Photoshop CC 2020 For Beginners

Photoshop
CC
2020 For
Beginners
Want to learn
Photoshop? Read this
book!
Deep Kumawat
ISBN: 9798615480775
Copyright © 2019 Deep Kumawat
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or
by any means (electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording or other-
wise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person
who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be
liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
For my parents who always supported me for
doing something different, something that I
wanted
iv
Contents
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Conventions used in this book. . . . . . . . . . . . x
Chapter 1 Introduction to the world of pixels. . . . . 1

What an image actually is?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
RGB vs CMYK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....4
Bit depth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..5
Colour spaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Different formats of images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Why does photoshop exists? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Chapter 2 Getting started with photoshop. . . . . . 11

The home screen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Creating a new document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Raster layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Smart objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Selections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
Place any image is photoshop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Chapter 3 Tools Part - 01. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..22

What are Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Move Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
Marquee Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Lasso Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Magnetic Lasso Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
Polygonal Lasso Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Object Selection Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 v
Quick Selection Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
iii
v
Magic Wand Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Select Subject. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Select and Mask. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34
Remove Background. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Crop Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Frame Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38
Eye Dropper Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Spot Healing Brush Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Healing Brush Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Patch Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..41
Content Aware Move Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Red Eye Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Chapter 4 Tools Part - 02. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..45

Brush Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Pencil Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Color Replacement Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48
Mixer Brush Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....49
Clone Stamp Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 51
Pattern Stamp Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
History Brush tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..56
Art History Brush Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..58
Eraser Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62
Background Eraser Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Magic Eraser Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..64
Gradient Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...64
Paint Bucket Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 71
3D Material Drop Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72
Blur Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Sharpen Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
vi
vi
Smudge Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Chapter 5 Tools Part - 03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Dodge Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78
Burn Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Sponge Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Difference Between Saturation and Vibrance. . . . . 79
Pen Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Freeform Pen Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...91
Curvature Pen Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Add Anchor Point Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Delete Anchor Point Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Convert Point Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 92
How to Save Path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .92
What I Recommend. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Horizontal Type Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Vertical Type Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....95
Vertical Type Mask Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96
Horizontal Type Mask Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...96
Path Selection Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .....96
Direct Selection Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 97
Rectangle Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Hand Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 97
Rotate View Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Zoom Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Chapter 6 Some Basic Things. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..100

Opacity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
v
vii
Fill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .102
Difference Between Opacity and Fill. . . . . . . . . . .. 120
Masks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Separate subject from the Background.. . . . . . . . 108
Clipping Masks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109
Modify Selection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..113
Create custom shapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120
Place any image in the canvas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 122
Chapter 7 Layer Adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .126

Layer Adjustments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128
Brightness/Contrast. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Levels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129
Curves. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Exposure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Vibrance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Hue/Saturation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Gradient Map. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 173
Selective Color. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 177
Color Balance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Black and White. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Photo filter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Channel Mixer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Color Lookup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 168
Invert. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Posterize. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .170
Threshold. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Chapter 8 Some Advanced Things. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Adjustment Layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185
Custom Keyboard Shortcuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .187
Apply blur non-destructively. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Sharpening non-destructively. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .189
Quick Mask. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Color Range. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .192
Layer Styles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .194
Properties tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 206
Note from me. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
viii
Acknowledgements
As a reader you never know what goes into writing a book.
What the writer has gone through before this. And without any doubt
this book is also not an exception.
There were only two people who were with me and support-
ed me and they were my father and English teacher(way back in the
primary school).
By far the most supportive person in the journey of writing this book
had been my father. He trusted me and supported me throughout
this awesome journey of writing this book. He also taught me many
aspects of writing a book to publishing it by his own research. It
seemed like he was more exited about the book than even me! He is
the only one who supported me to do something out of the box.
There is one more person who is responsible for making this

book possible and she is my English teacher, Anamika ma’am in
primary school. She praised my English compositions in class. Her
praise raised a believe in me that I would write a book one day!
vii
ix
Introduction

Photoshop is an industrial standard software for editing
photos. After using photoshop for so many years I realised that
there is nothing that can’t be edit in an image with photoshop!
In twenty-first century every company, start-up or any busi-

ness is moving towards digital marketing. This is because now
everyone uses there social media applications for communication.
Therefore this is the best time to become a graphic designer.
According to me the best software to start with graphic de-

signing is photoshop.
Although photoshop is the software to choose for graphic

designing it can get complex at times. So, this book guides you
through photoshop and helps you to master it at a beginner level!
After reading this book I guarantee, you are going to become a better
photoshop artist
viii
x
Conventions used in this book

In this book you will find some helpful convention pictures
which would give you tips, cautions, shortcuts etc. And they
are as follows:
An easier and better way to the same thing
Caution:- Do not do this!
Notes from me.
ix
1
Chapter - 01
Introduction to the
World of Pixels
• What an image actually is?

• RGB vs CMYK
• What is Bit Depth?
• What are colour spaces?
• Different formats of an image
• Why photoshop exists?
Chapter 01 - Introduction to the world of pixels! 3
Chapter 01 The World of Pixels
What an image actually is?

The image that you are observing up till now is not actually
what you see! In-fact all the images consists of thousands of pixels
and together make an image that pleases your eyes.
An image is made up of very tiny squares. These squares are

called pixels. Each pixel shows a specific color and all these pixels
join and make up an image. If you would really zoom in into an im-
age, you would be able to see them! The following pictures will make
you clear about what I am trying to explain:
Zoomed out version Zoomed in version
The reason why I have dedicated a whole section to pixels is

that when you would start using photoshop you would notice that
every measurement, whether it is of a Tool or anything else it taken in
pixels. Because of this reason learning about pixels is so important.
Photoshop CC 2019 for Beginners 4
RGB vs CMYK
Now you know what pixels are but you really need to know
what are colour modes in which these pixels reside.
Well there are two types of colour modes:-
1. RGB
2. CMYK
RGB (Red Green Blue) - Each and every digital image that you see on
your computer are examples of RGB colour mode.
On a monitor or T.V. there are millions of pixels and each pixel

shows a shade of Red, Green and Blue(RGB). All these millions of pix-
els combine and create a beautiful image. In fact when you see white
on your screen, actually the pixels are emitting colour in same propor-
tions of red, green and blue. And when your display shows black the
pixels are not emitting colour at all.
CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow Black) - This colour mode is used when
the document is needed to be printed. This colour mode is used in
printing because printer uses this. Unlike in the RGB colour mode in
this colour mode white is shown by not printing any colour and every
other colour is the combination of cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
You should always work on the CMYK colour mode when

you know you need to print or vice versa. Do not change it
latter after you have edited the image.
Bit Depth?
In simple words more the bit depth the more the colours you
could use. But if you want to hop into the technical things then your
welcome! Basically bit depth determines how much colour informa-
tion would one dot/pixel would show.
But don’t get intermediated by this! If you want a better image

quality it doesn’t mean that you would use a 1000 bit depth. No. No.
Just do not do it and currently you can not.
1 bit = black and white

2bit = shades of grey
8bit = 256 colour pallet
I personally do not recommend to work with higher bit depths

as it is not necessarily needed, because the file size is huge, many
still do not have displays higher than 8 bit and for web most of the
services compress the file anyway.
But if you really want to exploit the more wider colour palette you can
use 16 or 32 bit depths.
I recommend using the bit depth at which you have the pic-
ture. This will enable you to use the extra information that higher
bit-depth has. By using higher bit-depth images you can work with
colors better than in lower bit-depths.
Keep in mind that if you are going to upload the image to

web(social media especially) then it would be compresses to 8 bit
automatically.
Colour Spaces?
Colour space is a very essential concept for learning photo editing.
Basically a colour space is a set of colours with which you can play.
Well, there are mainly three types of colour spaces:-

• sRGB:- sRGB stands for standard RGB. This colour space was
created by HP and Microsoft in 1996. sRGB is relatively a small
colour space and it is used for web. Whenever you would upload
an image on the web you would notice that your image is con-
verted to sRGB(if it’s not already sRGB). this is because everyone
uses different devices to browse web and they all display dif-
ferent amount of colours, because of this we need a very small
colour space which can be seen world wide. And most probably
your monitor would only support sRGB.
• Adobe RGB:- This colour space was created by Adobe in 1998.

This colour space is used in printers. So, if you want to print the
photo then you need to click that photo in adobe RGB and edit it
in Adobe RGB. You should not upload the photo to web because
web would convert your photo into sRGB and this would make
your image look dull.
• ProPhoto RGB:- This is the biggest colour space of all. But, there
is no such monitor that can display true ProPhoto RGB colour
space. If you want to do long edit an want a fine result on your
computer you should use ProPhoto RGB. This is because you
need bigger colour space to edit as editing is kind of compressing
the image, so you want the most amount of information possible.
• You can change your colour spaces in Edit > colour settings or
you can press the shortcut shift + ctrl + K on windows and shift +
command + K on mac in photoshop.
• I suggest keeping the colour space sRGB by default. In colour

management policies I recommend keeping it at ‘preserve em-
bedded profiles’. Tick all the ‘ask when opening’ boxes. Keep the
engine at adobe ACE, keep intent to ‘relative colorimetric and keep
every other thing default.
This diagram shows all the main three colour spaces. The horseshoe
shaped colour palette is the colour which are visible to an human eye.
I know it could be confusing so in simple words if want to

upload something to web you should use sRGB, if you want to print
the photo you should use adobe RGB and if you want to edit an image
that would stay on your computer you should us e ProPhoto RGB.

you can change the colour space of an RAW(more about it in
the next chapter) image in camera raw in photoshop.
Different Formats of an Image

As an editor you should always have a throe knowledge of
every major file formats. So let’s start!
• JPEG:- It is the most common image format. It stands for

Joint Photographic Experts Group. It compresses images very
much resulting in a very low file size. But it falls behind when you
want sharp corners. And another drawback of this format is that
it can not be edited to its fullest because during compression it
deletes some information to reduce file size.
• GIF:- GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. It is great for

sharp corners and curves. It can also be used to create a short
video with collection of multiple images. It compresses the imag-
es even more than a JPEG image. This is why you should never
ever use it for complex images. It would make the complex imag-
es look grainy and would also make artefacts.
• PNG:- PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics. It is used inten-

sively lately. It also supports transparency. That means that you
can use image that do not have background. JPEG give a white
background to all the images.
• PSD:- PSD stands for Photoshop Document. Whenever you will

save an image in photoshop PSD would be selected as default file
format. Basically PSDs has only one advantage and that is that
they can be edited afterwards with each and every change intact,
but you can not use it outside of adobe suit.
• TIFF:- TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format. TIFF supports
both compressed and uncompressed image formats. It also sup-
ports different colour spaces and layers.
• SVG:- SVG supports vector graphics. Basically a vector graphic

is such a graphic which can be scaled infinity without any lose of
quality because it uses mathematical formulas instead of pixels.
This format has a very small file size. Wait! you cannot use this
formate for complex images. It only work for graphics.
• RAW Files:- RAW is not a file format but many companies has
there own type of RAW files. For example Adobe has DNG format
for RAW. RAW images do not compress the images and has a lot
of information. I highly recommend that you should edit in RAW.
You can edit a lot on that. The only drawback on this file format is,
it has a huge file size.
Why Does Photoshop Exists?

