aaron nace - 10 tips for photoshop beginners - reference guide

10 TIPS FOR PHOTOSHOP BEGINNERS

WITH AARON NACE

10 TIPS FOR PHOTOSHOP BEGINNERS | 2Copyright 2015 Creative Live. All Rights Reserved

Instructor Biography: Aaron Nace

For over five years, Aaron Nace has been teaching photography

and photo manipulation to millions of users across the world

at every skill level. Initially a hobbyist while earning a Bachelor

of Arts degree in Industrial Design from North Carolina State

University, Aaron’s expertise in Photoshop developed rapidly. His

creative portfolio of retouching, compositing, and conceptual

work grew quickly, and he soon became a globally recognized

Photoshop master. His images have been published on MSNBC.

com, AOL.com, and The Huffington Post. Ever since, he has been committed to sharing

his methods of creative conceptual photography both online and in-person.

Website: www.aaron-nace.com

10 Tips for Photoshop Beginners

SAVING FOR THE WEB IN PHOTOSHOPInternet browsers are designed to use sRGB color space.

For a more accurate preview of what your image will look like online use Save for Web

and Devices. FILE > SAVE FOR WEB....

NOTE: Be sure to save your large, layered file separately from your version for the web!

Don’t use large files on the web. It takes much longer for your website to load.

In the SAVE FOR WEB dialog box you can easily resize the image by changing the Width

(w) or Height (h) in pixels on the lower right side.


Just below the image you can see how big your file will be at different settings and how

long it will take to upload. Hit the down-facing arrow next to this information to change

the default download speeds.

It’s a good idea to change the Quality setting to the lowest number possible while still

maintaining good visual quality.

In the lower left of the dialog box

you can click on the PREVIEW

button to open the image in your browser to see what it will look like as well as get all

the information about the image such as size and dimensions.

See the size of your image on the lower left and easily resize the image by changing the Width (w) or Height (h) in pixels on the lower right side.


START LEARNING COMMONLY USED TOOLSMarquee Tool- creates a selection of

the document in various shapes such

as rectangle or ellipse. Use the shift

key while dragging to maintain the

marquee ratio. Use the space key while

dragging to reposition your selection.

Move Tool- use it to

move objects or layers.

Click on the Show

Transform Controls

box at the top of the

document to access

the ability to Transform

your object or layer.

(make it bigger/smaller

or change it’s shape.)

Lasso Tool- A freeform selection tool. It allows you

to draw a specific selection.

Magic Wand Tool- Helps you select areas that are

similar to an area you click on. Change the tolerance number at the top of the

document to make the tool more or less sensitive.

Eye Dropper Tool- Allows you to grab a color from your document. It can be

accessed when using the Brush Tool by holding down the Alt (or Option) key.


Healing Brush Tool- Allows you to easily

remove small things such as blemishes by

looking at surrounding pixels.

Clone Stamp Tool- Allows you to easily remove

small things such as blemished by exactly

copying from an area that you choose.

Brush Tool- Allows

you to paint color onto

things such as the

document, layers and

masks.

• With the Brush Tool

selected, right click

to easily access

various brushes and

their settings.

• You can also simply hold down Control + Option and drag your brush to the left or

right to change it’s size or up and down to change it’s hardness.

MAKE THE MOST OUT OF SELECTIONSUsing selections can help you change only

the area you want affected. Your cursor will

turn into a plus sign when you hold down

the Shift key and will allow you to add to

your existing selection. Remove unwanted

portions of a selection by holding down

the Alt or Option key to get a little minus

cursor.


Marquee Tools- selections in the shape of rectangle,

circle

Lasso Tool- Allows you to draw any shape selection

you want.

Polygonal Lasso Tool- Drawn any shape selection

with straight lines

Refine Edge- A button at the top of the document

will open a dialog box with lots of options for your

selection such as feathering the selection edge.

Hide Selection- Command or Control + H will hide

your selection so you can see how your edges look.

