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Learn the Basics of Photoshop in Under 25 Minutes

2011-02-08T17:09:21Z

Photoshop is an incredibly powerful but also intimidating application. If you've wanted to start using Photoshop but didn't know where to start this tutorial will get you started. We'll be adding more tutorials soon.

The video above is your lesson. It's short considering how much it covers and long considering it's on the internet. In the video, we take a look at every tool in the toolbar, your palettes on the right side of the screen, and what you'll find in the menus. Below you'll find a reference for this lesson. Once the lessons are over, we'll provide everything all in one place and a downloadable PDF file containing references for each lesson.

Wait! I don't have Photoshop!

Are you not currently a Photoshop user? Adobe offers a Photoshop 30-day trial that you can download right now and it will provide you with plenty of time to learn how it works. If you don't want to eventually purchase Photoshop because it's too expensive, much of what we're going to discuss in these lessons will apply to not just to Photoshop but pretty much most of the standard photo-editing and design tools you'll find (Pixelmator is a great $30 alternative on the Mac, and GIMP is a free, open-source cross-platform option). We've chosen Photoshop because it's the most commonly used, but you're welcome to follow along using other software as well. Today's lesson is pretty Photoshop-specific, but as we move along you should be able to use other software to do most of what we discuss.

Ready? Let's get started.

The Toolbar

We're not going to take a look at every single tool but we are going to look at almost every one of them. While this overview will give you an idea of what each tool does, go find yourself a photo and start playing around with them.

Move Tool (Keyboard: V)

The move tool simply lets you move objects in a given layer around the Photoshop canvas. To use it, click anywhere on the canvas and drag. As you drag, the Photoshop layer will move with your mouse.

Marquee (Keyboard: M)

The marquee lets you select part of the canvas in a specific shape. By default you get a rectangular (or perfect square if you hold down shift while selecting), but you can also select in the shape of an ellipse (or a perfect circle if you hold down shift while selecting).

Lasso (Keyboard: L)

The lasso is a free-form selection tool that lets you drag around the canvas and select anything the lasso'd area covers. Within this tool you also have access to the polygonal lasso, which lets you create a selection by clicking around on the canvas and creating points, and the magnetic lasso, which works the same as the regular lasso but attempts to detect edges for you and automatically snap to them.

Magic Wand (Keyboard: W)

Clicking an area with the magic wand will tell Photoshop to select the spot you clicked on and anything around it that's similar. This tool can be used as a crude way to remove backgrounds from photos.

Crop Tool (Keyboard: C)

The crop tool is used to (surprise!) crop your pictures. You can specify the exact size and constrain the crop tool to those proportions, or you can just crop to any size you please.

Eyedropper (Keyboard: I)

The eyedropper tool lets you click on any part of the canvas and sample the color at that exact point. The eyedropper will change your foreground color to whatever color it sampled from the canvas.

Healing Brush (Keyboard: J)

The healing brush lets you sample part of the photograph and use it to paint over another part. Once you're finished, Photoshop will examine surrounding areas and try to blend what you painted in with the rest of the picture.

Paintbrush and Pencil (Keyboard: B)

The paintbrush is a tool that emulates a paintbrush and the pencil is a tool that emulates a pencil. The paintbrush, however, can be set to many different kinds of brushes. You can paint with standard paintbrush and airbrush styles, or even paint with leaves and other shapes as well.

Clone Stamp (Keyboard: S)

Like the healing brush, the clone stamp lets you sample part of the photograph and use it to paint over another part. With the clone stamp, however, that's it. Photoshop doesn't do anything beyond painting one area over a new area.

History Brush (Keyboard: Y)

The history brush lets you paint back in time. Photoshop keeps track of all the moves you make (well, 50 by default) and the history brush lets you paint the past back into the current photo. Say you brightened up the entire photo but you wanted to make a certain area look like it did before you brightened it, you can take the history brush and paint that area to bring back the previous darkness.

Eraser Tool (Keyboard: E)

The erase tool is almost identical to the paintbrush, except it erases instead of paints.

Paint Can and Gradient Tools (Keyboard: G)

The paint can tool lets you fill in a specific area with the current foreground color. The gradient tool will, by default, create a gradient that blends the foreground and background tool (though you can load and create preset gradients as well, some of which use than two colors).

