Photoshop Tools and Features User Log

The purpose of this log is for you to record what tools and features you used in the creation of your digital graphics. You should try to use as many
as possible and you must record how, why and when you used them. You do not need to record repeated actions but each single new action
should be recorded. An example of this would be setting up a new Photoshop file/image which would cover the ranges; Image Settings (all) and
part of Menus (some of). You only need to do this once. Remember that where the e.g. appears in a range, as many of the items should be
covered as possible but not all of them; your tutor will guide you here. Where possible you should also provide a screen dump to illustrate the
action (see sample image below).
Tools and How, why and when used. Screen dump
features
Menus:
Open; In Photoshop, Open is used to open
a file that is already stored in a
computers memory. Once opened,
the file will be opened in Photoshop,
if the file is of the right type.
save; The Save function is used to save
any work that the user has finished
working on in Photoshop. The user
saves work onto their personal
memory device (this can be in the
form of a hard drive, pen drive, or a
cloud) by clicking on File in the top
left hand corner, then Save or Save
as which lets the user determine the
name of the file and where the file is
saved to.

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 import; The option Import is very similar to
Open, as it allows the user to
import, or open, a file that is already
saved. This is normally used when
the user wants to open a single
image.

edit; The edit menu that can be found ion

Photoshop in top navigation bar in
the form of a drop down menu, is
useful when the user wants to alter
their image. Free transform, Stroke
and Fill are all options that can be
chosen in the edit menu to alter the
image that is opened in Photoshop.
For example, Free transform allows
the user to alter the physical size of
the image as it appears on screen.
view; When clicked on, View gives the
user many other options to choose
from. These include: Screen mode
Rulers and Show grid. All the
options found in View are visual
aspects that can be activated when a
file has been opened. Although none
of the options actually alter or
change the image in any way, they
can give the user help. For example,
the Show grid option can be used to
help the user by placing a
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 transparent grid over their image, so
that, when editing the image, the
user can co-ordinate where
alterations need to be made.
help The Help drop down menu is a
simple method that Photoshop users
can use when they need any advice
about almost anything regarding
Photoshop. Various help options
include: Photoshop online help,
Whats new and Photoshop support
centre. Most of the options found in
this drop down menu re-directs the
user to the relevant official online
Photoshop help page.
Image
settings:
size; When I first started the creation of
any of my graphics, I had to make
sure that the canvas that I was
working on was suitable for my
graphic, I was given different canvas
sizes to work on for various graphics.
The screenshot shown here is an A3
sized canvas to design my game
poster on.
Resolution; I set the resolution for all of my
graphics to 300 PPI (Pixels Per Inch).
This gives me a suitable resolution
and good graphic quality to design
my graphics in.
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 width; The width of my graphics differ
throughout. For my game cover I
used a standard A4 paper sized
canvas that was 21cm in width.
However, for my game poster I used
a width of 29.7cm which gave me a
A3 sized Photoshop canvas
height; As with the width, the height of my
graphics vary. The game cover that I
created used a height of 29.7cm that
is suitable to create my design on.
However, my background graphic
that I created used a height of 32cm.
This gave me more space to design
my environment for my game.
colour mode; I used a standard RGB colour mode
for all of my graphics. This gave me a
wide selection of colours to choose
from when adding different colours to
my designs.
background; In Photoshop, I decided to use a
transparent background for all of my
graphics apart from the poster. This
is because my poster needed a plain
coloured background as I did not use
all of the space on it. However, I did
this for my other graphics as I
planned on using the whole of the
canvas and filling it with different
content, therefore there would be no
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 point adding a background as I am
designing on all of the canvas.
transparency; As mentioned before, I used a
transparent background for most of
my graphics, I did not need to add
any more transparency to any of my
graphics.
aspect ratio,
file name I chose a different file name for all of
my graphics. This is because I
wanted to name each of them
individually so that I can give them
all a suitable name that made it easy
for me to find the files after I had
saved them.
Drawing
tools:
tool options;
brush; The Brush allows the user to, firstly,
pick a colour of their choice, then
paint over the image freely. This way,
users can colour over an image in
any way they want, without any
limitations.
pencil; Similar to the Brush tool, the Pencil
function lets the user draw over their
designs with any colour of their
choice, but the drawings appear finer
than the brush tool, as it is
supposed to represent a pencil.
duplicate; By applying the option duplicate to

