www.lesliefisher.com PhotoShop6 Handout

Reduce me to 75% or I will not print on a single width page. Booooooooo Leslie!

Adding Text

In the example below, we are going to type in some simple text.

1. You can click on these colors to change them. Remember your web rules if you are saving this image to the web!

2. Click the Text Tool. You will notice the Status Bar at the top changes to match your text tool.

3. This is a slight curve in Photoshop 6. If you have used previous versions of Photoshop, you are used to clicking in the document and seeing the Type Tool dialog box. It is gone. You now type directly into the document. Notice you can even select the text with the document.

4. The Text Palette has replaced the Type Tool dialog box. Click the Palettes button to have your alignment, leading and faux styles available.

5. This is one of the coolest features of Photoshop 6. Warp Text allows you to, well warp text! Make sure your text is selected to use this feature.

Now lets make a two color drop shadow. To do this, you need to know about layers.

To make a drop shadow, take your text layer and duplicate it (shown above). Then, select your text and use the Text Status Bar on the top to change the color of your text. Click on the correct layer and use the arrow keys to move the text slightly. An example of this drop shadow is below.

You can use the Effects options (available in the layers Palette and Layer Menu (effects)). As you can see below, there are many effects available. Simply click on the type of effect you want, and the options to the right will change based on what you have selected.

I used the Drop Shadow option to achieve the look below.

You can also rotate text and objects. Select the layer and then Select Free Transfer in the Edit menu. Move the mouse around. The mouse icon will change letting you know when you can rotate it or change the item width. Remember to hit the return key when you want to finish rotating it. How do you drag multiple layers at once? Link them!

If you are saving the image for the web...........

Now lets play with some images. The example below is my pal, the ducky. Let's get ride of the white background. You have two options. Option one is to use the Magic Wand in the Tool Palette (1). You click on the area you want to grab the color of (in this case white). You can then click the delete key to get rid of the white. You can also use the Magic Eraser tool (2). You would click on a particular color (in this case white again) and the color would disappear.

Once you have deleted the white background, keep the area around the duck selected. If its not selected, use the magic wand and click in an area where the white used to be. Now, you can put an outline around the duck.

Now lets learn how to make outline text. Remember, outline text is not really text, but an outline area. To start making outline text:

1. Make a new document and fill it black (use the paint bucket or Fill in the Edit Menu)

2. Select the text tool (marked 5 below) and click on the outline option on the Text Options bar.

3. Type in your text (the fatter the font, the better!)

4. Now that they type is in, make sure you can move it correctly. Click on the move tool.

5. Now click back on the text tool. You can now use your arrow keys to move the text around.

Now, lets make it glow!

Need to clean up a photo? Follow these simple steps. Pay no attention to the incorrect numbering.

Now lets pick on a Gorilla! The first thing (like we talked about in cleaning a photo, the first step is to save the original and reduce the size of the one you are going to work with. Images load MUCH faster on the web if the image is resized in Photoshop and not your web browser. You can get to Image Size from the Image Menu. Remember to work the DPI down slowly to 72 if you are saving to the web and then work the Width and Height down slowly.

You will notice the background is far too complicated to use the Magic Wand or Magic Eraser on. Don't worry, we can use Extract found in the Image Menu.

The Feather Effect.

You see this all the time. A nice soft border around a picture. Here is how it is done.

1. Open the picture you would like to use and use the Image Size command in the Image menu to make it the size you would like.

2. Click and hold on the Selection Tool option in the toolbox and select the marquee tool you would like to use (as shown in the example on the left). I chose the Elliptical (circular tool)

3. Make your background color the color you would like the fuzzyness around the edge of the picture to be (this will make more sense later). You notice in my example, I used white.

4. Use the marquee tool to select the area you want to keep. Make sure you pad the room slightly because the edges are about to get fuzzy.

5. In the select menu, select feather. The following dialog box will appear. Choose a nice large number. 8 is the most popular.

6. Now go to the Select menu again and select Inverse. This will swap the selection area and switch it to the outside.

7. Now, hit your delete key. Cool feather! (shown above) You can go to the Select menu and select deselect. That will get rid of the marching ants. Notice how the feather itself has a white tint because we chose a white background initially.

The Healing Brush.

Every version of Photoshop has the one feature which is just fantastic and makes you drool. Well, I know I do.

The Healing Brush is the best feature in Photoshop 7.

The healing brush works just like the clone tool, except that it does not make an exact copy of what you are cloning. The healing brush only looks at the texture and color and works accordingly. Prepare to be amazed.

1. Select the Healing Brush (shown in 1st example)

2. Move the Healing cursor over an area you would like to use as the sample. For example, if I would like to get rid of the white in the upper left corner of this picture, I would move the cursor to a nice clean part of the pictures background.

3. With your cursor over a nice clean sample that you would like to use, hold down the alt/option key and click. Your cursor should have turned into a crosshair temporarily

4. Now, without clicking the mouse, move the mouse to a location that needs cleaning, click and drag. You will notice that the is is duplicating the area exactly when you are clicing and dragging, but, will figure out and adapt to the area when you let go of the mouse.

Make sure not to drag onto a different color. You might need to do the clicking and dragging in small burts to avoid this.

5. Move to another area (the coat for example, and repeat steps 3 and 4 to clean each area of the photo.

The result is the picture shown below the original on the left. simply amazing!

Adding Color

You see this effect on greeting cards all the time. A black and white photo with color in it. There are many ways to pull this look off, here is the easiest one.

1. Open a black and white photo, or, make a color photo black and white by going into th Image Menu, selecting Mode and then subselecting Grayscale.

2. Once your photo is open, go to the Image Menu, Select Mode and Subselect RGB color. This will allow color information to be added to the photo.

3. Choose the Brush Tool (shown left)

4. choose a color you would like to use (shown left)

3. This is the secret. In the mode option in the brush tool, select Color. It is important to know that mose every tool has a mode option which means this little trick can be done with almost every tool!

4. Start using your paint brush! Cool, eh?

5. Ted Turner would be proud!

All About Slicing and Rollovers.

Above you will see the front page of my website. If you go to the front page of my website, you will notice that when you move your mouse over the top navigation, a orange outline appears.

How this is done is with two images. One with the Orange outline and the other without. It is important that the two images have the exact same width and height. That is why we use guides. Drag your guides from the rulers around the graphic and position them around each sections you want to slice.

Why Slices?

Because web code can only make a rollover go to a single web page. So, if we want each icon to go to a different page, we need to slice each icon separately.

To perform a successful slice

1. Drag the guides form the rulers and prepare to document for proper slicing

2. Hide or revel the layer which is part of the rollover. In this case, I hid the Orange outline layer for my appointment calendar.

3. MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF THIS DOCUMENT. You are about to find out why.

4. You need to flatten the image which will compress all the layers to one. Once you do this, DO NOT SAVE THE DOCUMENT. To flatten, go to the Layer menu and select Flatten Image.

5. Now with the image flattened you can use the Marquee tool to grab your slices. Save your slices for the web

6. Once you finish with your slices. Go to the File Menu and revert the graphic to bring back the layers. Modify the layers so you can do the second set of slices. So, in my example, I will turn the orange outline back on, Flatten the image again and slice it up, this time with orange borders.