Blur, Sharpen, and Smudge Tools (Keyboard: None)

All three of these tools act like paintbrushes, but each has a different impact on your picture. The blur tool will blur the area where you paint, the sharpen tool will sharpen it, and the smudge tool will smudge the area all around the canvas. The smudge tool is very useful in drawing for creating nicely blended colors or for creating wisps and smoke that you can add to your photos.

Burn, Dodge, and Sponge Tools (Keyboard: O)

The burn, dodge, and sponge tools are paintbrush-like tools that manipulate light and color intensity. The burn tool can make areas in your photo darker. The dodge tool can make them lighter. The sponge tool can saturate or desaturate color in the area you paint with it. These are all very useful tools for photo touch ups.

Pen Tool (Keyboard: P)

The pen tool is used for drawing vector graphics. It can also be used to create paths that can be used for various things that we'll discuss in a later lesson (although if you watch the video you can see a type path being created).

Type Tool (Keyboard: T)

The type tool lets you type horizontally. Tools hidden beneath the horizontal type tool will let you type vertically and also create horizontal and vertical text masks.

Path Tool (Keyboard: A)

The path tool lets you move any created paths around. It's like the move tool, but for paths.

Shape Tool (Keyboard: U)

The shape tool lets you create vector rectangles, rounded rectangles, circles, polygons, lines, and custom shapes. These tools are very useful when designing or when creating shape masks for photos.

3D Tools

These are the 3D tools. We're not going to be dealing with 3D stuff in these lessons so all you really need to know is that these exist. If you're curious, this video will give you an idea of what these tools can do.

Hand Tool (Keyboard: H)

The hand tool allows you to click and drag around the Photoshop canvas. If the entire canvas currently fits on the screen, this tool won't do anything. This tool is for easily navigating around when you're zoomed in, or a picture is simple too big to fit on the screen at 100%.

Zoom Tool (Keyboard: Z)

The zoom tool lets you zoom in and out of the Photoshop canvas by clicking on a given area. By default, the zoom tool only zooms in. To zoom out, hold down the option key and use the zoom tool as you normally would.

Color Selection Tools (Keyboard: D for defaults, X to switch foreground and background colors)

These tools let you manage the colors you're using. The color on top is the foreground color and the color in back is the background color. The foreground color is what your brushes will use. The background color is what will be used if you delete something from the background or extend it (although now, Photoshop CS5 will give you the option for using your foreground color instead in some circumstances). The two smaller icons up top are shortcut functions. The left one, showing a black square on a white square, will set your foreground and background colors to the defaults (Keyboard: D). The double-headed curved arrow will swap your foreground and background color (Keyboard: X). Clicking on either the foreground or background color will bring up a color picker so you can set them to precisely the color you want.

Palettes

Palettes are the things that you see sitting over on the right side of your screen. They make it easy for you to navigate through your document, add adjustments, switch modes, and other things.

Layers

The layers palette lets you see all the layers in your document. As you start getting to know Photoshop, you'll find yourself in this palette more than any other. It'll let you organize and arrange your layers, set blending modes, set visibility and opacity of layers, group and merge layers, and a bunch of other neat things we'll learn about in future lessons.

Adjustments

Your adjustments panel is where you can easily create and edit adjustment layers. Adjustment layers are non-destructive image alterations that affect all the layers below them and can easily be turned on and off. Their most common use is for color correction (namely the Levels andCurves adjustments, but there are many different kinds of adjustments you can perform that can dramatically alter the look of your image.

Color Channels

The color channels palette will let you look at the specific colors that make up your picture. If you're in RGB mode you'll get red, green, and blue. These color channels will differ if you're in a different color space (such as CMYK or LAB). When you choose a specific color, you'll notice you'll be shown your image in different versions of black and white. This is because each color channel is simply a monochromatic images representing the light in each channel (e.g. the red channel is just a look at the red light in your photo). Switching between these different channels is useful for making color channel-specific touch ups, overall contrast enhancements, and also for converting your photo to black and white in a compelling way. This will be discussed in greater detail in a later lesson about color correction and photo enhancements.

Color Picker

This palette will let you easily alter your foreground and background colors using sliders.