Photoshop is an industry standard photo editing software. Its
THE software to learn to anything in the world of pixels.
I take photoshop as a Tool of a blacksmith. In which we are

the blacksmiths and photos are iron. With this Tool you can turn the
image into your imagination!
There is nothing that you cannot do to an image in photoshop!

So, let’s begin with it finally!
Chapter - 02
Getting Started
with Photoshop
• The Home screen

• Creating a new document
• Layers
• Raster Layers
• Smart objects
• Selections
• Place any Image in Photoshop
Chapter 02
Getting Started with
Photoshop
The Home screen
Search Recent Projects

Create New Document
Open Existing Change View

Document Filter
In the above figure you can see icons of the home screen in
photoshop. You can see all your recent projects in the recent folder
and also you can search for any recent document in the search bar.
You can create new document from ’Create new’ button and if
you want to open an existing document you can do so by clicking the
‘Open’ button.
If you want you can also drag and drop any image or PSD in
photoshop’s home screen to open it.
Chapter - 02 Getting started with Photoshop 15
Creating a new Document
categories for templates
Settings for
your docu-
ments
Templates
You can create a new document by clicking the ‘Create new’

button. After you click that button you would be greeted with the
window shown above. Here you can choose any template if you want
or else you can set up your canvas from scratch by messing with the
options thrown at you in the right hand side of the window.
Here you can name your project and I highly recommend you
to do so now, because whenever you will save the document this
name would be your project’s default name.
Here you can change settings like width, height, orientation,

resolution, colour mode, background contents(Background colour or
transparent), colour profile and aspect ratio.
An interesting option to look at is artboard. Artboards allow

you to work with different images separately at the same time. For
example you can open 10 images in a single document and edit them
individually.
Different images edited in the same project using artboards. Each image is a different
artboard.
This is the photoshop workspace
Let’s be honest here the workspace is a bit intimidating. But

the best part is that you can customize it easily. By click the “three
line icon” in the top right side corner of every window you can close
it. And don’t worry if you accidentally closed one you can easily get it
back by going to the Window tab. Talking of the window tab you can
add any window if you want from it.
Go ahead and customise your own unique workspace.

Layers
Layers, the most important part of photoshop and also the
easiest to learn. So, let’s master it. Suppose you have a table and
now you place some papers top of it. Here the table is photoshop
and the papers are layers. Its simple, the layer above any layer is just
like a paper above a paper.
Well you might think that why do anybody needs layers? Well
in the very early versions of photoshop there were no layers! Layers
are incredibly helpful for non-destructive editing.
So now you might be wondering, what is non-destructive

editing? Let’s take an example, you edited an image of a dog and a
horse. After editing it and saving it, you come the next day and want
to change some values of the dog specifically, but you cannot do
that because you did everything in the same layer, the values that
you will change for the dog will also affect the horse! So, what will
you do? This is where layers come in, what you should have done is
keep the edits of dog and horse in separate layers, so that you could
change any individual value of either dog or the horse.

You can create a new layer by clicking the new layer icon or
pressing the short cut ctrl + alt + shift + N for a new layer without
dialogue box and ctrl + shift + N for a new layer with dialogue box.
New Layer Icon
New Layer Icon

Layers in use!
Raster Layers
Well mainly you are going to deal with raster layers and smart
objects in photoshop. So, let’s talk about raster layers first.
Raster layers are layers made with pixels. If you want to use
any Tool which changes the pixels such as brush Tool, spot healing
brush Tool, patch Tool, clone Tool, etc. you need to use raster layers.
You cannot use smart objects for that purpose. If you try doing so
you would get an error which asks you to rasterize your layer.
Error
You can turn any smart object to rasterized layer just by right
cliking the layer and clicking ‘Rasterize Type’.
Smart Objects
Smart objects cannot be edited directly. As I mentioned before
you will get an error so, you need to turn the layer into raster layer.
So, now you might be thinking, if I have to turn the smart ob-
jects into raster layers for directly editing them, why should I use them
in the first place? Let me tell you, Smart objects are very important
and useful! The advantage of smart object is their non-destructive-
ness. If you make an image a smart object then if you scale it down
you will not lose the data. This means that after scaling it down when
you will scale it up again up-to its original size you will not lose any
quality. But if you do the same with rasterized layers they will indeed
lose quality. Another great quality of smart objects is that if you
create a group of layers a smart object, you can still access all those
layers as they were before by clicking the thumbnail of smart object.
Selections
If you would select a part of an image, any action that you
would take would be implemented to only the area which is select-
ed. If you have not made any selection an action that you would take
would affect the whole document. We would learn how to create se-
lection later in this book in chapter 3.
Always when you are transforming(resizing) an image

convert it into a smart object. So, that whenever you want
you can change the size without any reduction in quality.
Place Any Images in

Photoshop
You can place any image in photoshop document by going to
File > Place Embedded. It will place the image as a smart object.
Chapter - 03
Tools Part - 01
• What are Tools?

• Move Tool
• Marquee Tool
• Lasso Tool
• Magnetic Lasso Tool
• Polygonal Lasso Tool
• Object Selection Tool
• Quick Selection Tool
• Magic Wand Tool
• Select Subject
• Select and Mask
• Crop Tool
• Frame Tool
• Eyedropper Tool
• Spot Healing Brush Tool
• Healing Brush Tool
• Patch Tool
• Content Aware Move Tool
• Red Eye Tool
Chapter 03 Tools Part - 01
What are Tools?

Tools are the most important and most basic aspects to learn
in photoshop. Basically everything you do in photoshop is done by
Tools.
Think of photoshop as a garage, where cars(images) come to

get repaired. So in a garage the mechanic(you) repair the car(image)
by Tools!
I hope from the above example you came to know that how
important are Tools in photoshop. So, now you know how important
Tools are in photoshop, let’s start learn them one by one.
Move Tool
Move Tool:- This Tool is used to move things around in photo-
shop. The shortcut key for this Tool is ‘V’. whenever you will click on
a Tool you will get some options related to it in the options bar. for
the move Tool there are various options. For the move Tool you can
choose if you want to turn auto select on or off. What auto select does
is that whenever you hover over an object which on its independent
layer it gives you the ability to move it freely whether or not the layer
is selected or not. But is it is unchecked you will only be able to move
the layer that you have selected.
Chapter - 03 Tools Part - 01 25
Tools in photoshop
The other two controls are for, if you want to move individual
layer or the whole group and if you want the transformation handles to
be visible.
Marquee Tool
Marquee Tool:- You can make some cool selections with it. The
shortcut key for it is ‘M’. If you would long press or right click on it’s
icon on the toolbar, you can also use elliptical marquee Tool, single
row marquee Tool and single column marquee tool. All these tools
does the same thing, just the shape is changed.
Add selection
Subtract selection
Intersect with selection.
• With add selection you can add any part to an existing selection.
• With subtract selection you can subtract any part of any selection.
• With intersect with selection option selected all the parts of the
selection would be selected which are intersecting between both
the selection.
• Feather means the transition between the area which is selected

and the area which is not selected.
You can hold ctrl on windows and command on mac to

check or uncheck auto select. Try it!
Lasso Tool
Lasso Tool:- Lasso Tool allows to make free hand selections.
It has an option called Anti-alias, what it does is that whenever you
make a selection it will automatically blends in the pixels resulting into
a great and smooth selection. Rest all the options for lasso Tool are
similar to in the marquee Tool. Shortcut key for lasso Tool is ‘L’. It has
two more Tools in its group.
Magnetic Lasso Tool

Magnetic Lasso Tool:- This Tool uses contrast between edges
and whenever you hover through any part of the image it will try to
automatically stick to the edges of it.
Polygonal Lasso Tool

Polygonal Lasso Tool:- You can click points to create a selec-
tion. To complete the selection you will need to click on the first point
you created.
Object Selection Tool

The object selection tool was added in photoshop cc 2020. So
what it does? It selects the subject in the selection you make by using
artificial intelligence and machine learning.
You can select your mode to select the

region around your subject. You can choose
from Lasso and Rectangle.
New selection
Subtract Selection
Add selection
It would automatically
subtract unwanted selec- Refer the topic Refer the topic
Enhances edges tion of spaces between “Select Subject” “Select and Mask”
of selection an image
Mode: You can select from lasso and rectangle selection. Well
it means which type of tool you would be using for selecting the region
around the subject(The main selection of the subject in the selected
region would be done photoshop automatically through object selec-
tion tool.)
Choosing Lasso as Mode for selection

Using Lasso tool as mode for object selection tool
Lasso as Mode: If you would take lasso as your mode, you would need
to make a rough(need not be very precise) free hand selection around
the subject. After you select the region around the subject, photoshop
will take a moment to process and then you will get a fairly accurate
selection of your subject with negligible efforts from your side! Note
that the selection will not be super precise you would still need to do
some tweaking.
You can use Alt or option key to switch to polygonal

lasso tool(press and hold it). You will get back to regular las-
so tool just by releasing the key. For rectangle as your mode
you can press and hold shift key to make a perfect square.
Rectangle as Mode: Let’s take an example. In the image shown

below, I want to select the man. All I need to do is to select a region
around him and photoshop would automatically select him. Isn’t that
awesome! Now, I am not saying that it is totally accurate but previous-
ly in older versions of photoshop I would have to make the selection
from scratch, atleast now I have a rough selection to start from.
Selecting region around the subject with object selection tool

