Image editing is used to create unique photographs.
Various tools and features increase control over the output.
Using toolbox you can access variety of tools that will select, crop, paint,
retouch, add text and view your images.
To organize and for user friendly editing process, Photo Shop CS3 categorizes
toolbox controls into 6 sections:
Photoshop CS3 Tools
What Each Tool Do?
1) Selection Tools
Marquee, Lasso, Move and Quick Selection:
By using the selection technique, you are setting a part of an
image so that you can make changes to it. Using selection features
you can perform basic, geometric or freeform drawing selections.
For simple selections use the Marquee (Rectangular or Oval)
Take care of irregular Shapes with the Lasso Tools (in
Photoshop and Elements) or the Freehand tool (in Paint
Shop Pro).
Finally for tricky selections use the Magic Wand Tool.
The Magic Wand tool can also be used for selecting pixels by color.
2) Crop and Slice Tools
Crop, Slice:
Crop and slice tools are used to adjust image size. You can crop
an image using the crop tool or you can slice an image using the
slice tool.
3) Retouching Tools
Clone stamp, Eraser, Spot Healing Brush, Red Eye, Blur & Dodge:
Restoring Images
If a great shot of yours has insufficient light or you want to
remove a part of your image you need to use retouching tools.
The Clone Stamp replaces content in one place
with selected content from another spot in the image.
Eraser tool erases pixels and restores an image
to a previous saved stage.
The Spot Healing Brush can fix dust spots. This
tool allows you to paint content from one place to another. Spot
healing brush offers Red eye, Healing brush and Patch tool sub
options.
Red Eye tool
Red Eye Removal tool finds red circles and replaces
them with darker color. From the Options bar find 2 controls for
both pupil size and the darken amount options.
Pupil Size: The size of the brush used to paint over the
red-eye.
Darken Amount: The degree the red eye effect will be darkened.
The Healing brush can come handy when you need
to restore detailed or difficult areas of an image.
The Patch Tool can cover damages such as scratches,
spots, and stains. Use the patch tool to paint content from one
place to another, since it allows replacing unwanted content with
something more appealing.
The Clone Stamp duplicates content from one place
to another covering the old content.
Dodge tool is also known as "toning tool" and
it comes with burn and sponge sub options. When some details of
the image is overexposed or too bright you can use the dodge tool
to correct toning issues. Use the dodge tool to lighten tones
of your images.
Use Burn tool for darken areas this will bring
out facial features or faded details.
The Sponge tool
Adds or removes color depending on how the modes are set.
Use Saturate mode to add and De-saturate mode to
remove color.
In addition, to adjust automatic brightness and contrast, the
sponge tool can be set manually for the Brightness and Contrast.
(Image-Adjustments submenu in Photoshop or the Enhance-Adjust
Lighting -Brightness/Contrast submenu in Photoshop Elements.)
Blending Tools
Blending is used for blurring the edges of an image
and mixing colors.
Blending tools are:
The Smudge tool (Photoshop/Elements) The Blur
tool (Photoshop/Elements and Paint Shop Pro) The Scratch Remover tool (Paint
Shop Pro)
Blur tool makes the affected area
fuzzy and less distinct. This method is used for blurring the
edges of an image and mixing colors. This tool is also useful
to get rid of scratches of old images.
Blur tool comes with Smudge and Sharpen sub-options.
Smudge tool smears colors in an image.
Sharpen tool sharpens the selected area. It also adds detail
by increasing the contrast around the edges of an image.
4) Painting Tools
Brush, History Brush and Gradient:
Painting tools are used for choosing the paint color and applying
it.
You can also customize either brush or pencil size for correcting
brushing problems.
Both the brush and the pencil tool can paint tiny dots, short
strokes, or longer lines. The only difference is that the pencil
tool can draw a sharper line while brush pains a fuzzy line.
Brush and the pencil be customized for their shape and color.
When you choose the preset setting you can also change the color,
shape, texture, and position of the brush according to your need.
5) Drawing Tools
Pen, Type, Shape and Path Selection:
Using drawing tools you can easily customize your
images.
Adding text
Adding text to the image, creating letterheads, logos,
flyers, and posters with our own images are among many other features
of Photoshop.
Type tool allows you to add horizontal or vertical text
onto images.
Drawing
You can draw rectangles or ellipses using the shape
tool.
Pen tool allows you to draw freehand paths.
6) Annotation Tools
Annotation, Eyedropper ,Ruler, Hand, Zoom:
The Annotation tool makes notes that can be attached
to an image.
The Eyedropper tool samples colors in an image.
The Ruler tool measures distances and angles.
The Hand tool moves an image within its window.
The Zoom tool magnifies and reduces the view
of an image.
Additional ways to Adjust Color & Tones
Photoshop has automated tools to correct colors, adjust
color balance, equalize colors, increase and/or decrease color
intensity & brightness and contrast features
You can use Adjusting levels command or use color picker to apply
different colors and on the other hand you can use Equalize command
to adjust color tones.
Creating Special Effects and Filters:
Filters allow you to apply groups of effects and formats to your
images, whether to a specific selected area or to the entire image
on one or more of its layers. You can use filters to add or change
the color and texture of your images or to add patterns. With
more than 100 different filters that create special effects experimenting
is the best way to see different effects.
Adjusting levels
Both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements offer adjusting levels. The Image menu contains the adjustment level control. The Levels command allows the use of a color picker so the new colors can be picked from shadows, mid-tones or highlight levels. The Variations command enables you to view a series of thumbnails, each showing a different color or contrast effect.
The Equalize command
Just like the name states this command adjusts color tones. In the case of an old image or low quality scanned image, presenting single color domination, images can be fixed with Color Cast command that gets rid of color cast by increasing and decreasing color intensity.
Curves dialog box
Another way to adjust the tones in your image is to work with
the Curves dialog box, available in Photoshop (Image - Adjustments
- Curves).
Use this tool to adjust the tones and color balance.
Palettes
With the use of palettes the photographer can show or hide certain parts of the image. This group of palettes consists of layers, channels and paths.
Channels
Channels are the different individual color layers that make up your image. Most photos are either in RGB (red/green/blue) or CMYK (cyan/magenta/ yellow/black) mode. Use the Channels palette to focus on single color content or on a combination of channels. For example you can change the green portion of an image only with the green channel. To display a channel, make sure that the eye appears next to the channel in the Channels palette (Photoshop).
Classic Photoshop basic toolbox
- Hand – Dragged in order to move an image around.
- Move – To move a certain area, you must click and drag.
- Zoom – Zoom in and out by clicking or dragging.
- Crop – To do this, you must click and drag that certain area; to execute the crop, press Enter; to cancel the crop, use the Escape key.
- Marquee – The selected images will be clicked and dragged
- Type – Using the type tool, click the image where you want to include type.
- Eraser – Gets rids of areas that have solid colors.
- Brush – Used for painting brush strokes.
- Dodge – This tool is used to lighten any picture wherever you want to.
- Burn – This tool is used to make certain areas on your image darker
- Wand – This tool is used for colored areas. You can use it to select, erase, or adjust the color.
Photography Editing Software Types:
Find
out which editing software is suitable for your needs?