Color Swatches

The color swatches palette is a set of pre-defined colors you can quickly choose from. You can load in several other pre-made swatch collections or create your own, too.

History

The history palette lets you go back in time to undo any previous alterations. The standard undo command (in the edit menu) will simply toggle between undoing and redoing the latest action performed on your image. The history panel is where you can go back much further (50 actions by default).

Text

The text palette, and the paragraph palette below it, let you make all sorts of adjustments to any text you create with the type tool. These options are very similar to what you'll find in a word processing, but you can also specify things like character width and spacing which are more useful in design.

Menus

Most of what you'll find in Photoshop's menus can be found using the previously discussed tools. Nonetheless, we're going to take a quick look at some notable items in each of the menus.

File

File, as usual, handles opening, saving, and closing operations. Towards the end of these lessons we'll be taking a look at your different saving options (namely Save for Web).

Edit

Edit, as usual, brings you copy, cut, and paste. In Photoshop, it's also where you transform layers and set your color spaces.

Image

Image brings you canvas and image adjustments, including destructive effects that you'll also find in your adjustments palette. Options in this menu are designed to affect the image as a whole, although many adjustments are applied to only a single layer.

Layer

Layer lets you do all of the things you can do in the layer palette with a few more options. This menu also lets you create adjustment layers and smart objects (a group of layers treated as a single object).

Select

While the marquee and lasso tools will be your main means of selecting things, the select menu can help you refine that selection or create entirely new selections based on certain criteria (such as color range and luminosity).

Filter

Filter brings you a wealth of built-in (and, if installed, third-party) Photoshop filters that can blur, sharpen, distort, and alter your image (or layers of the image) in many different and unique ways. The best way to get acquainted with these filters is to try them all. That can take a little time, but it's fun to play around with them and see what they do. We'll be getting into the specifics in subsequent lessons, but only looking at a few commonly useful filters.

Analysis

Analysis provides you with measurement tools. There will be times when you need them to make accurate alterations to your images. We will not be covering anything in this menu in these basic lessons.

3D

As previously noted, we're not covering 3D. If you decide to learn more about 3D later, you may want to explore this menu on your own at some point.

View

View provides you with various view options, lets you hide and show line guides you've created (see video for an example), and make Photoshop snap (or not snap) to corners, edges, and to the grid on the canvas. Viewing of this invisible grid can also be turned on and off in the View menu.

Window

Window lets you hide and show certain windows and palettes. You can also arrange your Photoshop windows and palettes however you want and save them as a window preset.

That's all for today! In the next lesson we'll be learning about color correction, touch-ups, and photo enhancement.

Adam Dachis, is the author of this post, and an editor at Lifehacker.com.

Launching of Basecamp Mobile

2011-02-02T03:42:53Z

We are pleased to announce that today 37 Signals, creators of Basecamp, the preferred project management system used by Spike, launched Basecamp Mobile for phones and devices with WebKit browsers. This includes the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, Motorola Droid X, Motorola Droid 2, Samsung Galaxy S, HTC Incredible, HTC Evo, Palm Pre 2, BlackBerry Torch, or any other device running iOS 4+, Android 2.1+, webOS 2, or BlackBerry 6.

Basecamp Mobile is not a native app, it's a web app. All you have to do is visit https://spikesalesllc.basecamphq.com on your mobile phone. No apps and nothing to install - it just works. Since virtually all of our clients currently use Basecamp this is really BIG news.

Fontdue

2011-02-01T03:57:51Z

Ever had a call from a print vendor that asks, "Hey, what font are you using here?" only to have to be forced to reach out to the guy (you barely remember) that originally designed part of your graphic years ago.

As most of our clients already know, we value the fonts used in collateral. It's important. We even have a system for saving and organizing them. We also spend time teaching our clients when and it what situations to use them.

Still, most business owners need to backtrack. They need to be able to quickly go to a "font well" when their original fonts weren't saved or organized properly.

There are numerous free options to choose from. With the help of some font gurus out on the web, we have compiled the information you need to quickly find the font used in your original design.