Subject selected!
Quick Selection Tool

Quick Selection Tool:- The shortcut key for this tool is ‘W’.
This tool uses contrast to find edges and automatically sticks to
them. This sounds similar to the magnetic lasso tool but in that tool
you need hover over the edges but in this tool you will get a brush by
which you will click and drag on area which needs to be selected.
Brush options
Options for the Quick selection Tool
New selection
Subtract Selection
Add selection
You can hold the shift key to temporarily shift to the add
selection Tool and Alt(on windows) or Option(on Mac) to
shift to the subtract selection Tool. If you release those
keys you will return back to the new selection Tool.(This
technique works with all selection Tools.)
• Brush Options let’s you edit the brush size, hardness, spacing,
roundness and angle.
• Previously I explained you that this Tool uses contrast to find edg-
es, so its obvious that this Tool samples the layer. So, if needed you
can check the ‘Sample All Layers’ option. If you have not checked
this option it will only sample from the layer that you have selected.
• Auto Enhance just means that Photoshop would automatically

refine edges.
Magic Wand Tool

Magic Wand Tool:- Magic Wand Tool is used to select using
colours. What magic wand Tool does is that it samples the colours and
selected the similar colours in the image.
Select Intersection Size of sample

New
selection Subtract Selection
Add selection
• Sample Size:- Previously I told you that magic wand Tool selects
colours but colours are made up of pixels. So, here you can choose
what you want to sample. For example, if you select ‘point sample’
it will sample the exact pixel that you clicked. Whereas if you select
something like ‘5 by 5 average’ what it would do is, it would sample
a square of 5x5 pixels and average it, from where you clicked.
• Tolerance:- Tolerance means how much colour variation would the

Tool tolerate. The lower the tolerance the more precise the selec-
tion would be. It means that, if the tolerance is relatively low then
it would only select the colours nearest to the colour you picked,
but if the tolerance is relatively higher then it would pick more col-
ours(it would tolerate the difference in colours more).
• Contiguous:- If this option is checked then you can click and drag
to select any and every area.
Select Subject
Select Subject:- This option is available in both, magic wand

Tool and quick selection Tool. This Tool uses AI to know what is the
subject and selects it. Now you might be thinking that if AI can auto-
matically select the subject then why should we know all the selection
Tools? The reason is that this Tool is not accurate! In most cases it
would not give you a flawless selection. So, because of this reason
you need to know all the Tools, you don’t know when you will need
which tool.
Select and Mask
Select and Mask:- This is an amazing Tool for selection. Let’s

know more about it.
Reset
Properties panel of select and mask

• View:- You can change the view of seeing the selected area and the
area which is not selected.
• Transparency:- It controls the transparency of the area which is not

selected.
• Radius: It controls the radius of the refinement.
• Global refinements:- These are pretty straight forward so whenever

you use select and mask you can mess with these sliders.
Quick Selection Tool (W)

Refine Edge Brush Tool (R)
Brush Tool (B)
Lasso Tool (L)
Hand Tool
Zoom Tool (Z)
• Refine Edge Brush Tool:- This Tool is used for refining the edges of
the selection.
• Brush Tool:- It is used for making selections as if you were using

the brush Tool.
• Hand Tool:- It is used for moving within the canvas by dragging.
• Zoom Tool:- It is used for zooming in and out.

Remove Background
Remove background is used to remove background of an image

as the name suggests. You can select your subject layer and then go to
properties(if you don’t see properties tab then go to windows > prop-
erties) and now click on remove background. The remove background
button would not appear if your layer is a smart object, you need to
convert it into a rasterized layer. After you click that button you will
see that your subject is masked from the background(you would see
a mask on your layer). Mind that the mask would not be super precise,
you need to make some small tweaks.
This one!
Crop Tool
Crop Tool:- This Tool is used for cropping the image. The short-
cut for this Tool is ‘C’.
• Straighten is used to straighten your image. You can draw line and
photoshop would adjust the image according to that line.
• Delete Cropped Pixels:- Just uncheck this option now! This means
that whenever you will crop the image you will not be able to return
back to original image. So, I do not think you will need to check
that.
• Content Aware:- It uses photoshop’s AI To fill the blank spaces in

the crop.
Frame Tool
Frame Tool:- You can create interesting frames with this Tool.
Shortcut key for this Tool is ‘K’. Basically with Tool you can create a
Rectangular or elliptical frame. Frame means you can attach any im-
age to it and it would only be visible to the area where the Frame is.
Eye Dropper Tool:- This Tool is used to sample colours in the
Eye Dropper Tool
This tool is used to sample colors. You can select the eye drop-
per tool and then click anywhere and it would sample that color as your
foreground color.
Eye Dropper Tool Options Bar
Currently selected
color
Previously se-
lected colour
Sampling Ring
Spot Healing Brush Tool
Spot Healing Brush Tool:- This Tool is used to fill in colour of

nearby areas with keeping the texture intact. The Shortcut of this Tool
is ‘J‘.
• Mode:- We will be talking about this later in the chapter ”Blend-

ing Modes”.
• Content aware means it would use AI to find which colour to fill in

the desired space.
• Create Texture:- If you will check this option it would create a new
texture wherever you drag.
• Proximity Match:- This option is the default. This simply fills in the
area with the colour of the nearby area.
Enable pen pressure to control size of the brush

(Only used for pressure sensitive tablets)
Healing Brush Tool
Healing Brush Tool:- this Tool is almost the same as the spot
healing brush Tool but in this Tool you get the control of setting the
sample. The shortcut key for this Tool is ‘J’. You can Press and hold Alt
or option and then click to take sample.
• Source: Sampled, what this does is that is pastes the area’s colour
which you have sampled. You can sample any area by pressing and
holding alt or option and then clicking.
• Pattern:- this does just that but only does it as a pattern.
• Aligned:- This keeps the source and the area where you are pasting
aligned with each other.
• Use Legacy:- This would use the algorithm of photoshop cc 2014 or

earlier.
• Diffusion:- This controls the transition between the area which is

not affected and the area which is affected.
• A new addition in photoshop cc 2020 is now you can use ‘~’ key as
an eraser. Just hold ‘~’ key and then you will see that your brush
works as an eraser.
Healing brush tool options bar
Patch Tool
Patch Tool:- Patch Tool is simply used for replacing one area
with another. It is very easy to use. Select the area which you want to
replace and then drag your selection to the area from which you want
to replace.
Patch Modes
• Patch Modes:- Patch Tool has two modes and they are, Normal
and Content-aware.

Normal:- It is the normal patch Tool.
Content-aware:- This mode uses AI to blend patches. I recom-

mend using the normal mode as default, but if it doesn’t work then you
can use content aware mode.
• Source:- If you select source then you can replace your selection
with any area that you drag your selection to. This is used for re-
placing areas.
• Destination:- You can use this mode if you want an area to be re-
peated. You can select anything and then when you will drag your
selection you can place it any where you want. This is used for
repeating/duplicating areas.
• Transparent:- If you will check this option then photoshop would

use transparency to blend layers. What I do is if the patch is not
blending well then I try checking this box on.
Content Aware Move Tool
Content aware move Tool:- This Tool is really just the patch
Tool with destination mode selected on steroids.
• Modes:- (Move)--> This mode cuts your selection from the select-
ed area and pastes it wherever you place it.
(Extend)--> This mode is almost the same to the move mode

but in this mode the sample is not deleted.
Structure:- You can adjust how much the source structure should be
preserved
• Color:- You can adjust the color variation from the source.
• Transform on drop:- If you will check this option, whenever you will
drop your selection you will have transform handles.
Red Eye Tool

In the digital cameras it happens sometimes that the eyes are
having a reddish artefact. So this Tool deals with just that. It darkens
the pupil.
• Pupil Size:- Here you can set the size of the centre of the eye.
• Darken Amount:- Here you can set the pupil darken amount.
4
5
Chapter - 04
Tools Part - 02
• Brush Tool
• Pencil Tool
• Color Replacement Tool
• Mixer Brush Tool
• Clone Stamp Tool
• Pattern stamp
• History Brush Tool
• Art History Brush Tool
• Eraser Tool
• Background Eraser Tool
• Magic Eraser Tool
• Gradient Tool
• Paint Bucket Tool
• 3D Material Drop Tool
• Blur Tool
• Sharpen Tool
• Smudge Tool
Brush Tool
This is a very basic Tool in photoshop. As the name suggests
it is a brush with which you can paint. The shortcut key for this Tool is
‘B’
Pressure Sensitivity Symmetry

for size of the brush
Brush Settings
Brush Preset options
• Brush Preset Options:- Here you can choose any preset of brush.
• Brush Setting:- here you can mess with many options related to
brush.
• Mode:- You can choose any blending mode for your brush.
• Opacity:- It sets the opacity of your brush. In simpler words it sets

your brush’s transparency. If you have a pressure sensitive tablet
then you can click on the icon just on the right of it, by clicking the
icon your opacity would be controlled by the pressure.
• Flow:- You can think of it as strength of the brush.
• Smoothing:- This smooths the brush strokes.
• Symmetry button:- If you will check this box your strokes would be
having a symmetry.
Pencil Tool
This Tool is just a small brush.
• Auto Erase:- If the color of the layer on which you are drawing is
the same as your foreground color then it would draw with the
background color.
Color Replacement Tool

As the name suggests this Tool is used to replace colors.
Sampling Continuous
Sampling Once
Sampling Background Swatch
• Mode:- You can choose between four modes and they are:-
Hue:- It changes the color while keeping the brightness levels
intact. Hue means “which color?”

