~ Photoshop Tools ~

→ Selection Tools
●​ Image manipulation may require that you select the image or parts of it.
●​ Selected area is surrounded by a dotted line called marquee.
●​ A selection can be copied, modified, transformed, or moved.

Selection Tools, p. 42
●​ Marquee Tool – usually used for selecting objects with straight edges
●​ Lasso Tool – used for selection of irregular shapes
●​ Quick Selection Tool – makes you quickly paint a selection using a round brush tip
●​ Move Tool – moves selections, layers, and guides
●​ Crop Tool – cuts a portion of an image and edit it
●​ Slice Tool – makes you slice the image free handedly​

→ Marquee Tools, p. 43
●​ Used for selecting objects with straight edges.
o​ Rectangular Marquee Tool – makes a rectangular selection
o​ Elliptical Marquee Tool – makes an elliptical selection
o​ Single Row Marquee Tool – makes one row selection (horizontal – )
o​ Single Column Marquee Tool – makes one column selection (vertical | )​

→ Lasso Tools, p. 45
●​ Usually used for irregular shapes.
o​ Lasso Tool – makes a freehand selection
o​ Polygonal Lasso Tool – makes a straight line selection
o​ Magnetic Lasso Tool – makes a selection which snaps to the edge of an object​

→ Selection Using Colors

●​ Make selection using colors with:
o​ Magic Wand Tool (W) – ideal for images with high color contrast since it uses color to
select objects
▪​ Selects an object using color.
o​ Quick Selection Tool – creates a closed marquee that you can adjust
●​ Selection Using Color Range
o​ Fuzziness – the quality of being indistinct and without sharp outlines
→ Etc.
Move Tool (V) – moves selection to another image or file
Transforming Selection
●​ Edit > Transform
o​ Rotate
o​ Flip Vertical
o​ Flip Horizontal, etc.
Feathering Selection – Feathering makes the border of a selection fade into the surrounding edge.
Using Crop
●​ Cuts out a portion of an image and edit it
o​ Tools Panel > Crop
o​ Click & drag
o​ Press Enter
Other Commands
●​ Ctrl+D – Deselect
●​ Shift+Ctrl+I – Invert Selection
●​ Del – Delete Selection
●​ Ctrl+T – Transform image i.e., resize, skew, or rotate

Marquee Options Bar – the options bar shows the command options for the tool that you have selected
from the Tools panel. Know the function of each option and select the one you want to use before creating
your marquee.
●​ New Selection – clears the previous selection and creates a new selection.
●​ Add to Selection – creates a new selection in addition to the existing selection.
●​ Subtract from Selection – removes the new selection from the existing selection.
●​ Intersect with Selection – creates a new selection that intersects with the existing selection.
●​ Feather – blurs the edges of the selection.
●​ Anti-alias – smoothens the hard edges of a selection.
●​ Style – provides three style options that you can choose from: Normal, Fixed Aspect Ratio and
fixed size.
●​ Refine Edge – refines or modifies the selection edges.
Refining a Selection Edge – you can use this tool to refine or make the edges of your selection smooth.
●​ View Mode – views the selection in different backgrounds.
●​ Radius – increases the size of the region around the selection boundary.
●​ Smooth – removes the rough areas around the selection.
●​ Feather – blurs or softens the edges of the selection.
●​ Contrast – sharpens the soft selection edges.
 ~ Working with Colors ~
→ Understanding Colors
●​ Image mode
o​ An image mode determines the number of colors that can be displayed in an image and
can also affect the file size of the image.
●​ Image mode > Grayscale
o​ Made up of 256 shades of gray, which include absolute black, absolute white, and 254
shades of gray in-between.
●​ Image mode > Bitmap
o​ Photoshop bitmap is one that is composed of either black or white pixels; there are no
colors nor grey tones.
●​ Image mode > Duotone
o​ Duotone (also Monotone, Tritone, or Quadtone) are grayscale images with two (single,
three, or four) inks; colored inks are used to reproduce tinted grays.
●​ Image mode > Indexed Color
o​ Uses up to 256 colors. Indexed-color images are 8-bit images. By limiting the panel of
colors, indexed color can reduce file size while maintaining visual quality—for example,
for a web page.
●​ Image mode > RGB
o​ RGB use three colors (Red, Green & Blue), or channels, to reproduce colors on screen
(default Photoshop mode). RGB model is used by computer monitors to display colors.
●​ Image mode > CMYK
o​ In the CMYK mode, each pixel is assigned a percentage value for each of the process
inks (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black)
Color Modes
1.​ RGB
2.​ CMYK
3.​ Indexed Color
4.​ Grayscale
5.​ Bitmap

