Photoshop Introduction

Posted on 13. Sep, 2009 by bmackler in Photoshop

The first time you launch photoshop can be a daunting event. After you load Photoshop and get past the welcome screen you will see the standard layout for Photoshop. Over the years, since version 3.0 it has changed but over the past few years it has remained more or less the same. Lets break it down section by section so we can get a better idea of what we are dealing with.

Photoshop work area

1. Menu Bar – Standard top level navigation in photoshop. Here you will find most everything organized by its task

2. Option Panel – Gives you options based on the currently selected tool

3. Tool Bar - Selection of main tools

4. Color Picker – Select foreground and background colors

5. Document window – Current document being edited

6. Secondary docked tool bar – Shortcut panel giving access to commonly used features including, typography, history and brush panel

7. Navigator and Info Panel - Small version of the current documents active image area. Info panel gives specific details to the document you are currently working on

8. Color Pallete – A palette used to select foreground and background colors. Commonly used for painting or drawing within Photoshop

9. Layers Panel - Photoshop allows you to create seperate layers for each element in your document. This allows you to move one element around on its own layer without it affecting the rest.

This was just a quick overview of the major elements found in photoshop. In the future we will look more carefully at specific features.