6.0 Basics

page one
This is a broad overview of the Photoshop 6.0 window, its main features, and a few of the more important menus.
      Shown below is the opening screen you will see with the palettes, tools, and options bar in their default configurations.
      Numbers have been added to identify the main features. They are:

1. menu bar
2. options bar
3. toolbox
4. status bar

The View and Show menus will be discussed on the next pages. The other menus will be learned as you use Photoshop. The meaning of the various commands can best be understood in context.
     The options bar shows the options of whichever tool is currently selected in the toolbox. It's very important to remember that you need to choose, and set the proper options before using a tool.      

The tools fall roughly into the following categories:

Selection tools - used for creating closed boundaries. Once a selection has been made, editing can only occur within the selection outline. To remove a selection, or make it inactive, choose Select > Deselect from the menubar, or press Ctrl + D.
Tools in this category include the marquee tools, lassos, magic wand, and quick mask.

Painting tools - used for adding color by using the mouse like a brush, or by simply filling areas with a selected color. These include the paintbrush, history brushes, airbrush, gradients, paint bucket, and pencil tool.

Retouching tools - used for editing existing colors and image details. These include the clone stamp (formerly known as the rubber stamp), erasers, dodge, burn, sponge, blur, sharpen, and smudge tools.

Vector tools - used for creating, and editing vector shapes. These include the pen, path component selection, shape, and line tools.

Change view tools - used for moving and magnifying the view of an image, without affecting the image, itself. The hand, and zoom tools are workhorses you'll be using constantly.

And, then there's the monster type tool, which is fantastic in Photoshop 6.0, the crop tool for chopping images down to size, the move tool for moving selection contents or layers, the new notes tool for adding little sticky notes to an image, the eyedropper for collecting color data, and the big foreground/background color squares you see near the bottom of the toolbox that are where you can make your color choices.

When you are learning to use Photoshop, it can be very helpful to keep an accurate record of all the steps you use when editing an image, or trying to create an effect. I have a “step log” which you can download, and print out. The pages include spaces for all steps used, as well as those tried and undone. You can record all tools, filters, and effects as well as their settings, and dialog box entries. The pages can be saved in a three ring binder. Note that these forms are also very handy for making notes about the steps and tools used in tutorials that you find on the Internet. Find them at Step Log.

There are two menus, View, and Window, that have basic commands that you need to be aware of any time you use Photoshop.

Find out about the View menu.
Next, on page two

Copyright © 2000 by Jay Arraich.
All rights reserved.
All photographs copyright ©2000 by Jay Arraich
jay@arraich.com