USING LAYER FX WITH THE TYPE TOOLStart by creating a type layer and adding some type. Click on the type layer in the Layers

Panel to access the Layer Style options.


Drop Shadow- use the sliders to affect the elements of the drop shadow such as Distance,

Spread and Size. You can change the angle of the shadow to match your image.

Bevel & Emboss- adds a highlight on one side and a shadow on the other. Outer Bevel

and Inner Bevel are the most commonly used.

Use Global Light Option- When this box is checked it will keep all the angles of your

lighting options across all styles consistent.

Gradient Overlay- creates a color overlay that changes color from top to bottom

ADJUSTING COLOR WITH CURVES AND LEVELSYou can make things lighter and darker but you can also affect color and contrast.

Levels-

Add a levels layer by

clicking on the Adjustment

Layer icon at the bottom

of the layers panel and

selecting Levels.

Make the darks darker by

grabbing the black slider

and moving it to the right.

Make lights lighter by

moving the white slider to

the left. The middle slider

affects the mid-tones.

Output Levels- These sliders determine what tone is allowed to be either the lightest or

darkest tone in the image.


Curves- Add a curves

layer by clicking on

the Adjustment Layer

Icon at the bottom of

the layers panel and

selecting Curves.

Use the RGB drop

down menu in both

the Curves and the

Levels options boxes

to affect only certain colors within your image.

Cross-Processing Style-

From the RGB drop down menu, select blue. Use the dark slider to change the output

levels so that blue becomes stronger in your shadow areas. Move the white slider to add

yellows into the highlights.


USE LAYERS, MASKING AND GROUPING AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLEUsing layers allows for nondestructive

editing so you can go back and easily

change edits you’ve made to your image.

Unlock a layer- Hold Alt or Option key

and double click the layer

Group layers together- Hold Control or

Command + G

Color Code layers- right click on the eye

next to the layer you want to color code.

Choose the color you want from the list.

Change Existing Layer Effects- Click on

the FX dropdown on the layer you want

to edit to bring up the Layer Style options

box.

Masking Groups- Select the group in your

Layers Panel. Click the Layer Mask icon at

the bottom of the panel (rectangle with

the dark circle). Now the mask will affect

every layer in that group.

Name your groups to keep track of various parts of your images


KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS SAVE A LOT OF TIMEShortcuts to useful and often used actions using keyboard instead of the mouse and on-

screen menus.

Setting up personalized

shortcuts- EDIT> KEYBOARD

SHORTCUTS... or you can use

keyboard shortcut Option, shift,

command + K. Scroll down the

list to find the action you want to

create (or change) the shortcut

for. Click on the action so that it

is highlighted then type in your

desired shortcut. (hold down the

actual keys, don’t type out the

words). If the shortcut is already

in use a notification will pop up. Click the OK button to save the changes.

HAVE SOME FUN WITH THE FILTER GALLERYFILTER> FILTER GALLERY

It’s easy to go overboard

with filters but you can

use them to create some

interesting effects. Be

sure to play with the

setting sliders to test

effect strength. Layer

effects by clicking the

new layer button and

choosing a new effect.


CLONE STAMP AND HEALING BRUSHClone Stamp- makes a direct copy from the area you have chosen as the source

Healing Brush- uses surrounding pixels’ color and the source area’s texture

Do your healing and cloning on a

new layer, above your image. At

the top of the document, make

sure the SAMPLE dropdown is

set to Current & Below.

These tools will turn your brush

into a preview of your sample

area.

BLEND LAYERS TOGETHER FOR MORE BELIEVABLE EFFECTSQuickly test what various blending modes will look like by using the move tool to select

the layer to be blended, hold down the SHIFT key and use the + and - keys to scroll

through the various modes.


Notes:

aaron nace - 10 tips for photoshop beginners - reference guide

Documents

photoshop beginnerssaving

lasso tool

brush tool

freeform selection tool

online use

web dialog box

recognized photoshop

used toolsmarquee tool