Font Park will start you off with over 70,000 to choose from. Da Font is a smaller, more curated collection with tons of great options. There are plenty of other free font tools and resources, but it's more important to first understand typography. WDL offers up seven free typography ebooks to get you started. If you want additional portability, you can download the Typography Manual iPhone app. One you've got a basic understanding of typography, take a look at mastering font combinations. Rarely will you stick with a single typeface in a design, so understanding the principles of combining fonts can save you a lot of frustration.

Of course you can always speak with your Spike Account Executive to point you in the right direction.

Learn How to Become a GMail Jedi

2011-01-20T06:07:41Z

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Anyone that has had a web meeting with Josh and accidentally seen his Gmail account, usually asks... "How do you get your gmail setup like that?". Well, it all starts with the Labs settings. In this tutorial, Josh will walk you through the Labs that he thinks are the essentials to any Gmail power user. Enjoy

Answering the WTF Questions for Better Content

2011-01-20T05:45:33Z

We have a saying here at Spike that "Content isn't just King... It's EVERYTHING."

Fresh relevant content about your company, products and services is absolutely vital, yet a few of our clients opt to try a crack at writing their content themselves in an effort to cut costs and save money. After all, it looks easy, you have a high school diploma, spell checker and samples of what other people or competitors are using right?

In an effort to help out our DIY clients speed up the process of copy-writing. I found this super simple exercise to be very helpful. It snaps writer's block and stops you from being to long winded.

I am going to keep the F-BOMBs out since some of you reading this might have it blocked at work and I also don't want to make my Mom mad if she reads it. But it is important to note that when you go through this exercise, that you absolutely make sure you use the F-BOMB. Otherwise it loses it's effect.

Since content is what makes up your marketing messages, website, brochures, and other collateral, it is important to get to the point and let your audience know exactly what you want to convey.

You probably already have some good keywords or adjectives or standard sayings that you use when describing your company, product or service. You can probably say to someone what it is you do, who you are, or why they should buy your product or service. But when you try to put that down on paper you type to much, go off on tangents, and find it hard to get to the point.

THE EXERCISE:

Take the subject you want to write about, put it in your mind's eye. Next picture a teacher, drill instructor, football coach or some other type of person that you have a love/hate relationship with. Now imagine them walking up to, puffing up their chest getting right in your grill and screaming...

"What the F@$K are you trying to say?"

"What the F@$K does it do?"

"Who the F@$K are you?"

"Why the F@$K should I buy it?"

"When the F@$K is the event?"

"Where the F@$K do I go?"

You get the point. This list can go on and on.

Make sure when you answer, you are screaming right back. Screaming is the only way I have found it to work. You'll be amazed at how much simpler and to the point the answers become. This is where you should begin with your writing and only add to your answers when necessary.

Take it a step further and call your Google Voice number and record your answers so you don't even have to type the bulk of it. To see how to do that go here

Ohhh... it should also be noted that you will crack up laughing at yourself when you do this, it's just part of the process.

Have fun with it.

Turn New Years Resolutions Into BIG Profits

2011-01-06T22:06:09Z

Nothing says Happy New Year to a CrossFit Affiliate owner like getting a bunch of new member sign-ups! And believe it or not - it's actually pretty easy to do. Imagine if you could add 10 new members, on top of what you normally would, in 1 month. With the average monthly CrossFit membership fee being approximately $125 per month, per member (based on our research) - that adds up to $15,000 of additional revenue for you over the course of 1 year. Not to mention the referrals from those new members…not too shabby for an investment of less than $350.

As we know in the CrossFit business, the hardest part isn't getting people to love the product - it's just getting them in your doors to try it. The fact is that once they try it and fall in love with the results and the amazing community that CrossFit provides, they're usually hooked anyway. So, having said that, all you really need is an enticing offer that overcomes the unspoken objections people have to starting or switching to CrossFit and getting them to experience that CrossFit Awesomeness.

From my experience, those objections have most commonly been one of the following:

"It's too expensive for a gym…"
"It looks like it's too hard / intense for me…"
"I don't want to get bulky (women)…"
"How do I know it really works?"

OK, those are all fair questions or concerns, but how can you overcome those objections, convert those prospective clients and get them to come in and try you out anyway…without even speaking to them? It just takes an enticing enough promotion that they can't say no to that will get them in your doors and experiencing what you have to offer.

Here's what we've done…and it works - REALLY WELL!

