Photoshop CC 2017 One-on-One: Fundamentals

Learn how to use the essential features and tools in Photoshop.

Introduction

• Welcome
• The new Photoshop CC 2017 interface

1. Opening an Image

• How it all starts
• Opening from the Windows desktop
• Opening from the Macintosh Finder
• Opening from Photoshop or Bridge
• Opening an image in Camera Raw
• Closing one image, or all at once

2. Getting Around

• Navigating your image
• Zooming in and out
• Using the more precise Zoom tool
• Zooming continuously
• Entering a custom zoom value
• Scrolling (panning)
• A few top-secret scrolling tricks
• Switching between open images
• Rotating and resetting the view
• Cycling between screen modes
• Using the Navigator panel
• Panels and workspaces
• Updating a workspace
• A few very important preferences
• Reassigning Spotlight (Mac only)

3. Image Size and Resolution

• Digital imaging fundamentals
• 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 six interpolation settings
• Some practical downsampling advice
• Upsampling with Preserve Details

4. Crop and Straighten

• Always shoot big
• Using the Crop tool
• Cropping nondestructively
• Rotating and other Crop tool tricks
• Straightening a crooked image
• Filling in missing background details
• Using the Perspective Crop tool
• The new Content-Aware Crop

5. Introducing Layers

• The layered composition
• Introducing the Layers panel
• Converting the flat Background into a layer
• Customizing the transparency checkerboard
• Turning a color photo black and white
• Creating a silhouette with Brightness/Contrast
• Creating a new layer and painting on it
• Simple tricks for painting with the Brush tool
• Distinguishing black from non-black pixels
• Moving an image between documents
• Expanding the canvas to accommodate a layer
• Auto-Select and the Move tool
• Employing a clipping mask
• Working with Opacity and blend modes
• Three ways to duplicate a layer
• Scale, rotate, and layer mask
• Filling a selection with color

6. Saving Your Progress

• The many, many ways to save
• Four essential things to know about saving
• Saving layers to the native PSD format
• Saving a flat print image to TIFF
• Saving an interactive image to PNG
• Saving a flat photograph to JPEG

7. Brightness and Contrast

• Luminance and its relationship to color
• How luminance works
• The three Auto commands
• Automatic Brightness/Contrast
• Custom Brightness/Contrast
• Applying a dynamic adjustment layer
• Adjustment layer tips and tricks
• Isolating an adjustment with a layer mask
• Introducing the Histogram
• Putting the Histogram to use
• Reducing contrast with Shadows/Highlights

8. Balancing Colors

• Color resides in the eyes of the beholder
• Identifying the color cast of a photo
• Correcting a color cast automatically
• Manually adjusting colors with Color Balance
• Tipping a color cast with Photo Filter
• Correcting color cast in Camera Raw
• Adjusting color intensity with Vibrance
• Introducing Hue/Saturation
• Summoning colors where none exist
• Making even more color with Vibrance
• Creating a quick-and-dirty sepiatone
• Your own personal color chart

9. Making Selections

• Photoshop’s power of selection
• Using the geometric Marquee tools
• Painting with the Quick Selection tool
• Add, subtract, and intersect selections
• Turning a selection into a layer mask
• Aligning a layer to a selection
• Working with the Magic Wand tool
• Saving and loading selections
• Refining the quality of a selection
• Adding clouds to your composition
• Enhancing the drama of your scene
• Conquering the Quick Selection tool
• Using each of the three Lasso tools
• Drawing a freeform shadow with the Lasso
• Colorizing a layer with Color Overlay

10. The Quick Mask Mode

• Painting selections
• Combining the best of the selection tools
• Introducing the Quick Mask mode
• The fastest way to save a selection
• Gauging the quality of a selection
• Painting adjustments with the Brush tool
• Adding motion blur with the Smudge tool
• Reversing a mask with Invert
• Applying a special-effects filter
• Smoothing a badly stroked edge
• Selecting all the black lines
• Expanding and contracting a selection

11. Retouch and Heal

• Your best face forward
• Correcting very bad colors
• Cloning and Content-Aware
• A closer look at Content-Aware cloning
• Painting with the Spot Healing Brush
• Healing Brush tips and tricks
• Shift-clicking to heal in straight lines
• Using the standard Healing Brush
• Flipping and rotating the source data
• Using the Dodge and Burn tools
• Whitening teeth with the Sponge tool
• Reshaping details with the Liquify filter
• Selectively recoloring details
• Smoothing skin textures with blur
• Nondestructive dodging and burning

12. Introducing Camera Raw

• Camera Raw, the most powerful Photoshop plugin
• Applying Camera Raw as a filter
• The nondestructive Camera Raw
• Handling a Camera Raw image in Photoshop
• Capturing raw images and converting to DNG
• Opening and developing a raw photograph
• Opening and editing multiple images
• Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks
• Clarity and Chromatic Aberration
• HSL and the Targeted Adjustment tool
• Using the Spot Removal tool
• Cleaning up with the Patch tool

13. Creating and Formatting Text

• Photoshop vector-based type
• Creating and scaling a line of type
• Formatting type from the options bar
• Formatting type from the Character panel
• Finding the perfect font
• Type size and script fonts
• Creating and editing paragraph text
• Adjusting leading and paragraph spacing
• Setting the antialiasing for very small text
• Aligning one layer to another
• Creating text along a circle
• Finding a character with the Glyphs panel
• Double-stroking a circle
• Creating a distressed cancellation mark

14. Printing Your Images

• Print from RGB, not CMYK
• Using my customizable printer test file
• 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
• Previewing an image at print size

15. Creating Web Graphics

• Images on the wild wild web
• Assigning copyright and contact info
• How color works on the web
• Introducing the old-school Save for Web
• Saving a full-color PNG image
• Saving a graphic as an 8-bit GIF or PNG
• Using the new Quick Export command
• Exporting vector-based layers to SVG
• Exporting multiple layers and groups
• Sneak preview: Stroking translucent text

Conclusion

• Until next time