Digital and Interactive Media

Photo Editing Basics

Copyright Texas Education Agency, 2013. All rights reserved.

The Basics Vocabulary

Photo Editing Software

o

Programs that allow you to

Retouch photographs
Merge and edit color images
Create collages or original artwork

Copyright Texas Education Agency, 2013. All rights reserved.

The Basics Vocabulary

.BMP Bitmap
.PDF Generic Portable Document Format
.GIF
Graphics Interchange Format
.EPS Encapsulated PostScript
.TIF
Tagged Image Format
.JPEG Picture Format

Copyright Texas Education Agency, 2013. All rights reserved.

Menu Bar

Menu commands that are followed by ellipses

(...) indicate a dialog box where you can enter
additional settings.

Menu commands that are followed by a right

pointing arrow indicate a submenu of related
commands.

Copyright Texas Education Agency, 2013. All rights reserved.

Palettes

Palettes are small windows used to verify

settings and modify images.

By default, palettes appear in stacked groups at

the right edge of the window.

Palettes can be moved or separated.

Each palette contains a menu that can be

viewed by clicking the right arrow in the menus
upper-right corner.

Copyright Texas Education Agency, 2013. All rights reserved.

Palettes

Palettes hold frequently used tabs and options so that

the menu bar is used less often.

When you first open the photo editing software, the

palettes are stacked along the right edge of your screen
in palette groups.

Palette groups can be moved around in the workspace

by clicking on the title bar and dragging.

Each palette group has a collapse and a close button in

the title bar.

Copyright Texas Education Agency, 2013. All rights reserved.

Layers Palette

Most images are composed of multiple layers.

The Layers palette displays all layers within an open

image.

You can use the Layers palette to create, delete,

merge, copy, and reposition layers.

The effect created by using layers is similar to what you

see when you look at a stack of clear plastic sheets.

Hide or show a layer by clicking the Eye icon.

Copyright Texas Education Agency, 2013. All rights reserved.

Layers

They are images or effects overlaid on top of

one another.

The standard kind of layer is called simply

"Layer" in most programs. It contains just a
picture which can be superimposed on
another one.

A layer can have a certain

transparency/opacity and a number of other
properties.

Copyright Texas Education Agency, 2013. All rights reserved.

History Palette
Each

action you perform during an editing

session is recorded and made visible in the
History palette.

The

History palette tracks recent changes

made within an image.

You

can remove actions from the History

palette.

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Tool Bar

The Tool Bar contains tools associated with

frequently used editing commands.

Some tools are hidden from view; these tools

are indicated by a small triangle in the lowerright corner of the tool.

To display a hidden tool, click and hold down

the mouse button for a few seconds.

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Move Tool
Use

the Move tool to move a selection or an

entire image.
Use the Alt key with the Move tool to copy
an image.
Use the Shift key with the Move tool to
move a selection horizontally.

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Selections
Any area in an image surrounded by a
Marquee is a selection.
There are several selection tools, including
o Marquee, Magic Wand and Lasso
Use the Select menu to deselect a Marquee or
save a selection.
Use the Inverse Selection option to reverse
the selection area.
Use the Shift key to add to a selection area.
Use the Alt key to subtract from a selection
area.

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Selection Tools
Rectangular Marquee Tool (use with the Shift key
to select a proportional square)
Elliptical Marquee Tool
Single Row Marquee Tool
Single Column Marquee Tool

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Selection Tools
Magnetic Lasso Tool
Lasso Tool
Polygon Lasso Tool
Magic Wand Tool

When selecting with the Marquee tool, hold the

spacebar to reposition the selection without having to
release the mouse button.

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reserved.

14

Paint Brush
The

Paint Brush tool is used for many

things, including
An actual paint brush
A way to add custom shapes in a variety
of shapes and rotations
A masking tool

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15

Paint Bucket
The

Paint Bucket tool fills in a background

or selection area.

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Foreground/Background
The tiny arrow to the top right
allows you to swap foreground
and background colors.
The tiny black and white swatch
symbol to the lower left allows you to reset the
colors to the default of black foreground and
white background.
To change a color, click on either the foreground
or background color swatch and select a new
color in the color picker.

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