Offer a 30 day free trial (hear me out) for the whole month of January for anybody wanting to try CrossFit. I know it might seem crazy, considering that you probably already offer a free session or week, but this will work better. That’s because there's a big difference in what you're currently doing and what I'm suggesting you do. What you're currently doing is only pulling in people who have qualified Crossfit in their minds based on research or recommendations from other CrossFitters. This will expose all the people who may not have heard of CrossFit yet and want to start taking their fitness more seriously.

You see, every year, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of people in YOUR AREA making the New Year’s resolution to get back into shape and take their health / fitness / appearance more seriously in the new year. Most of them will go to the first place that offers them a deal (and believe me, all the Globo Gyms have them right now) and sign up for a gym membership. Most of them will actually sign-up and go to their local Globo for a little while, but thanks to the human ability to come up with a million different reasons to quit, they'll stop training and go right back to what they were or were not doing before.

CrossFit though, as you know, tends to create a different result. Because of the unique programming, encouraging, and results driven environment (not to mention nutritional counseling, personal training-like individual attention, etc), people who come and try CrossFit typically stay for a while, and if you run a tight ship and have an inviting community, become happy paying members.

The Flyer

Create an eye-catching flyer that features the promotion (No excuses - Try CrossFit FREE for a whole month!) on the front and your gym info on the back. Be sure to give a brief description of who you are, some bullet points on what to expect (be positive - focus on results and community), and how to contact you (phone, address and website address). Imagery must be professional, and contain a male AND a female as to cover both demographics. Also, make sure the images that you select aren't too "bad-ass" or you might scare away some of the slightly more timid potential clients - women don't like to see big weights or pullups so leave those out. Kettlebells for the women and olympic bars with weight for the guys tend to yield the best results.

The Best Places to Distribute

Start with all of your surrounding local businesses - simply asking if you could put a stack in the breakroom is a great start. Then, target more upscale grocery store parking lots (Trader Joe's, Mother's Market, Whole Foods, etc). Mall parking lots on weekends are great too - especially after the holidays.

Note: Being strategic about where you distribute your flyers wont just give you better results, but will also cut down on littering.

The Best Times to Distribute

Late afternoons and evenings work best for grocery stores, but mid day tends to be busier at the malls.

On a Side Note

Be sure to have enough staff available to accommodate all your newbies. You don't want to take away from you existing members.

Blog Update Tutorial

2010-12-29T21:36:15Z

Ready to start updating your blog and keeping your members involved and in the loop? Watch this demo and get cracking!

Login To Google Apps

2011-01-19T21:10:00Z

Spike Sales, LLC │ 800-631-3601 │www.spikesalesnow.com

Logging into your Google account couldn't be easier. Once there you will be able to access your Gmail, Calendar, Docs, and every other App. This quick video will show you how to do it.

Create Your Own Christmas Present... New Members

2010-12-07T19:01:50Z

As we all know in the fitness community, the holidays are a time when your existing (and future) clients tend to go off the deep end when it comes to diet and exercise and pack on those few extra pounds. To you, the gym owner, this can actually be a great time to pull in a slew of new members and really grow your business. Organizing a few simple yet effective marketing campaigns for the holiday season can bring huge returns for you in new member sign-ups without breaking the bank. Let's take a look at a few of the opportunities…

1.) Targeting the proactive personality types: Create a fun flyer campaign focused on the whole "beat those holiday pounds to the punch". Inviting potential clients in for a free week could be all it takes to get them hooked on your box.

Contact your account manager for a pre-designed flyer template

2.) Targeting the reactive personality types: Create a promotion for all those New Years resolution makers who are ready to lose that new found weight. Offer a “no excuse” opportunity for those who want to start the new year off in a healthier way.

Contact your account manager for a pre-designed flyer template

3.) Targeting your existing member base: Create a simple, pre-packaged gift membership that your existing members can give their friends and family. Bundle it with a referral “reward” to really supercharge your results!

Contact your account manager for a pre-designed flyer template

Remember, be systematic and thorough with these simple ideas and they can payout tremendously in new member sign-ups!

Get Open Office

2010-09-28T05:50:25Z

OpenOffice.org 3.2.1 for Windows (Link)OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.