Similar tools on the toolbar panel are grouped but only one icon is shown.

If you want to display all the tools in the

group either hold the cursor over a specific tool icon for a longer time or right click the icon in the toolbar.

The tools shortcut is the letter on the right of the tool name. You can access the last used tool in the tool group by
pressing the respective key. If you hold Shift while pressing the key you will cycle through all the tools in that group.

Move Tool
Use move tool to moving pixels on the
screen. You can move text, layer masks,
normal layers, selected areas. The shortcut
for this tool is V but to temporarily access it
while having another tool selected simply
hold Ctrl and do the moving. Once youre
done moving release Ctrl and you will have
the control of your previous tool (the tool you
had before pressing Ctrl).

Rectangular Marquee, Elliptical Marquee, Single Row Marquee Tool and Single Column Marquee Tool
Shortcut M.
The Rectangular Marquee Tool is used for making rectangular selections and the Elliptical Marquee tool is used for making
elliptical selections. If you want to create perfect circles or squares hold Shift while dragging with the respective tool. If you want
to move the selection while creating it, hold Space. To add to an existing selection press and hold Shift BEFORE using the tool
youll see a little + sign next to the tool cursor. If after you see the + sign next to the cursor you release and press Shift key you
will create perfect circles or squares. Holding Alt before dragging will subtract from an existing selection and holding Alt and Shift
will intersect with an existing selection. If youre subtracting from a selection a little minus sign will appear at the right of the
tools icon and a little X for intersecting.
These little shortcuts for adding, subtracting and intersecting with existing selections apply to almost all selection tools. The
Single Row Marquee tool or the Single Column Marquee Tool if you select one of them and click once on the image you will
have a 1px selection row or column.

Lasso Tool, Polygonal Lasso Tool and Magnetic Lasso Tool

The Lasso Tool is used for making freehand selections. Not a very precise tool though.
The Polygonal Lasso tool is a bit more precise, allowing you to create a selections formed by straight lines. It has limited
uses for selecting rectangular objects- like benches or fences. If you are using the Lasso Tool you can temporarily access
the Polygonal Lasso Tool by holding Alt.
The Magnetic Lasso Tool has the most precision of all the tools in the group. It works by snapping to the edges of the
objects. You simply click once on the edge of the object you want to select and release the mouse button. Then carefully
drag around the object and notice how the Magnetic Lasso Tool snaps to the edges.

Quick Selection Tool and Magic Wand Tool

Shortcut-W.
Recommended for quick work - Not recommended for precise selections.
The Magic Wand Tool will select all pixels in that area that have a luminosity level close to the luminosity level of
the level you clicked. You can set this by entering a value in the Tolerance box (on the top of the screen). Also in
the tool option bar is a checkbox that allows you to select noncontiguous areas (areas that are not connected).

Crop Tool, Slice Tool and Slice Select Tool

The Crop Tool allows you to crop your images to the desired size. Click, drag, press Enter and you just cropped
your image. The cropping is best done at the end of the editing process.
The Slice Tool and Slice Select Tool are mainly for Web Designers and have very few uses for regular uses. How it
works? Well, you drag with the Slice Tool and create rectangles (usually web pages layouts). After youre done you
select Save for Web & Devices from the File menu and select a folder. This process will save each sliced portion as
a separate image thus allowing you to quickly use these images for website creation.

Eyedropper Tool, Color Sampler Tool, Ruler Tool, Note Tool, 123 Count Tool
Shortcut I.
To use it properly first set the Sample Size in the option bar to 33 or even better 55. Hover the Eyedropper tool over
the image and notice how the R G B values change. If you click with this tool anywhere on the image you will set the
Foreground color to the color below the Eyedropper Cursor. A quick way to access the Eyedropper tool while having the
Brush Tool selected it is to press the Alt key.
Hold Shift and left click while using the Eyedropper tool to access the Color Sampler Tool and create a new color sampler
(you can have a maximum of 4 color samplers).
The Ruler Tool is for measuring the actual dimensions on the screen. Also use to s straighten the image. Select the Ruler
Tool then click and drag where the horizon line is in the picture. Press Straighten

Spot Healing Brush Tool, Healing Brush Tool, Patch Tool, Red Eye Tool
These tools are very important if you are doing a lot of facial retouching. The Spot Healing Brush Tool is the easiest
to use. You simply find the skin imperfection you want to remove and click on it. Its not the most advanced
technique for making clean skin but it is a basic and very fast tool. Finally, the Red Eye Tool requires you to select
an iris with a red eye problem and it attempts to remove the redness in the pupil. Although there are more
advanced ways to do that (with Curves or Channels) this tool does a pretty good job.