Color:- It changes the colors and does not care about the
brightness levels.
Saturation:- It changes the saturation levels. Saturations means
the amount of color.
Luminosity:- It means brightness levels.
• Sampling Continuous:- Each and every place where to draw with

your brush it would take a sample.
• Sampling Once:- It would only sample once.
• Sample Background Swatch:- This would sample the color which

is in your background swatch or which is your background color.
• Limits:- Discontinuous-> It would not stop changing colors with

the variations in the colors. In simpler words it would not stop
changing colors even if another color is in between the color that
you want to change.
Continuous:- It would only change color of the continuous area
having that same color at once.
Find Edge:- It would find the edges first wherever you click and
then according to that area it would replace the colors.
• Tolerance:- The amount of color variation it can tolerate.
Mixer Brush Tool
Mixer Brush Tool:- This brush is used for blending colors. This
brush stimulates a real paint brush.
• Load the Brush after each stroke:- If you will select this option it
would load color to the brush each time you release the brush.
• Select color:- You can select any color you want to paint with.
Mixer brush
presets
Select color Empty the brush
after each stroke
Load the brush
after each stroke
swatch and select ‘clean brush’.
• Load brush after each stroke:- If you will check this option it would
load color in your brush each time you will release the brush.
• Empty brush after each stroke:- If want to just mix colors then you
can check this option.
• Mixer brush Presets:- Here you can choose from thirteenth differ-
ent presets for the mixer brush Tool.
• Wet:- This determines the wetness level of your brush. Imagine

you have a real paint brush . If that brush is more wet it would trail
more.
• Load:- remember the brush that you just created with your imagi-
nation? So, load is just how much color it contains.
• Mix:- This determines the ratio of mixing colors.
Air-
brush
effect Smoothing settings
Smoothing
• Air Brush Effect:- If you will select this option the brush will build
up an effect as if it was an air brush.
• Smoothing:- You can make your brush smooth here.
• Smoothing settings:- You can further customise your smoothing

with this drop down menu.
Clone Stamp Tool

The clone stamp Tool is used to clone an area of an image to
another part of that image. You can take the sample area that you
want to paste by holding Alt or Option and clicking. And the you can
paste it anywhere. The shortcut key for this Tool is ‘S.’
Use Pressure for Opacity
• Use Pressure for Opacity:- If you have a pressure sensitive tablet

you can use this option. If you will select this option your brush’s
opacity is controlled by the pressure that you apply with your pen.
Don’t sample adjustment layers
• Aligned:- If you check this option photoshop would maintain the

distance between the sampled area and the brush.
• Don’t sample adjustment layers:- If you would check on this box

the clone stamp tool will not sample from the adjustment layers
(we are going to cover them in the future chapters)that you ap-
plied.
As the clone stamp tool can be a bit tricky and also be very
important, I am going to explain it further with an example.
Zoomed in BEFORE
In the above picture you can see a tattoo. Suppose you want to
remove the tattoo! You can do so with the clone stamp tool.
Here’s what you need to do! You need to press and hold alt or
option and click the area from which you want to sample. Here you
can sample from the hand. After taking the sample you can start
painting. Paint in the required area! After doing so it would look some-
thing like the image given below.
Zoomed in AFTER
Zoomed out BEFORE

Zoomed out AFTER

Pattern Stamp Tool
The pattern stamp tool is used to to stamp patterns on an im-

age. Well do be honest, I have never used this tool, I just know how to
use it. You never when you will need which tool so learning all of them
is a nice thing to do.
• You select any pattern from the square given in the options bar
and pant it on the image.
• Impressionist:-If you would check this box and paint, you would
get dabs of paint for 3D effect. The best way to know it is to try it!
History Brush Tool
The history Brush tool is used to paint back the previous area
of an image. For example, the previous example that I showed you of
the clone stamp tool you can paint back the tattoo if you want after
removing it. Its very easy to do it you just need to select the history
brush tool and paint on the area where there was the tattoo. The short-
cut key for this tool is ‘Y’.
You can sample form any history state that you want. Now,
you might be thinking that what is a history sate and where can I
choose it? So, let me answer that for you! History states are just the
steps that you did in photoshop. For example, you selected the his-
tory brush tool, it would be saved as a history state in history panel.
And also if you would do anything with the tool or even hide or reveal
a layer, it would be saved as a history state. So, now you might be

wondering where is the history panel? History panel can be found in
the window tab and by default it would be in your workspace. And
there you can choose the history state from which you would like to
sample.
Click this to open

history panel
Click here to make the history

brush tool sample form here
History brush tool will sample

from here
Art History Brush Tool
Art history brush tool is used to give artistic painterly effect to

images. Its a very good tool to play with. To use this tool you need to
select a history state from which it would sample and paint. It is in the
group of the history brush tool.
• Style:- You can choose from 10 different styles of painting. Try it

and you would come to know.
• Area:- Here you can define how much area would the brush paint.
One thing to remember for the art history brush tool is, the
bigger the brush size, the less the details. The images would make it
clear to you.
Original image
Art history brush tool used

Brush = 50px; Area = 500px; Tolerance = 0%; Style = Dab
Art history brush tool used

Brush = 200px; Area = 500px;
Tolerance = 0%; style = Dab
Eraser Tool
The eraser tool is used use used to erase parts of layers. Re-
member that this tool would only work with rasterized layers. The
shortcut key for this tool is “‘E”
To rasterize any layer you can right click on the layer and
select “rasterize layer”.
• Mode:- You can choose from three modes and they are, brush,
pencil and block(Square eraser).
• Erase to History:- If you would check this option then whatever

you would erase would be erased back to the previous history
state.
Background Eraser Tool
This tool is used to remove backgrounds of images. Suppose

you took a photo of someone and now you want that only the subject
should be visible and the background should be transparent, then you
can use this tool.
Protect Background Color:- If you would select this option

photoshop would not remove the color which is in you background
swatch.
Magic Eraser Tool
Magic eraser tool is just an eraser tool but on steroids. It can

achieve a lot more than what the normal eraser tool can do. You can
adjust the tolerance through which the process becomes a lot easier
and faster.
Gradient Tool
As the name suggests this tool is used for creating gradients. The
shortcut key for this tool is”G”. Well, a gradient is a blend of colors.
Here a few examples,
Linear gradient
Radial gradient
Angle gradient
Reflected gradient
Diamond gradient
Diamond gradient
Select gradients
Linear gradients
Radial gradient
Angle gradient
Reflected gradient
You can select any color gradient that you like by clicking the
rectangle with a gradient. As soon as you click that rectangle you will
greeted with this dialogue box.
• Presets:- You can choose from various different presets of gradi-

ents just by clicking on them. If you want you can make your own
preset by customizing your gradient and then cliking on “New”. If
you want you can save your gradient in a separate file at a particu-
lar location by clicking “Save”. It would create a .grd file of your
gradient.
• Name:- You can name your gradient over here.

• Gradient Type:- You have two types of gradient options.

Solid:- This contains solid color gradients.
Opacity
Color
Solid gradient type
Notice the marker that you select has a black tip and the
other markers which are not selected have a grey tip.
• Markers:- You can see a rectangle which goes from purple to red.
In this rectangle the color is decided by the markers located below
it. Notice the first marker below the rectangle, it has purple color
in it. This means this marker controls the purple color. The marker
at the end has red in it. If you would move those markers you can
play with the amount of color shown. The markers which are locat-
ed above the rectangle controls the opacity of colors.
• Location:- This means the brightness level from 1 to 100 of the

color.
• Gradient type:-
Noise:- You can give a creative look with this option.
Noise gradient type
• Roughness:- This means the hardness of the variations of colors.
• Color modes:- You can choose from RGB, HSB and Lab color
modes. No mater which color mode you choose you would get
two sliders for each, one black and one white. You can use those
two sliders for selecting the color range.
• Restrict colors:- This option prevents the colors to be oversaturat-

ed.

• Add transparency:- You can add transparency to your gradients.
• Randomize:- You can randomly go through different gradients.
• Reverse:- It would reverse the gradient. For example, Black to white

gradient would show up as white to black.
• Dither:- This option makes sure that banding(Blocks of colors in

the gradients which are not blending seamlessly) does not hap-
pen.
• Transparency:- This option allows you to have transparent gradi-

ents.
Paint Bucket Tool
This tool is used to fill in colors in contiguous parts of the im-

age.
Source for the fill area Choose pattern to

fill
• Source of he fill area:- You can choose from foreground and pat-
tern options.
• Pattern:- If you select pattern you can paste pattern in contigu-

ous areas of an image.
• Foreground:- If you would select this option you can fill the
foreground set in your swatch in any contiguous area of an image.
3D Material Drop Tool
We, are not going talk about this tool because this tool is used
in 3D workspace of photoshop and in this book we are not going to
cover it as it is not necessary for beginners.
Blur Tool
As the name suggests this tool is used to blur things up.
• Strength:- It defines the strength of the blur.
Sharpen Tool
This tool is used to sharpen parts of an image

• Protect Details:- If you will check on this option photoshop will

prevent pixelation of sharpened areas.
Smudge Tool
This tool is used to smudge things i.e. extend or retract pixels.
• Finger printing:- Whenever you will smudge it would add the fore-
ground color to the brush stroke.
Chapter - 05
Tools Part - 03
• Dodge Tool
• Burn Tool
• Sponge Tool
• Difference Between Saturation
and Vibrance
• Pen Tool
• Freeform Pen Tool
• Curvature Pen Tool
• Add Anchor Point tool
• Delete Anchor Point Tool
• Convert Anchor Point Tool
• How to Save a Path
• What I Recommend
• Horizontal Type Tool
• Vertical Type Tool
• Vertical Type Mask Tool
• Horizontal Type Mask Tool
• Path Selection Tool
• Direct Selection Tool
• Rectangle Tool
• Hand Tool
• Rotate View Tool
• Zoom Tool
Dodge Tool
Dodging means brightening. That means dodge tool brightens

up parts of images. The shortcut key this tool ground is “O“
For learning this tool you need to know what are highlights,
midtones and shadows.
• Highlights:- Brighter areas of an image.

