, so I can
get rid of the remaining background quickly. You
have a go – and use CTRL+Z if you make a mistake!

28. 14: Filters
• These aren’t always a good idea, but you can try filters
for some quick effects.
• Try some out through the FILTER menu. You can click
the circle to cancel (or CTRL+Z) afterwards

29. 14: Filters

30. 14: Filters

31. 15: Flipping an image
• You may have noticed that my elephant was
flipped around in many of the images
• You can do this through: EDIT-TRANSFORM-
FLIP HORIZONTAL

32. 16: Text
• You have a lot of control over text!
Click the T tool icon to start typing
and try some of the tools that appear

33. 17: Over to you!
• There are many more tools: use web searches and
YouTube videos to help with specific effects.
Experiment a little!
• Take a photo of your finished work with your iPad and
send to the Showbie assignment ‘Elephant practice’