Photoshop 2021 One-on-One: Fundamentals

Photoshop expert Deke McClelland teaches you everything you need to know about Photoshop, in the order you need to know it, complete with examples and practical advice.

Go one-on-one with world-renowned Photoshop expert Deke McClelland in this comprehensive course. Part one of a three-part series, this is your chance to learn everything you need to know about Photoshop, in the order you need to know it, complete with real-world examples and practical advice. Deke begins by explaining the many ways to open files in Photoshop. He steps you through working with layers and masks. Photoshop has almost as many ways of saving files as it has of opening them, and Deke covers all of them. He walks you through luminance, brightness, contrast, and color balance. He shows you how to develop photographic images in Camera Raw. He discusses the ability in Photoshop to edit an entire image at once or adjust a specific, selected region—and he walks you through every selection tool in the software. There’s so much more, including an entire chapter on retouching! To conclude this part, Deke explains how to save images for use on the web and mobile devices.

Introduction

• Welcome to one-on-one

1. Open

• How image editing begins
• Opening a file by double-clicking it
• The Home screen
• The Open command
• Opening from Adobe Bridge
• Opening an image in Camera Raw

2. Navigate

• Let me show you around
• Zooming in and out
• Using the more precise Zoom tool
• Reassigning Spotlight and Siri (Mac only)
• Five ways to zoom continuously
• Scrolling (or panning)
• Bird's eye and other scrolling tricks
• Switching between open images
• Cycling between screen modes
• Using the Navigator panel
• Panels and workspace: Do not skip
• Resetting and updating workspaces
• A few important preferences

3. Layers

• The layered composition
• Introducing the Layers panel
• Converting the flat Background to a layer
• Jumping an image onto a new layer
• Flipping and scaling a layer
• Adding a vector-based layer
• Creating a basic layer mask
• Clipping one layer inside another
• Merging two layers into one
• Auto Select and the Move tool
• Inverting a layer mask
• Adding depth with layer effects
• Softening a mask with Feather
• Three ways to copy and paste layers
• Auto-zooming one or more layers

4. Save

• The many ways to save
• Five essential things to know about saving
• Revert, autosave, and more
• Saving layers to the native PSD format
• The Maximize Compatibility option
• Saving a flat print image to TIFF
• Saving an interactive image to PNG
• Saving a flat photograph to JPEG
• Saving a cloud-based PSDC file

5. Brightness

• Introducing luminance
• How luminance works
• The three auto commands
• Auto-correcting photographs
• Auto Brightness/Contrast
• Custom Brightness/Contrast
• Applying a dynamic adjustment layer
• Adjustment layer tips and tricks
• Adjustment layers and blend modes
• Introducing the histogram
• Putting the histogram to use
• Isolating an adjustment with a layer mask

6. Balance

• Color cast versus color harmony
• Identifying the color cast of a photo
• Correcting a color cast automatically
• Using the Color Balance command
• Revisiting the last-applied settings
• Correcting white balance in Camera Raw
• When Camera Raw disappoints
• Adjusting a color cast with Photo Filter
• Applying Auto Color nondestructively

7. Develop

• Introducing Camera Raw
• Camera Raw basics
• Working with a developed image
• Zooming and panning
• Working with panels
• Capture raw, convert to DNG
• Correcting for lens distortion
• Removing chromatic aberration
• Exposure and Contrast
• Highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks
• Working with Texture, Clarity, and Dehaze
• Opening and editing multiple images
• The real purpose of the White Balance tool
• Camera Raw tricks and tips

8. Color

• Hue, Saturation, and "Vibrance"
• Color = Hue + Saturation
• How Vibrance works
• Adjusting Vibrance in Photoshop
• Deleting color sample markers
• Adjusting Vibrance in Camera Raw
• Introducing Hue/Saturation
• Using the Targeted Adjustment tool
• Selectively adjusting colors in Camera Raw
• Isolating a color range in Camera Raw

9. Select

• The selective power of Photoshop
• Selection and Move tool basics
• Selecting an elliptical object
• Using the Paste Into command
• Using the Copy Merged command
• Add, subtract, and intersect selections
• Using the Magic Wand tool
• Using the three Lasso tools
• Painting with the Quick Selection tool
• Using the Object Selection tool

10. Crop

• Too many pixels
• Introducing Photoshop’s Crop tool
• Cropping without deleting any pixels
• Aspect ratio and other tricks
• Working with the reference point
• Finessing a crop with Canvas Size
• Using Content-Aware Crop
• Two ways to use the Straighten tool
• Straightening with the Ruler tool
• Cropping away all transparent pixels
• Cropping and straightening in Camera Raw
• Using the Perspective Crop tool
• Cropping everything outside the canvas

11. Paint

• Learning to paint
• Introducing the Brush tool
• Painting pressure-sensitive brushstrokes
• Changing the size and hardness on-the-fly
• Previewing size and hardness
• Opacity versus Flow
• Erasing with the tilde key
• Roundness, Angle, and the arrow keys
• Using the Smoothing options
• Painting with automated symmetry
• Rotating and resetting your view
• Using an iPad as a sidecar tablet

12. Retouch

• Your best face forward
• Using the Spot Healing Brush
• Healing to an independent layer
• Using the standard Healing Brush
• Using the Clone Source panel
• Rotating the source pixels
• Restoring blown highlights
• Using the Patch tool
• Shift-clicking to heal in straight lines
• The Dodge and Sponge tools to whiten teeth
• The Camera Raw Spot Removal tool

13. Resolution

• How digital images work
• Image size and resolution
• Introducing the Image Size command
• Common resolution standards
• Upsampling vs. real high-resolution data
• Changing the print resolution
• Downsampling for print
• Downsampling for email and photo sharing
• The seven interpolation settings
• Real-world rules for downsampling
• Upsampling with Preserve Details 2.0

14. Print

• Print from RGB, not CMYK
• Using my customizable printer test file
• The Print command and color management
• Print size and position
• Using printer-specific options on the PC
• Using printer-specific options on the Mac
• Brightening your image for print
• Description and printing marks
• Establishing a borderless bleed

15. Web

• Free-range images
• Assigning copyright and contact info
• Copyrighting multiple images at a time
• How color works on the web
• Quick Export as PNG
• Quick Export as JPEG
• Introducing the old-school Save for Web
• Saving an 8-bit GIF or PNG
• Saving an animated GIF file
• Exporting vector-based layers as SVG
• Exporting multiple layers and groups

Conclusion

• Until next time