Now that you have read Pt.1 of this tutorial and are fairly comfortable with the tools offered by Photoshop, we can go one step further and see specific examples of their uses. But before we can go any further we need have a solid understanding of layers. So what are layers you ask? Basically they are exactly what they imply, they allow for users to create a “layer” in which they can doodle around in which is unaffected by changes to other layers. It’s a challenging concept to explain in words but is pretty straight forward once you understand it. Let’s do an example to help us understand how layers work. Create a new document (we may refer to a new document as a canvas from now on) of size 500 x 500 pixels (you should know how to do this buy now!). The layers window should look something like this: [img]http://i7.tinypic.com/729f9ti.jpg[/img] If you can’t find it, or if you accidentally close it, you can always retrieve it by clicking on the “Window” drop down menu at the top and selecting Layers (or simply hit F7!). The two main buttons you will need to worry about in the layers window are the “Add a layer style” button (the on circled in blue) and the “Create a new layer” button (the one circled in red). We will talk more about layer styles later on. For now go ahead and click on the create a new layer button. You will notice that the layer window will update and another layer, default named “Layer 1″ will appear. It is important that you don’t work on the “Background” layer that comes up by itself; always create a new layer before you begin work! Click on the create a new layer button for the second time and you’ll notice that another layer will appear: Layer 2. Click once on Layer 1, and you will notice that it becomes highlighted in blue. This means that you are on Layer 1 and will be working solely on Layer 1. Layer 2 and the Background layer will not be affected by what you do. Go ahead and choose the paint brush tool, set the brush size to 13 (remember, use the secondary toolbar to set the brush size!). Now double click on the foreground color box on the toolbar and set the color to red (move the vertical scroller to wiz through the color palette and use a mouse click to choose a specific shade). [img]http://i2.tinypic.com/6qc52lv.jpg[/img] Now simply move your mouse over the canvas and draw a simple squiggle. Now select Layer 2, change the foreground color to blue, and draw another squiggle in blue. You should have something similar to what is shown below: [img]http://i5.tinypic.com/6sate3c.jpg[/img] There are two things you should take note of. First of all, in the layer window Layer 2 is above Layer 1. Secondly in the canvas we can see the blue squiggle is “on top” of or “above” the red squiggle. Does this make sense? Of course it does! Layer 2, the blue squiggle which is above Layer 1 in the layer window, is also above the red squiggle in the canvas! So what if we want to move the red squiggle above the blue one? Simple just go to the layer window, click and hold on Layer 1 and drag it above Layer 2 and drop it (the mouse play can be a bit tricky)! You should now have something like this: [img]http://i2.tinypic.com/7wjpmbb.jpg[/img] And there you have it, the simple logic behind layers. Let’s get our hands a bit more dirtier though, click on the eraser brush (13 px should be fine) and with Layer 2 selected try put your mouse over where you see the red squiggle on the canvas and try to erase it. You will notice you cant! Why? Because you can only erase parts of the red squiggle if Layer 1 is selected since the red squiggle was created on Layer 1! If you select Layer 1 and then try erasing the red squiggle you will be able to do so. Note you can also select the Move tool to move the squiggles around in the canvas. Alright alright, enough with the squiggles. How do we delete layers we no longer need? Simple! Select the layer and drag and drop them into the little trash bin icon located near the bottom of the layer window. Delete both layer 1 and layer 2 so we are once again left with the lone white Background layer. Lets get acquainted with the other tools, starting off with the text tool. Simply select the text tool and click once anywhere on the canvas to insert text and start typing. You can also select the text tool and drag a textbox if you would like to type only within the confines of the textbox (this is useful when writing a lot of stuff). The thing with text is you don’t need to create a new layer before typing. As soon as you click an area on the canvas with the text tool selected, it automatically creates a new text layer. To access/edit a previously typed text layer simply double click on the corresponding text layer in the Layer Window. To change the font, color size ect, highlight the text and use the secondary tool bar as shown below. Also circled in the image below is the anti aliasing option for text. Most people forget about this option when creating text. Most times it is okay to leave it at “Sharp” but you will notice if you use really small fonts (and even pixel fonts) that the font appears blurry. In this case, change the AA to “None”. [img]http://i13.tinypic.com/89ihzeq.jpg[/img] Also notice something interesting with text layers. Try taking an eraser brush, and with the text layer selected, try erasing the text. Sorry! It won’t let you right? It will ask you to first rasterize the layer. So what does this mean? Well it basically means it will no longer be an editable text layer (i.e. you cant change the font ect..) but rather make it a “image”, a regular layer. You can also rasterize a layer by left clicking on the text layer in the layer window and selecting Rasterize. Once it’s rasterized you will notice in the layer window that it is no longer a text layer and rather just another regular layer. The marquee tool is also pretty straight forward. Create a new layer and then select the rectangular marquee tool. Drag out a box of reasonable size. The marquee should be blinking as shown below. [img]http://i2.tinypic.com/6yy9szl.jpg[/img] This implies that you can only edit within the blinking region. Test it! Choose the paint brush tool and try painting inside the blinking area, it will let you. But if you stray outside the blinking boundary and try paint it will not let you. Painting the whole region with a paint brush can be tedious, so to quickly fill up the region with a color, simply choose the Fill Paint Bucket tool, choose the colour you want to fill with, and simply click once anywhere within the region. [img]http://i15.tinypic.com/8fkephz.jpg[/img] You may also delete certain parts of an image using the marquee tool. From the above step you should now have a rectangle as shown above, if we want to delete a square from this rectangle we can do this by simply drag another small square using the marquee and hit the delete key (tip: hold down the Shift key when dragging the marquee to make a square). The result is shown below. If you were to place something behind this layer, it will be visible through the square “hole”. [img]http://i8.tinypic.com/6ooai3a.jpg[/img] So there you have it. You now have a strong foundation in the fundamentals of Photoshop. But like anything in life, you need to know how to apply what you have learned. The next tutorial in this series will show you some well known tricks in Photoshop that all designers should know! Click below to read on. Continue reading the next part of this tutorial: [url=http://www.friendsterforum.com/forum/graphics_arts_and_designs/beginners_guide_to_photoshop_pt3_essential_tricks-t42362.0.html]Part-3[/url]

Last edited by forsakendoll (2010-03-10 02:28:13)