Home
E-mail
Image Bank

⦁ Introduction

⦁1. Getting Started

⦁ Lesson 2
Airbrushing a B&W photo

⦁ Lesson 3
Selection tools

⦁ Lesson 4
Intro to Masking

⦁ Lesson 5
More with Masking

Welcome to Artmakers Worlds Photoshop tutorials.
About this section. Why is it free?
Macphobic? (a must read for PC users.)
Introduction to Photoshop


About this section and how can it be free?

This section was put together for a few reasons.
First, I teach two beginning courses in Photoshop at Southwestern Michigan College. My classes are only one and two credit continuing ed courses and not part of the core curriculum. Since many of my students only take the class for fun, or to see if Photoshop is something worth investing in before they buy it, I hate to ask people to invest in an expensive book. We always have plenty of time for notes and I bring in several books to look over but the lack of reading material often come up in class reviews. So... I hope to eventually put together a small, inexpensive, manual that is tailored specifically to my lessons. This section will basically cover the same things my classes do and in the same order. I offer it here for free in hopes that YOU will follow along and let me know if anything is confusing. I want to fix any writing problems before I spend money publishing. I need your input. That is the only price I ask.

NOTE These lessons were put together quite some time ago now. Using version 5. So some instructions on finding and setting tools will have changed with newer versions. However the lessons themselves are still valuable so I'm leaving this section here. If your stuck, by all means contact me. I'm always happy to help.


Macphobic? PC users, READ THIS!

I teach Photoshop on macs at college. That just happens to be the only computer lab where graphic arts programs are installed. I just love the looks of terror on my students faces as they walk into the mac lab for the first time. They sit by these strange blue computers and I swear they are thinking "oh no, I just barely learned how to work my PC. What's this?"

Rest assured, Photoshop can be installed on either system. It works EXACTLY THE SAME. As I explain to my students, this is not a class in "mac systems," it's all about learning the program.

However, there are a few differences you MUST be aware of. Especially if you are a PC user. The mac keyboard is a little different.
If you plan to follow along on your PC, MAKE A NOTE OF THIS!

First, would be the OPTION key. It's the same as the ALT key on a PC. Same exact key. It just has different names. Most mac keyboards now print option/alt on that key. For the sake of my students I try to always call it the option/alt key but if I don't, be aware that option means alt. Same key.

Next, and more critical, is a key only found on the mac. It shows a picture of the apple icon, and a curly mark. It's called the COMMAND key. Again for my macphobic classes I try to call that the "APPLE COMMAND" key but I will NOT do that here. It IS called command and that's how it will be referred to.

Photoshop uses many key stroke shortcuts. If you've ever used a word processor your probably familiar with copy and paste. On a mac copy is COMMAND/C and paste is COMMAND/V. Well again, the PC doesn't have a command key so they substitute the control key. Copy is CTRL/C and paste is CTRL/V. Well the mac also has a control key so there comes a point in time when the PC simply runs out of keys. Shortcuts are often three keys long. CTRL/SHIFT/something... That is the only difference between how the two systems will work.

When you buy a book on Photoshop, they usually put mac instructions in ( ) and PC in [ ] and one just gets used to looking in the appropriate area when it comes up. Unfortunately, I do not have access to a PC version of Photoshop and don't know all the PC shortcuts. So, I'll just use the mac ones here and it's up to you to understand the difference.

Again, option is the same as alt and when "command" comes up, you need to find the PC equivalent. I'll explain how in the next section. Getting started. And... if any PC users out there want to help, I'd be happy to include PC equivalent shortcuts. Just drop me a note.


Introduction to Photoshop

Photoshop is an amazing and complicated program. There isn't much it can't do. Trying to learn it on your own can be a daunting task. There are some good books available. Photoshop Classroom in a book by Adobe would be a good one. It comes with a CD and tutorials you can follow along with. Taking a class is the best way to learn though. Nothing beats having an instructor show you why something isn't working or how to use a tool. Then again, free is good right? Follow these tutorials as they come available. I haven't lost a student yet.

The first several lessons will gradually introduce you to the various tools and pallets.
I supply images for you to download and practice with. Have fun with this.

Here is a general outline. (always subject to change.)
1. Getting started. This will simply cover terms and how to find your tools and such. Pretty basic stuff.
2. Colorizing a black and white photo. Introduction to basic painting tools and settings. Into to the layers and color swatches pallets.
3. Selecting tools.
4. More about selecting. Masking. Some fun photo collage projects to practice with.
5. More ways to colorize a photo. Probably have a few lessons here.
6. Repair a damaged photo. The rubber stamp tool. Several sub sections will be in here. Burn and dodge, smudge, and some tricks using layers.
7. Text tool and all sorts of cool effects to play with.

At this point my one credit course is about over. My two credit students get more time and I let them choose the direction of the classes. If they want more on photo repair that's what we do. Web graphics, that's what we do. Here are a list of various lessons I have planned for this site. (Lord knows when I'll get them all on here.)

8. Spherizing. A fun project. Look at the Sphere graphic on my site. This shows how it was created.
9. Still more on photo repair. Higher end stuff. Levels, Curves and possibly some techniques using channels.
Please be aware that my little short courses just don't have the time to go into this as much as possible. It is plenty for any home user though. Unless your planning to work for a magazine and preparing high end output, this is more than enough information.
10. WEB PAGE BUILDERS read this one!!! All about image size, resolution, saving for the net.
11. More WEB design tricks. Seamless backgrounds, transparent gifs, simple buttons.
12. Image Ready. Photoshop is actually two programs in one. Image Ready, (built in) is specifically designed for building web pages. I don't go into much detail here. Still learning it myself but I will cover how to make your own animated gif file, and how to create an entire page using Image Ready.

As you can see, I have a lot of work ahead of me to get this all up. Links to various lessons will appear in the navigation bar to the left as they become available.
Again, all I ask is some input. Tell me where problems are in my instructions. And if this was helpful, do pass it along to friends.

Thanks, enjoy.
Jenny Mehlenbeck