• Midtones:- The parts which are in between dark parts and bright
parts.
• Shadows:- Dark parts of an image.
• Range:- You can specify which area you want to brighten.
• Exposure:-The exposure by which it brightens up parts of layers
• Protect tones:- It prevents colors from changing there hue and

also prevents clipping(shadows turning 100% black and highlights
turning 100% white) in shadows and highlights.
Burn Tool
In terms of photoshop burning means darking. So, the burn

tool darkens up parts of an image. Its just the inverse of the dodge
tool and all the options available for this are same as the dodge tool
so we are not going to repeat it. The dodge tool and burn tool are
used together to add dimension in images i.e. we make dark parts of
an image darker by the burn tool and make the bright parts brighter
with the dodge tool.
Sponge Tool
The Sponge tool is used to changing saturation of parts of

an image. For understanding the options in sponge tool you need to
know what are the differences between saturation and vibrance.
Difference between
Saturation and Vibrance
Saturation means ‘how much color?’ and vibrance means ‘how

much color in midtones?’.
• Mode:- You can choose from two modes and they are, desaturate
and saturate.
• Vibrance:- If you would check this option on, photoshop will

change vibrance instead of saturation because of this there is
minimized clipping in highly desaturated and highly saturated
areas of an image.
Pen Tool
Pen tool is used to create paths and these paths can also be
converted to a selection by right clicking it and choosing ‘make se-
lection’. By the way pen tool is my favourite tool for making accurate
selections. Making selections with the pen tool might take more time
than the other selection tool such as the quick selection tool but the
selections made with tool are super accurate! The shortcut key for
this tool is ’P’.
Learning the pen tool will require practice so I urge you to open
photoshop right now and follow this book. And get exited because
after reading this book you are definitely going to master the pen tool
1. Suppose you want to select this shape. You need to select the
pen tool and click on any corner of the shape to create an anchor
point over there. Here in this example I have created an anchor
point on the upper left hand side of the shape.
If you have created a shape with the shape tool in

photoshop then your pen tool will delete the shape
with its path. So you need to create a new work path
from the path window to solve this.
2. Similarly select all the corners

3. When you would click the first point you will see a circle
near you pen tool and that means that after clicking that
point you path would be made.
Congratulations! You have created your first path! If you want

you can convert this path into a selection by right cliking anywhere
inside the area of that path and selecting ‘make selection’ option.
In the above example we taught you to draw a path of an area

with straight edges. And now we are going to step up and move ahead
to learning how to make paths of curves edges.
In this example we are going to select this shape with the pen
tool.
1. Make this first move:- Make a Point anywhere you like. Here I am
creating a point in the centre of the shape.
2. Play with handles:- Now click and drag wherever you want to cre-
ate a point. When you will click and drag you will see to lines emerging
from the point.
This is how a complete click and drag result

should look like.
This handle is responsible for the

curve of the future point
This handle is responsible
for the curve of the cur-
rent point(nearest to the
recent point)
Current curve
Recent point
You have two handle when you click and drag to create a point.
The handle nearest to the most recent point is the handle which is
responsible for the current curve on which you are working currently.
You can create any curve that you want with the pen tool. Let’s
make it clear to you, how to create and customize a curve.
You can extend the handles for making the curve long and vice
versa. You can rotate the handle for rotating the curve.
If you accidentally made a point, you can delete it by pressing

and holding alt or option and the clicking on the point. The
point would be deleted. The alternative is that you can select
the delete anchor point tool and then click the point.
Do not opt for a perfect selection now (if you are following
along) because I am going to show you later how to fine tune it.
3. Go ahead:- Your selection should look like this(If your selection

is a bit off then do not worry, I am going to tell you how to fine tune it.)
4. Complete the path:- After clicking the first point that you created
you should see a blue outline like in this example.
5. Fine tuning:- Suppose you want to move an anchor point, you

can do so by pressing and holding command or ctrl and then dragging
the anchor point to a different place. You can do this whenever you
want .i.e. you can do it after completing the path or just right away
while creating that point. If you want you can break any handle if you
want. That means if you want you can adjust one curve individual-
ly. Suppose you created a path and then you want to adjust the first
curve but it is also interfering with the curve after it so you can press
and hold option or alt and then drag the handles to adjust them.
This handle is braked
Congratulations! You have almost mastered the pen tool! I said

almost because you still do not know how to use the options bar of
this tool. So, let’s do just that!
• Path/Shape:- You can choose from path or shape. If you choose

path, it will draw a path and if you will choose shape, it would fill
the path with your foreground color creating a shape.
• Make:- You can decide what you want from the path. You can
choose from Selection, Mask and Shape.
Selection:- It would turn your path into a selection

Mask:- It would turn your path into a mask(we would about it
on page number 98)
Shape:- It would turn your path into a shape that is it would
fill your path with the foreground color.
1 2 3 4 5
• 1) These options are the same as we have seen in the selection

tools.
• 2) Alignment option
• 3) suppose you have two shapes, shape A and shape B and such
that both are overlapping each other. Suppose shape A is beneath
shape B. Now you want that inverse, you want shape B to be un-
derneath shape A. So, you can select any shape and bring it in
front or backward as desired with the help of these options.
• 4) These are settings for you path. You can change the color and
stroke of your path. It also has an option called ’rubber band’. What
it does it hows you the preview of the path before you make an
anchor point.
• 5) If this option is checked on, then whenever you will click an

existing point it would delete that point. (Fact - I always keep it it
checked on)
Congratulations! You have mastered the pen tool! I am pumped

writing this book! Hope you are too reading it!
Freeform Pen Tool
Think about the freeform pen tool as if the lasso tool and the
pen tool married and had a baby! This is this tool is just a lasso tool
which turns into path.
Curvature Pen Tool
The curvature pen tool is just a limited and easy to use version
of the regular pen tool. Although I still recommend the regular pen tool.
Add Anchor Point Tool
If you want you can insert an anchor point to any existing path.
If you would select the normal pen tool and check the ‘auto Add/de-
lete’ option it would do the same thing.
Delete Anchor Point Tool

You can delete any point in your path with the help of this tool.
This performs exactly the same as if you have selected the ‘Auto Add/
Delete’ anchor points. If this option is checked and you would click on
an anchor point, that anchor point would be deleted.
Convert Point Tool
This tool performs exactly as if you have hold the ctrl or com-
mand key in the pen tool. What it does is it edits and move the point
that you click on. Suppose you want to move a point in you path, you
can do it with this tool and also you can edit the point by creating
handles by dragging from that point. After saying all this I recommend
using the regular pen tool and pressing the respective keys.
How to Save a Path
If you create a path and then create another path then the first
path would be deleted. To prevent that you can do a simple thing.
Open the paths window(If you do not have in the layers group then go
to Windows > Paths) and you will see a “work path”, you just need to
rename this path. You can name this path whatever you want. Let’s
understand this! When you create a new path photoshop keeps it
as “work path” and when you create another path, the previous path
would be deleted and the latest path would be named “work path”. So,
if you rename it then photoshop saves it.
What I recommend?
You might be overwhelmed by looking at so many tools in the

group of pen tool! But clam down, I’ve got you covered. I recommend
you to stick with regular pen tool as it would give you the ultimate
control and just make sure that you know the right options to select
and you have the shortcuts down. Don’t worry I am going to make you
revise that too. So, remember to check the ‘Auto Add/Delete’ option.
This would enable you to create or delete anchor points without going
to the delete anchor point tool or the add anchor point tool. To delete
an anchor point you’ll just need to click the anchor point and to add
any anchor point you can click on the part of path where you want
another anchor point. If you to move or edit any anchor point you can
do so by pressing and holding ctrl or command and then you can
drag and edit the anchor point. You can also break handle by the alt
or option key and dragging the point to desired position. You might be
thinking that why would you ever need to break handles? Well that is
because, the an anchor point has two handles and each of them han-
dles different curves. So sometimes you want to affect only one curve,
at that time you will need to break the handles. Breaking any handle
would result in you to have full control on just one specific curve/han-
dle.
Horizontal Type Tool
The Horizontal type tool is used for typing horizontally(Surprise

surprise). The shortcut key for this tool is ‘T’.
Choose any font Choose the font type
Font size Font look
Align left
Font color
Align centre
Align centre
Warp text
Character panel
Make 3D text
• Warp Text:- You can warp text to many shapes. Click the warp text
icon and select the shaper that you want to warp to. You can get
really creative with this option.
• Character Panel:- You can control each and everything about the
text that you are typing this window.
• Make 3D Text:- We are not going to cover 3D in this book but just
for information, you can convert your text into 3D text just by click-
ing this button.
Vertical Type Tool
Vertical type has the same option as the horizontal type tool.
The only difference between these two tools are the orientation of
typing.
Vertical Type Mask Tool
This tool is used to make masks out of the vertical text. You
can know more about masks on page number 98. Whenever you will
type something using this tool you will not see the text but you will
see the selection of the text. With this selection you can create a
mask. All the option on the options bar are the same as the other two
tools.
Horizontal Type Mask Tool
This is the exact copy of the previous tool but only the orientations
different.
Path Selection Tool
As the name suggests this tool is used to select paths. By

selecting this tool you can move your path.
Direct Selection Tool
You can edit the paths with this tool and if you want you can
select this tool by pressing ctrl or command while the path selection
tool is selected.
Rectangle Tool
You can create rectangles with it!(surprise surprise). This tool

is very simple and straight forward.
• Modes:- You can select from three modes and they are, shape,
path and pixels. Shape mode draws shape and path mode cre-
ates paths. The pixels mode make rectangle of the fill color same
as the foreground color.
All the other shape tool are the same, the only difference is in
the shape itself but the options and functionality are the same.
Hand Tool
Hand tool is used to move around the canvas. You can also do
it by pressing and holding the space-bar key and dragging, when you
would release the space-bar you will be back to the tool that you se-
lected previously. So, I recommend using this shortcut.
Rotate View Tool
You can use this tool for rotating your view. You might think
that this tool is of no use, why would anybody want to rotate their
canvas? Well I do so! I do it for using the brush tool. It happens many
times that I am not comfortable to make a stroke in a particular direc-
tion. So, I use the rotate view tool to do so. The shortcut key for this
tool is ‘R’.
Zoom Tool
Zoom tool is used to zoom in and out in the canvas. It’s a very
useful tool, but I never use it directly! It is because I use a shortcut
and that shortcut is ctrl + space-bar or command + space-bar. With
shortcut you zoom in and out easily. You can drag your cursor right
to zoom in and left to zoom out. And the best part is that after you lift
of both the keys you would be back to the tool which was selected
previously.
Hey, we have covered all the tools! Now I can say that you have
almost master photoshop!
Chapter - 06
Some Basic Things
• Opacity
• Fill
• Difference Between Opacity and Fill
• Masks
• How to Separate Subject from the
Background.
• Clipping Masks
• Modify Selection
• How to Create Custom Shapes.
• How to Place Any Image in the Can-
vas
Chapter 06 Some Basic Things
Opacity
Opacity refers to transparency of the layer. If the layer has

