Adobe Photoshop Notes Class 1st

2. Introduction

Photoshop is quite different from other Windows programs. In the beginning it appears complicated. But as you get familar with its construction, you will find Photoshop to be both quick and comfortable.
Mouse, pen/tablet and precision

You will be working a lot with the mouse. Therefore it is important that you invest in a tablet – that is an indispensable aid. But Photoshop certainly also uses the keyboard. There are hundreds of keyboard shortcuts, and they provide options for variation in your daily work.
Photoshop is a very complete and precise program – everything is really possible. Here Photoshop differs from the smaller and cheaper picture processing programs like Paint Shop Pro and PhotoImpact, which also are excellent programs. Photoshop can do much more, but it is a big task to learn it all.
Hardware and software

Adobe Photoshop is originally a Macintosh program, but it is used to-day on pc’s with Windows 98/2000/XP and on PowerPC based Mac computers with Mac OS software 9.1, 9,2, Mac OS X version 10.1.3 (or higher).
Photoshop works about the same on both platforms, Mac users just need to remember that the Control key corresponds to the apple key. But this booklet is based on Photoshop in Windows 2000. It takes a powerful pc to utilize the program completely – we recommend as starting point a processor with a minimum of 1600 MHz (and preferably more) and a large, fast harddisk.
Pictures occupy a lot of memory, so RAM capacity is also important. I recommend 2048 MB RAM with 1024 MB as minimum. Furthermore it would be logical to use a really good screen and a good graphics card (ATI or Ma*trox brands). Of course the color setting has to be 24 bit or better. Similar equipment for Mac computers.

Figure 1. You need a high resolution and great color depth to work with pictures.
Open the program

Now you need to get started, and the first step is to open the program. We only show the procedure for the Windows based version.
That is very simple. Click on the Start button and select the Programs menu. There you find the menu item Adobe, which gives acess to Photoshop 7.0. Select that program now!

Figure 2. Photoshop is found in the Start menu under Programs and Adobe.

3. Setting up Photoshop

You can easily use Photoshop with the default settings. But we recommend to change a couple of the settings. Do that now, then Photoshop simply works better (in our opinion):
1. Select the menu item Edit --> Preferences --> General … Remove the checkmark at ”Use Shift Key for Tool Switch”. Add checkmarks at items ”Keyboard Zoom Resizes Windows” and ”Auto-update open documents”:

Among other things this makes it easier for you to choose tools with the keyboard (without using the Shift-key).
2. Click on Edit --> Preferences --> Units & Rulers. It is easiest to work with pixels, so select that unit:

3. Click on OK. The third adjustment governs memory management:

4. In Photoshop you can control the amount of RAM set aside for the program. By default Photoshop occupies 50% RAM, but if you have a minimum of 128 MB installed in your PC, we recommend that you increase the percentage to 80% – We use that here:




Figure 3. Photoshop can use a lot of RAM, so you can easily assign the program 80% of the pc’s storage.

File names

In this book we work with many image files, and all file names are written in lower case, both name and suffix. We recommend that you let Windows show both name and suffix. It is a great relief, especially when you work with graphics files, where it is convenient to quickly recognize the file format. You can readmore about this subject in the booklet ”Windows XP – teach yourself”.
Select menu item View --> Folder Options in Windows Explorer. Then remove the checkmark by ”Hide file extensions for known file types” as shown below:

Figure 4. It is a good idea to let Windows show file type names (suffixes) when you work with graphics files. Otherwise the file types can only by be recognized by their icons.
Only RGB colors

In this booklet we only deal with RGB colors. That is the color system that is used on computer screens, where each color is created from a mix of red, green and blue. You can read a thorough description of the RGB colors in the booklet ”Web graphics – teach yourself.” There are other color systems like CMYK, which is used for four color print, and which Photoshop can also work with, but that is beyond the scope of this booklet.