→ Image Adjustments…
●​ Hue/Saturation
o​ Hue/Saturation command adjusts the hue (color), saturation (purity), and lightness of the
entire image or of individual color components of an image.
●​ Brightness/Contrast
o​ This command can be used to change the tonal range. Increasing the brightness to make
the image overall brighter, and decreasing will make it darker. Contrast works by
adjusting the bright and dark parts of an image in relation to each other.

●​ Levels
 o​ Levels provides enhancement of contrast by setting highlight and shadow points.
●​ Curves
o​ Curves allows you to adjust contrast by setting and positioning control points along the
entire tonal range.
●​ Color Balance
o​ Color balance can be used to correct color imperfections in your image. You can also use
color balance to create dramatic effects by changing the overall mixture of colors used in
your composite.
●​ Shadows/Highlights
o​ The shadow/highlight command is used for correcting photos with silhouetted images due
to strong backlighting or correcting subjects that have been slightly washed out because
they were too close to the camera flash.
●​ Invert
o​ The main reason to invert colors is to create a fun aesthetic. It makes a quick way to
create unexpected imagery.
●​ Posterize
o​ The term posterization comes from the process artists once used to turn photos into
printed posters. To make mass production possible, they had to reduce the color variation
so they could use fewer colors of ink during printing.
●​ Threshold
o​ Converts grayscale or color images into high-contrast, black-and-white images.
●​ Gradient Map
o​ The Gradient Map commands maps the tonal range of an image to the colors of a gradient
fill which is a blend of two or more colors.
●​ Selective Color
o​ A technique used by high-end scanners and separation programs to change the amount of
process colors in each of the primary color components in an image.

→ Photoshop Tools…
●​ Gradient Tool
o​ Lets you draw gradient across layers or selections, or across layer masks to create smooth
transitions from one layer to another.
●​ Paint Bucket Tool
o​ Fills adjacent pixels that are similar in color value to pixels you select.
●​ Eyedropper Tool
o​ Sample colors from anywhere in an image and add them to your Swatches panel.
●​ Brush Tool
o​ Works like traditional drawing tools applying color with brush strokes.
●​ Mixer Brush Tool
o​ The Mixer Brush tool is like a real paint brush and using the mixer brush tool is like
painting on a real canvas. It mixes the color of the brush with the background color.

●​ Eraser Tool
 o​ The eraser is basically a brush which erases pixels as you drag it across the image. Pixels
are erased to transparency, or the background color if the layer is locked.
●​ Clone Stamp Tool
o​ The Clone Stamp tool copies one area of an image onto another area of an image; helps
retouch parts of the images.
●​ Healing Brush Tool
o​ This tool allows you to fix imperfections, like scratches, wrinkles, dust spots, etc.,
causing them to disappear into the surrounding image.
●​ Red Eye Tool
o​ This is used to fix the red eye on the subject caused by camera flash in low light.
●​ Dodge Tool
o​ This tool allows you to lighten specific areas of your image without affecting hue or
saturation.
●​ Burn Tool
o​ The Burn tool darkens areas of an image.
●​ Sponge Tool
o​ The Sponge tool subtly changes the color saturation of an area.
●​ Blur Tool
o​ The Blur tool makes the image hazy (cloudy) or it is generally used to soften the harsh
pixels of an image.
●​ Sharpen Tool
o​ The sharpen tool increases the contrast of the pixels and increases the focus on the image.
●​ Smudge Tool
o​ It pushes pixels around the canvas as if it is like wet paint and it is being smudged over. It
is useful if you want to create an artistic digital painted look of your image.