100% opacity it would be visibly completely and if the layer opacity
0% then it would be invisible completely. Opacity is normally used to
adjust the strength of an effect or layer.
Fill
Fill only controls the color’s opacity. Now you might think that
every image has colors! So, what is the difference between opacity
and fill.
Difference Between Fill and

Opacity
Opacity controls the transparency of everything contained

Chapter - 06 Some Basic Things 103
in that layer i.e. all effects and everything. Whereas fill controls the
transparency of only the colors of the layer. I know you are still con-
fused, so let me explain it to you with help of an example.
To explain this I would show you an image which has two lay-
ers, the first is a background layer and the layer above it is a layer of
text and that text has drop shadow(you can learn more about drop in
page number ).
This is the example image with Opacity and Fill at 100%

This is the example image with Opacity 0% and fill 100%
This is the example image with Fill 0%
The conclusion is that fill keeps the effects untouched but

opacity does not!
Mask
Have you ever wore a mask? If you have or if you have seen
anybody in a mask you would notice that a mask conceal a part of
their face and the rest of the part is visible. Similarly, in photoshop we
use masks on layers to conceal or show selective parts of an image.
Now you know what are masks but you still might be thinking
that how you can use them? The answer in very simple! You just need
to select the layer on which you want your mask and then click the
mask button near the new layer button.
Mask
Now, you might be wondering how you can use masks. Well
it is very easy! Just create a mask and then paint black or white in it.
You might be thinking, what!? Yes masks works on colors! So, lets
learn it. If you click on the mask button you would get a rectangle
beside you layer thumbnail. That rectangle would be white. This is the
reason why you layer is not hidden by the mask because white areas
in the mask show up and the areas which are painted black in the
mask are invisible. This means, if you would create a mask and paint
a particular area to black, that area would go invisible.
By the way in photoshop cc 2020 a feature was introduced

which allowed us to us the ‘~’ key as mask revealer or concealer. Let
me explain, if you would hold the ‘~’ key and your background color is
black then your brush would reveal the mask and if it is white, it would
conceal the mask. Basically it just does the opposite.
Mask Thumbnail
This is how the layers look for the image below in photoshop
As You can see in the example given above, the area which is
painted white in the mask is visible. Whereas the area which is paint-
ed with black is invisible. That is all that a mask do!

You might be wondering, how I made perfect rectangular
whites and blacks? So, the answer is with the marquee tool. I selected
the part of the image that I want in a particular color and then paint-
ed.
You can fill you foreground color directly to you selection by

using the shortcut alt + backspace on windows and option
+ delete on mac.
How to Separate Subject

from The Background
There can be two approaches to executing this. The first would

be removing the background completely form the image and the
second approach would be hiding the background with a mask. I like
the second approach as it is non destructive. To separate subject
from the background we need to select one of those. After selecting
one of those click on the mask button. You will see that the area that
you have selected is visible but the area which was not selected is
not visible. You might be thinking that what if you have selected the
background instead of the subject because e
I asked you to sleet one of those. If you do so just press the shortcut
ctrl + I or command + I, this shortcut would invert you mask. If you do
not want to use the shortcut you can also go to Image > adjustments
> Invert.
Masks are non-destructive because you can always paint

white in the areas that you need and then you will have them.
Now let’s move to the destructive stuff! So, in this technique

the background would be removed from the image not hidden. For
this technique it is necessary to have the layer rasterized, because
you are deleting the pixels. So, select the subject or the background,
If you have selected the subject then press ctrl + shift + I or com-
mand + shift + I to invert the selection. You can also do it by going to
select > inverse. Now just press the delete key on the keyboard! You
will find that the background is deleted. If you find any mistake in the
selection after deleting the background go back by pressing ctrl + Z
or command + Z or else go to edit > Undo.
Clipping Mask
To understand it better let’s break these words apart. So, let’s

start with the wot we are already familiar, which is ‘Mask’. Mask helps
you hide or show a certain part of an image. ‘Clipping’ means to at-
tach something to some other thing. Let me make it clear to you with
an example.
This is the background image
This is the text layer

This is how my layer panel looks
So, now I want to create a clipping mask of the background

layer so that it clips(limits) itself to the layer below it which is the text
layer. The desired result is the the background layer should only be
visible where the text layer is visible.
This is what you will see when would right click on a layer
You can also create a clipping mask by pressing and holding

alt or option and then clicking the line between the two layer.
According to the example above you would need to click the
line between ‘background’ layer and ‘This is GREAT’ layer.
When you will hover your courser while holding alt or option
between two layer your courser would change. Both the
technique give exactly same results, it is just the question of
personal preference.
This is the resultant image
This how my layers panel looks after creating the clipping mask. Notice the arrow
on the left hand side of the background layer.
Modify Selection
You can modify your selection as you want! And that is pretty
easy too! So, let’s do it!

You can modify your selection after creating it by going to the
Select > Modify. Here, you will see five different options and they are,
Border, Smooth, Expand, Contract, Feather. Let’s talk about them one
by one.(In every option you would get a dialog box to set the sizes)
This is my selection
• Border:- It will create a border form your selection

Border dialog box
Selection after modifying

• Smooth:- It smooths your selection. It really helps when you are

using the magic wand tool as it has rough selections.
Magic wand tool selection with tolerance at 10 without smoothing
Smooth selection dialog box

Selection with 15 pixel smoothing applied
In the above example you can see that the smoothing option
really smooths the rough selections.
• Expand:- This is used to expand your selection by a number of

pixels.
Selection expanded by 100 pixels
Expand Dialog box

• Contract:- This is exactly opposite to the expand option. This con-

tract the selection.
Contract dialog box
The selection in previous image is contracted by 200 pixels

• Feather:- This is like the smoothing but it interferes more with

the curves of the selection as compared to smoothing. There is a
shortcut for this tool and that is shift + F6.
Feather dialog box
This is the original selection

This selection is feathered by 20 pixels
How to Create Custom

Shapes
Creating custom shapes could be very useful. Suppose you

always need a shape of road, theoretically you can create it by the pen
tool easily every time but would you? So, here comes photoshop for
the rescue! Photoshop allows you to create custom shapes and save
it so that you can use them easily whenever you want. Let’s learn how
to create them.
• Create a path:- Create a path with pen tool for your shape. For this
after creating the path click the shape button in the options bar of
the pen tool
The menu that will appear after right clicking the shape
Click on the ‘Define Custom Shape...’ option to create a custom

shape.
This is the dialog box which would appear after you would click the ‘Define Custom Shape...’
button.
Here in this dialog box you give your shape a name and finally cre-
ate it by pressing ‘OK’.
Now, to use that shape you can go to the custom shape tool
and use that shape.
How to Place Any

Image in the Canvas
You would almost every time need to use multiple images in

one project of photoshop. So you would need to import images. So,
let’s learn it!
Well it is very easy, go to File > Place Embedded. Now you will
need to select your image and click ‘Place’. Now, you have your image
on your canvas! You will see transformation handles on that image to
transform it. When your transforming is done click the tick icon.
Transformation handles
Press this button to release the transformation

handles
How to make a background layer a regular layer?:- This is

very easy, click the lock icon on that layer.
How to create a background layer from a regular layer?:-

Select the layer that you want to make a background layer
and then go to Layer > New > Background form Layer.
Chapter - 07
Layer Adjustments
• Layer Adjustments
• Brightness Contrast
• Levels
• Curves
• Exposure
• Vibrance
• Hue/Saturation
• Color Balance
• Black and White
• Photo Filter
• Channel Mixer
• Color Lookup
• Invert
• Posterize
• Threshold
• Gradient Map
• Selective Color
Chapter 07 Layer Adjustments
Layer Adjustments
Layer adjustments are used to make the layer look a certain
way. That means you can change the colors, tones and almost every
aspect of the look of the layer. Photoshop gives 22 layer adjustments.
These 22 layer adjustments are divided into 5 groups which are sep-
arated by a line. Here in this book we are gonna know about the first
three sections. You can use these adjustments by going to Image >
Adjustments.
Brightness/Contrast
This layer adjustment helps you control the brightness and the
contrast of an image. Its pretty simple!
Chapter - 07 Layer Adjustments 129
Brightness/Contrast dialog box
Levels
This layer adjustment has a shortcut, ctrl + L or command + L.