The Healing Brush Tool is the same as the Spot Healing Brush Tool with the difference that it requires you to set a
sample point so that Photoshop will base its healing algorithm on the area of the picture set as the sample point. To
put it more simply: you will heal all your next spots based on the area you Alt-clicked on.
The Patch Tool is very useful for seamless blending of skin or other uniform surfaces. Let us say I want to remove
the dark bags under the girls eyes. I could use the Spot healing Brush Tool but the Patch Tool offers an easier way.
In the image below I selected the Patch Tool and created a selection as shown below. Now simply drag the
selection a bit lower three times and release. This will create skin in the selected area based on the area from
which we drag the selection.

Brush Tool, Pencil Tool, Color Replacement Tool, Mixer Brush Tool
The Brush tool is probably the most used tool in the Toolbar panel. You can use it to paint with pixels over your
image. The round brush tool is the one selected by default when you first open Photoshop. This brush has two
important settings you will want to play with: size and hardness. Hardness represents how defined the edges of the
brush are (or how blurry). Set the hardness setting to maximum (100%) and you will paint with hard strokes. Set it
to minimum and you will have some nice blurry strokes that blend well with the background.

In the brush option panel (usually you can find the option panel in the upper area, just below the menu bar) you can also
change the blending mode of the brush. Combined with the layers blending mode this option offers you some wildly
creative options. A useful keyboard shortcut for the brush tool are the bracket keys ([ / ]). Clicking the left bracket key
decreases the size of the brush while the right bracket key increases the size. Holding Shift while pressing the bracket
keys allows you to increase/decrease the hardness of the brush.
You can create your own brushes. Create a new layer, draw something with a black brush then choose Edit > Define
Brush Preset. (see custom brush handouts)

Choose Window > Brush to open the brush panel and enjoy the multitude of settings.

The Pencil Tool is similar to brush but you dont have a hardness option
The Color Replacement Tool allows you to replace one color with another.
The Mixer Brush Tool is Photoshops attempt to mimic traditional painting behavior.

Clone Stamp Tool, Pattern Stamp Tool

To use it first Alt-click somewhere to set the sample point. Then start painting. You will notice that you will paint with
the pixels underneath the sampled area. Thats all this tool does. It clones areas from one part of the image in other
parts.
The Pattern Stamp Tool allows you to paint with desired patterns over an image. (see custom brush/pattern handouts)

The History Brush Tool allows you to paint on a new layer from a previous state of your image. The art history
brush tool does the same think but produce wacky result :) try it!

Eraser Tool, Background Eraser Tool, Magic Eraser Tool

The Eraser Tool allows you to delete (erase) pixels from a pixel layer (or a layer mask). A smarter way is to use a layer
mask and nondestructively remove the undesired pixels.
The Background Eraser Tool is like the Color Replacement Tool , but instead of replacing the color you erase it. It is a
decent tool for getting rid of certain parts of the image but not precise enough
The Magic Eraser Tool looks and acts a lot like the Magic Wand Tool but instead of selecting pixels it deletes them. Useful
tool only if you are in a great hurry and do not care much about the results.

Gradient Tool, Paint Bucket Tool

Paint Bucket Tool, click with it on a picture and it will fill the area with the foreground color. It has a Tolerance setting
in the options panel which works the same way as the Tolerance setting for the Magic Wand Tool.
The Gradient Tool allows you to create a gradient from the background and foreground colors. While you can
achieve some artistic effects by dragging the gradient tool directly on a layer and then maybe use Fade (Ctrl + Shift
+ F) and an Opacity option its more likely that you will want to use it in layer masks (more soon)

Blur Tool, Sharpen Tool, Smudge Tool

Self-explained. They are not non-destructive tools though & can be slow.