Don’t get over whelmed by these many options, its pretty simple. Let’s
beak it down!
• Preset:- Here you can choose from photoshop’s own inbuilt

presets.
• Channel:- Here you can choose channel that you want to

1 2
Levels adjustment layer dialog box
target. You can choose from RGB, Red, Blue and Green. From these
three the RGB channel controls the brightness. And by selecting differ-
ent channel you can target individual colors.
• Input levels:- Input level shows you a graph. This graph is here
for you to know how many pixels are in which areas. For clearly
understanding what I am trying to say you need to know the three
sliders below the graph. Notice the colors of the sliders. The first is
black, second is gray and third one is white. That means the black
marker controls the black parts of the image or in photoshopic way
shadows, the gray marker controls midtones and the white marker
controls the bright parts. So, with these markers you can control all
aspects of an image. Moving the markers to the tight darkens and
moving them to left brightens.
• Output Levels:- This controls the overall brightness of the image.
Curves
This is just levels on steroids. Curves is just advanced version of lev-

els. The shortcut key for this is ctrl + M or command + M. Let’s break it
down and understand it!(Figures on page number 124 and 125)
• Presets:- You can choose from photoshop’s own presets if you

want.
• Channel:- This is the same as the levels layer adjustment so I am

not going to repeat it:)
• Input and out put values:- Think of the two gradient bars along side
the graph as scale of colors form 0 to 255. You know that 0 means
black and 255 means white. So, if you will change the input value
to suppose 251(almost white) and the output value is 0(complete
black) then all the pixels in the image which are between 0 and 251
will turn their value to 0(black).
Point 2
255
Point 1
0 255
0
Dialog box of curves layer adjustment 1

Dialog box of curves layer adjustment 2

Input value at 251

Original Image
Image after input value at 251 and out put value at 0
In this example you can see that almost whole image went
black due to curves. This is because most of the pixels where in be-
tween 0 and 251. The white parts which are still visible in the image
are above 251 as we had 251 in our input value and because of having
the value between 251 and 255 they appear white.
• Graph:- You can see the graph has a diagonal line. This line the
ultimate control. Sorry for being dramatic:) This line controls all
the adjustments. You can create various points in the line to edit
the line from that location. The figure that I showed you has two
points. These points can be used for controlling different areas of
an image. Think of the graph as the representation of highlights,
shadows and midtones of the image. The area where the point 1 is
the dark area and the point 2 is the light area and the parts between
them are the parts of midtones.
The diagonal line that you are seeing right now on the previous
figure on the graph represents of the pixels in the image from 0 to 255.
If you would hover your cursor over that diagonal line you will notice
that the input values are changing. This is the reason why the bottom
part controls the shadows, the mid part controls the midtones and the
top part controls the highlights. Now the question is how you would
use this layer adjustment for your advantage. Well, it is very easy! Click
anywhere you want on the diagonal line and move it. The principal is
that when you click you create a point on the line and when you would
move that point upwards it would lighten the pixels and when you
would drag it down it would darken the pixels. This happens because
moving the point results in changing the output numbers and because
of this the pixels change there value to the output number.
The best way to know this layer adjustment is to play with it!
The figure that you are seeing in your right is a curves layer
adjustment which I have created to brighten up an image. You can see
here that point on the diagonal line is upwards and the output level
is more than the input level this is a complex why to say that this is
brightening up the pixels.
Original Image
Image with curves layer adjustment on page 131

The image is darkened using the curves layer adjustment in the left
This curves layer adjustment is darkening the previous image

• Show Clipping:- well, clipping means loss of detail. So, its clear that
when this option is checked then it would show us which areas are
clipped(losing details). This would show you some artifacts and the
area which has the artifacts are the area which are losing details.
This is showing the clipping(you might not see it in print)

You can also do it by pressing and holding alt or op-

tion.
Original image
• Show Amount of:- Here you can choose from Light and Pigment/
Ink. Default is light and if you will choose Pigment/Ink then every-
thing would be opposite. If you would drag a point downwards it
would brighten pixels and if you would drag it upwards it would
darken.
Exposure
Exposure layer adjustment allows you to control the exposure,
offset and gamma correction. This not that useful so we are going to
skip this part.
Vibrance
Vibrance is the saturation of midtones and it really helps your
image to pop.
Hue/Saturation
This layer adjustment controls the hue and saturation of an im-

age. Now, you might ask that saturation option is there in the vibrance
layer adjustment too, so why should I use it? The answer is simple,
saturation option is more powerful in hue/saturation layer adjustment
than in the vibrance. This layer adjustment also gives you control on
the hue and lightness of the image. The shortcut key for this tool is
ctrl + U or command + U.
Hand Tool
Input
Output
• Master:- You can choose various specific colors to target.
• Hand Tool:- This tool is used to select range of colors. Select this
tool and then click anywhere in your image and it will take a color
range.
• You can see two color bars at the bottom. The first one in the input
bar and second one is the output bar. Let’s go in depth!
Range markers
Transition
markers
This is a color range selected by the pen tool
When you create a range with the hand tool you can edit it also.
You have two sets of markers, the first is the range markers. With
these markers you can select how much big the range would be. Then
the next are the transition markers. These markers decide the transi-
tion between colors. The more the transition the smoother it looks.
Input output bar example

Original image
Image after layer adjustment

In this example you can see that the input bar had blue in it
where the color range was. And the I moved if to place where output
bar had yellow. Because of this the car turned yellow.
• Colorize:- It just give a color to your entire image and you can cus-
tomize that color with Hue/Saturation layer adjustment.
Hue/saturation Layer Adjustment for giving a purple look

Image after Hue/Saturation Layer Adjustment

Color Balance
Color balance layer adjustment helps you adjust individual
tones separately. This means you can edit midtones, highlights and
shadows separately. This layer adjustment is curves on sliders. So, the
only specialty of this layer adjustment is that you can preserve lumi-
nosity in it. You can see a check box which says, ‘Preserve Luminos-
ity’. If you would check it on then the brightness levels of the colors
would remain the same no matter how much you edit. You might think,
what I am trying to say? The thing is that if you are using curves for
editing then it would mess up with the brightness levels but if the pre-
serve luminosity check box is checked then it would not mess with it.
Now, you might think that, why should you use curves? The answer is
simple, curves gives you better control and not all the time you want to
preserve luminosity.
Color balance layer adjustment dialog box.

Black & White

This layer adjustment allows you create stunning black & white
images. Basically this layer adjustment gives you controls on every
single color. Now, you might be thinking that this make an image black
and white so how does it affect other colors? What this layer adjust-
ment does is that when you edit any color from it just increases or
decreases brightness of that color.
Original Image
Created this with black and white layer adjustment

This is Black and White layer adjustment that I used

You can see in this example that I have given the value of cyan
and blue very high and that is because the car is bluish and I wanted
it to look white. So, increasing the values of cyan and blue gave me
brightness which is white. Then I wanted the background to be dark
so I reduced the values of the colors which were in the background so
that they become darker.
Photo Filter
Photo filter gives you a tone of a specific color in your image.
For example if I want a cold tone in my image, I would give a photo
filter of blue color. See the below example:-
Final image
Original image is on page number 49.

In the photo filter dialog box you can choose from filter and
color options. If have shown you the color option in the example but
you can also use the filter option where you can choose from various
different predefined filter available in photoshop.
Channel Mixer
As the name suggests this layer adjustment mixes the chan-

nels. This means that you can apply different colors to specific a color.
For example with this layer adjustment I can apply green to any area
which is red. Thats pretty cool! In the upcoming example I am going
to show you how I will turn the blue car into red! But first let’s break it
down and understand it.
• Output channel:- This means which channel would be affected.
• Source Channels:- Here you get three channels to use in the target
channel. This basically means that from these sliders you are going
to insert colors in the output channel. For example, if you want to
add green where it is red, then you can select output channel as
red and in the source channel you can bump up the greens and it
would increase greens.
• Total:- This is the total value of colors. As default it shows 100%. If

it exceeds 100% then it means that you are adding colors to image
which were not there. If it is lower than 100% then it means that
you have subtracted colors from the original image.
• Constant:- It means the overall color content of the target channel.

If you have selected red as output channel then constant controls
the overall content of red in the image.
• Monochrome:- By checking on this option you convert the image to

black and white and the RGB sliders would just control the bright-
ness of each color.
Example image
this is the image when I reduced reds in the red channel

This how is how I converted the red rectangle into black

Channel mixer dialog box

Channel mixer setting I used in the red channel for this example
Image after channel mixer layer adjustment

Channel mixer setting I used in the blue channel for this example
I
Color Lookup
Color lookup layer adjustment is used to use color lookup

tables in photoshop. Color lookup tables are also called LUTs. Now,
think of LUTs as filters that you get on instagram. This means you can
use these filters to make your image look a certain way.
Color lookup dialog box
By default 3DLUT File would be checked. If you will click the

drop down menu, you will get to choose from various different LUTs
included with photoshop. You can get more LUTs on internet.
Invert
As the name suggests it inverts everything. This means if you

use invert layer adjustment on any layer then it inverts its colors. You
can also use this on layer masks. I suggest to use the shortcut of this
layer adjustment which is ctrl + I or command + I.
Original image
Image after invert layer adjustment
Posterize
Posterize layer adjustment is used to create paster type look.
This layer adjustment gives you just one slider which decides how
much of a poster look you would get. The lower the value the more the
poster type look.
Posterize dialog box

Original image
Posterized image with value 4

Threshold
Threshold coverts any image into 100% white and 100% black.
Threshold dialog box

Image after threshold value 128
Gradient Map
As the name suggests gradient map, maps the gradient to an

image. This means that this layer adjustment helps you locate colors
to specific brightness levels. For example you want a specific color for
brightness location 0 to 50 on scale of 100. And then you want another
color 70 to 100.
Gradient Map dialog box
You can click the drop down menu of the gradient bar and
choose yo desired gradient or else if you want you can create another
new gradient by clicking the gradient bar.
Gradient Editor dialog box for the black and white gradient
Image after black and white gradient map
With the help of location option you can define where the col-
or would be. Here is an example where the location of 100% black is
at location 0. This means that anything which is of brightness level
0 would of the defined color of the marker which 100% black in this
case. As the value of location increases black turns in to white. So,
with this layer adjustment you can give colors with respect to the
brightness levels.
This image has black on the location 50
The image you are seeing above has the black color at loca-
tion 50%. This means that every color below brightness 50% would be
black and would get brighter is it is brighter than 50%.
Selective Color
As the name suggests this layer adjustments helps you edit

individual color at a time. This layer adjustment is awesome! You can
do some serious color grading with this layer adjustment.
Selective Color layer adjustment dialog box
Here, you can see that you have four sliders Cyan, Magenta,
Yellow
and Black. These are sliders through which you can edit any
specific color.
• Colors:- Here you can define any target color. Target color means
the color that you want to edit through the four sliders.
• Method:- You can choose from Relative and Absolute methods.