Dodge Tool ,Burn Tool , Sponge Tool

Dodge Tool lightens and Burn Tool darkens while in the same time increasing contrast. In the Options Panel there are 2 setting you
should be aware of: Exposure setting and Protect Tones checkbox. You will want to have the Protect Tones checkbox checked all the
time unless you are aiming for very strong effects. The Exposure setting affects the power of the tool .I recommend using lower
settings and gradually paint until you achieve the desired effect. A quick tip: If you are using the Dodge Tool hold Alt to temporarily
switch to Burn Tool and vice versa.
The nondestructive alternative to these 2 tools is to create a new layer, fill it with 50% Gray color (Shift + F5), set the blend mode to
Overlay and use Dodge and Burn or a black and white brush on the layer to achieve similar effects.
The Sponge Tool desaturates the image (absorbs color). For a more contrasty effect be sure to check the Vibrance checkbox in the
Options Panel.

Pen Tool, Freeform Pen Tool, Add Anchor Point Tool, Delete Anchor Point Tool, Convert
Point Tool
The Pen Tool may be familiar to you if you have worked with Adobe Illustrator. This tool allows you to create vector
shapes and the additional tools in the category allow you to modify and tweak that shape. Great tool for refine
selections. Trace with the pen tool the object you want to select and then simply transform path to selection (Ctrl +
Enter). This allows very accurate selections Make sure to check Rubber Band in the Options Panel as it allows you
to preview the paths you are going to create.

Horizontal Type Tool, Vertical Type Tool, Horizontal Type Mask Tool, Vertical Type Mask Tool
Horizontal and Vertical Type tools allow you to add text to your images. Simply click anywhere in your document
with one of these two tools and start typing. You can change the font, size and other settings in the Options Panel.
When you are done typing simply press Ctrl + Enter to close the paragraph and stop typing. If you click and drag
with one of these two tools you will create a box which will allow you to type only inside that box. If you want to type
on a path for a special effect simply create a path with the Pen Tool and with Vertical or Horizontal Type Tool click
somewhere on the path (you will notice that the icon will change). Horizontal and Vertical Type Mask tools allow
you to create a selection from type. That is if you type something with one of these tools and press Ctrl + Enter you
will have a selection of your typed text.

Path Selection Tool, Direct Selection Tool

These tools are designed to manipulate and select paths. If you click with the Path Selection Tool on a path you will
select the entire path and if you click with the Direct Selection Tool on a path you will select only a point or a handle
bar.

Rectangle Tool, Rounded Rectangle Tool, Ellipse Tool, Polygon Tool, Line Tool, Custom Shape Tool
These tools allow us to create different shapes. There are three options in the Options Panel which are very important. If you select the first
option you will create Shape Layers (that is basically a Solid Color Adjustment layer with a Vector Mask), the second option allows you to
create simple Paths and the third option allows you to create pixel shapes. 3D tools allows you to manipulate 3D objects that you create in
Photoshop or import from other 3D software. If you are zoomed into a document the Hand Tool allows you to drag the document. Simply
click and drag. You can temporarily access the Hand Tool from almost any other tool by simply holding the Space button.
The Zoom Tool allows you to zoom into a document. Drag to the left to zoom out or drag to the right to zoom in. Click to zoom in, Alt-click
to zoom out. You can temporarily access the Zoom Tool from almost any tool by holing Alt + Space. Note that certain features of the Zoom
Tool and the Hand Tool wont work if you dont have Enable OpenGL Drawing checked in the Edit > Preferences Performance tab.

Default Foreground And Background Color (Shortcut D) allows you to set black as foreground color and white as
background.
Switch Foreground and Background Color (Shortcut X) allows you to switch between foreground and background colors.
Set Foreground and Set Background Color. If you click on one of these icons the Color Picker window will pop up
allowing you to select a color. A nice feature of Photoshop CS5 is that when you have the Brush Tool selected you can
temporarily access a simplified version of the Color Picker window (also called HUD Color Picker) by holding Shift + Alt
and Right-clicking. You can change some options for the Color Picker appearance by going to Edit > Preferences >
General.
Finally the Quick Mask (or Edit In Quick Mask Mode) (Shortcut Q) allows you to quickly select parts of your document.
Simply click Q to enter Quick Mask mode and use the Gradient Tool or the Brush Tool to draw with red color. When you
press Q again to exit the Quick Mask mode the red color becomes a selection. Note that the default behavior in
Photoshop is that red is the non-selected area and the rest of the image is selected. If you want the red to be the
selection (I find it much easier to work this way) simply double click the Quick Mask icon and select Selected Areas in the
window that pops up. In that window you can also change the color and the opacity of your Quick Mask.