The difference between these two is simple, absolute is more pow-
erful than relative.
Original image
Image after Selective Color Layer Adjustment

This is how the Selective Color Layer Adjustment dialog box looks like after my editing for
this example
In this example you can see that if have selected yellow as my

target channel and I have set black at -100%. This makes the yellows
lighter.
Similarly, you can target any color and add or subtract other
colors from it to edit them.
Chapter - 08
Some Advanced
Things
• Adjustment Layers
• Custom Keyboard Shortcut
• How to Apply Blur Non-De-
structively
• How to Apply Sharpening
Non-Destructively
• Quick Mask
• Color Range
• Layer Style
Chapter - 08 Some Advanced Things 185
Some Advanced
Chapter 08
Things
Adjustment Layers
You have mastered layer adjustments now! So, its time to know
what are adjustment layer. As the name suggests adjustment layer
means a layer which does some adjustments. The difference between
layer adjustment and adjustment layer is that unlike the layer adjust-
ment an adjustment layer is a separate layer on the layers panel. This
make the adjustment layers non destructive, because you can change
values any time you want by click on the layer icon.
The thing is that layer adjustments are used to keep the size of
the document low.
This is how an adjustment layer looks like

Creating an adjustment layer is easy, just go to Layer > New Ad-

justment Layer > (Choose your adjustment Layer) or else you can click
the icon shown in the figure below to open any adjustment layer.
This the icon from where you

can open any adjustment
layer
Whenever you want to change the values you can click on the
adjustment layer icon and then it would open in the properties window.
The white rectangle that you are seeing beside the adjustment layer is
a mask, an adjustment layer comes free with a mask.
Custom Keyboard Shortcuts

Yes! You can create your own keyboard shortcuts in photoshop.
Its very simple just go to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts or use the shortcut
ctrl + shift + alt + K or command + shift + option + K. Keyboard short-
cuts dialog box will open.
Keyboard Shortcuts dialog box
You can create a custom shortcut of almost anything in this

window.
For example, let’s create a custom shortcut for color balance adjust-
ment layer. Choose ‘Application Menu’ from ‘Shortcuts For’, then nav-
igate to color balance adjustment layer and then click color balance.
Now, you can type any shortcut key that you desire. After that you can
click Accept. If the shortcut key that you typed is already in use with
another function, it will show you a warning. If you will click ‘Accept’
then the shortcut would be removed from the previous function and
would be applied to the new function you just created.
How to Apply Blur

Non-Destructively
You have seen how to apply blur with the blur tool but the catch
is it is a destructive way. The non-destructive way of doing it is by
applying a smart filter. To do so first convert your layer into a smart
object and then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur (You can play with
various different types of blurs in this blur group). Now you will see the
Gaussian blur dialog box.
Here, you get the radius slider, as you increase the radius, the
area where the blur would affect would increase.
Gaussian Blur dialog box
How to Apply Sharpening

Non-Destructively
Applying sharpening is not as simple as applying blur. For this

you need to make a copy of the layer. Then make it a smart object.
Now, go to Filter > Other > High Pass. Now choose the sharpening
that you want. Now, change the blending of the layer to overlay.
High Pass dialog box

Quick Mask
Quick mask mode helps you create selections with the brush
tool. You can click on its icon or else you can press ‘Q’. Select the
brush tool and paint in the areas that you don’t want to be selected.
Now, exit the quick mask mode by pressing ‘Q’ or by clicking on its
icon. Now you will have a selection.
Quick Mask
Icon
Quick Mask icon

Color Range
Color range is used to create selection based on colors. You

can open the color range dialog box by going to Select > Color Range.
Add colors
Subtract Colors
Color Range dialog box

If you have selected ‘sampled colors’ you can sample colors

from the image then it would select those colors. The other option is
that you can also select individual colors. Suppose you selected red,
then color range would select every thing which is red in you image.
There is one awesome feature in color range which is called ’Skin
Tones’. You can select it in the drop down menu of ‘Select’. It will
select skin tone sin the image. Now, let’s understand the black and
white image that you are seeing. This is the visual representation of
the selection that you have made. Here whit are the areas that are se-
lected and black are the areas which are not selected. You also have
a range and fuzziness slider, fuzziness means, transition between the
areas which are selected and the areas which are not selected. The
range slider controls the overall range of selected colors. Another
option available;l is invert. This inverts the selection. For previewing
your selection better you can choose from various options in the ‘Se-
lection Previews’ drop down menu.
Layer Styles
Layer styles is used to give style to any layer. You can give
drop shadow, stroke bevel & emboss, etc. You can open layer styles
dialog box by double clicking the right side of the layer.
Layer Styles dialog box
Here, you get various different options:-
• Bevel & Emboss:- This used to give dimensions to the layer.
Bevel & Emboss dialog box

• Stroke:- This gives an outline to the image.
Stroke dialog box

• Inner Shadow:- This gives you a shadow type effect on the outline
of the image.
Inner Shadow dialog box
Example image
After Inner Shadow
• Inner Glow:- This is just like inner shadow with white color.
Inner Glow dialog box

• Satin:- As the name suggests it gives a satin look to the image.
Satin dialog box
• Color Overlay:- You can give a color overlay to any image. This
means any color that you choose would be applied to the image.
• Gradient Overlay:- This is similar to the color overlay but the differ-
ence is it overlays gradient instead of color.
Gradient Overlay dialog box
• Pattern Overlay:- It is also similar to the color overlay but instead it

has pattern.
Pattern Overlay dialog box
• Outer Glow:- This creates a outline of bright color(generally white)

which is very soft and feathered.
Outer Glow dialog box
• Drop shadow:- It give a shadow to your image. By giving this effect

the subject seems to pop out of the canvas.
Drop Shadow dialog box

Properties Tab
Properties tab is available for every layer. It is very important tab
as it gives you total control over the layer. Let’s look at an example and
master it!
Fixes the aspect ratio of the image
Transparency and grid options
Show\Hide Grids
Properties tab for background layer

If you have read this book completely up until now you

would understand every option in this properties tab but I will teach
you it in detail anyway because for some reader some option might be
confusing.
Canvas: Here you can tweak the dimensions, orientation, color

mode, bit rate and fill of the image.
Rulers and Grids: You can customize the rulers and grids here.
The fist button would enable or disable the rulers. Second one would
enable or disable the grids. The third one would let you customize the
grid. The drop down menu next to it is just lets you choose the measur-
ing unit.
Guides: The first button is to hide or show the guides. Well alter-
natively you can also use the shortcut key ctrl + ; for windows and com-
mand + ; on mac. The second button locks the guides. The third button
enables or disables smart guides. Now before you wonder, smart
guides are guides which connects to edges of objects automatically.
The drop down menu allows you to choose from slid line or broken line
for the guide.
Quick Actions: Image size, clicking this button, a dialog box

for image size would open up(snapshot of the image size dialog box
is on the next page). Second button is for crop. The third button is for
trim. Trim is used for trimming out any area around the image which is
colored or transparent. I would rather recommend you to use crop tool
for this instead. The last one is Rotate, well it is self explanatory. The
image of rotate dialog box is given on the next page.
Image size dialog box
Rotate dialog box

Align and Distribute: you can use align for, obviously aligning
something with respect to the canvas or a selection. Lets dig deeper
into it!
1 2 3 4 5 6
Align and distribute on properties tab
1) Align left edges

2) Align horizontal centers
3) Align right edges
4) Align top edges
5) Align vertical centers
6) Align bottom edges
To align an image with respect to the canvas you need will need
to first select the image. Then click on the button as per your require-
ment. To distribute you need more than two selected layers, each on
different layers. So, what it does is that it distributes all those images
as per your requirement in the canvas.

1) Distribute left edges
2) Distribute horizontal centers
3) Distribute right edges
4) Distribute top edges
5) Distribute vertical centers
6) Distribute bottom edges
Note from me for you!

I can give only one advice and that is to practice as you read. If
you would just read then you won’t be able to understand anything! So,
go ahead press the power button on your computer and open photo-
shop!

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Photoshop

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Chapter 1 Introduction to the world of pixels. . . . . 1

Chapter 2 Getting started with photoshop. . . . . . 11

Chapter 3 Tools Part - 01. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..22

Magic Wand Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Chapter 4 Tools Part - 02. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..45

Chapter 5 Tools Part - 03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Chapter 6 Some Basic Things. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..100

Chapter 7 Layer Adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .126

There is one more person who is responsible for making this

In twenty-first century every company, start-up or any busi-

According to me the best software to start with graphic de-

Although photoshop is the software to choose for graphic

Conventions used in this book

An easier and better way to the same thing

Caution:- Do not do this!

Notes from me.

• What an image actually is?

Chapter 01 The World of Pixels

What an image actually is?

An image is made up of very tiny squares. These squares are

Zoomed out version Zoomed in version

The reason why I have dedicated a whole section to pixels is

Well there are two types of colour modes:-

On a monitor or T.V. there are millions of pixels and each pixel

You should always work on the CMYK colour mode when

But don’t get intermediated by this! If you want a better image

1 bit = black and white

I personally do not recommend to work with higher bit depths

Keep in mind that if you are going to upload the image to

Well, there are mainly three types of colour spaces:-

• Adobe RGB:- This colour space was created by Adobe in 1998.

• I suggest keeping the colour space sRGB by default. In colour

I know it could be confusing so in simple words if want to

Different Formats of an Image

• JPEG:- It is the most common image format. It stands for

• GIF:- GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. It is great for

• PNG:- PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics. It is used inten-

• PSD:- PSD stands for Photoshop Document. Whenever you will

• SVG:- SVG supports vector graphics. Basically a vector graphic

Why Does Photoshop Exists?

I take photoshop as a Tool of a blacksmith. In which we are

There is nothing that you cannot do to an image in photoshop!

• The Home screen

Search Recent Projects

Open Existing Change View

Creating a new Document

categories for templates

You can create a new document by clicking the ‘Create new’

Here you can change settings like width, height, orientation,

An interesting option to look at is artboard. Artboards allow

This is the photoshop workspace

Let’s be honest here the workspace is a bit intimidating. But

Go ahead and customise your own unique workspace.

So now you might be wondering, what is non-destructive

New Layer Icon

New Layer Icon

Always when you are transforming(resizing) an image

Place Any Images in

• What are Tools?

Chapter 03 Tools Part - 01