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 any image that is currently opened in
Photoshop, it will mean that the
current image that is displayed on
screen at the time of clicking on
Duplicate will simply means that a
carbon-copy of that image will be
made, so that 2 of exactly the same
images, will be opened in Photoshop.
This can be used for multiple
purposes, one of which is to alter the
duplicated image without any
consequences to the original.
clone; The Clone stamp tool allows the
user copy/ duplicate (clone) an area
of an image onto the same image. It
can be used to hide, or discard, any
watermarks that can be found on
phots and images. The Clone stamp
tool can be found on the left hand
side navigation bar,
fill; When applied to an image, the Fill
or Paint bucket tool on the
navigation bar, will fill a particular
section of the image with a colour of
the users choice. This is much easier
and quicker than using the Brush or
Pencil tool to fill an area of colour
within an image. This is because the
paint bucket tool fills an area of the
users choice with the same colour

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 almost instantly.
text; The Text options in Photoshop lets
the user type any text they wish on
any image. There are multiple text
options for Photoshop, all of which
can be found in the tool option
sidebar on the left hand side. All of
the text options can be found under
the T symbol in this toolbar. The
text can be written horizontally and
vertically. The text can also be edited
in many different ways. For example,
the font, colour and size of the text
can all be changed within Photoshop.
line; The Line tool is simply used to draw
straight lines over an image in
Photoshop. This tool can also be
found in the navigation bar on the
left hand side.

stroke; The Stroke tool is used for various

reasons. One of the purposes that it
can be used for is to alter the colour
of the image by selecting a colour
from the menu that appears when
the Stroke option is clicked. The
Stroke tool can be accessed in
different ways. It can be found by
double clicking on the layers tab in

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 the right hand side of the page. Or, it
can be accessed going onto the Edit
drop down menu, on the top of the
page, then clicking on Stroke.
shape; The Custom shape tool is different
to all of the other shape tools that
can be found in Photoshop. This is
because the user can choose from a
range of different pre-set images that
can be selected and used in their
own image. This gives an advantage
to the user as they already have pre-
set images that they can use, so they
do not have to draw it out
themselves.
zoom; In Photoshop, the Zoom tool allows
the user to increase or decrease the
size of the image that is displayed.
This is often used when editing
smaller, finer details on an image.

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 Paletts, e.g. The colour palette tool in
colour, Photoshop contains a variety of
gradients, colours to choose from, which can be
layers, object, used to edit images in many different
brushes, ways. The Swatch function in
history, Photoshop can also be used to select
actions, size, pre-set colours which can be used in
resolution; the same way. The colour palette
and Swatch panel can both be used
on multiple layers simultaneously to
edit images to a greater degree.

Layers, e.g. Layers are commonly used in

copying, Photoshop. The layers tab can be
saving, found on the right hand side of the
arranging; screen in Photoshop and are used to
flattening; determine which aspect of the image
colour goes where, in terms of placement.
selection, All of the layers can be arranged in
any order that the user chooses.
Once all of the layers have been
arranged according to the users
demands, multiple layers can be
merged together. This means that
when the edited image is finished, or
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 close to finished, all of the individual
layers can be merged together as
one, meaning that the final image is
no longer a group of singular layers,
but an image as a whole.
Colour As explained previously, the
selection, e.g. Swatch panel is used to sample
foreground, colours from the colour palette,
background, which can be used to edit images in
colour swatch, various different ways. On the other
eyedropper hand, the eyedropper tool lets the
user take a colour sample from an
existing image in Photoshop. The
colour that is taken from the image
can then be added to the Swatch
tab (which is found on the right hand
side of the Photoshop screen). Once
it is added to the Swatch panel the
exact colour that was taken from the
existing image can be used again to
edit another image in any way they
choose. One of the ways the colour
sample can be used is to colour in
the background, or parts of the
foreground, with the colour.
Editing tools:
Selection, e.g. The deselection tool is used when
marquee, the user no longer wants to have
lasso, magic aspects of their image selected to
wand, use. The user deselects tools by right
magnetic lasso, clicking on where the selected tool is,
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 deselect; then clicking deselect from the drop
down menu. The deselect tool
function is normally used when the
user is applying tools such as the
marquee lasso, magic wand and
magnetic lasso to an image.

The marquee tool is used when the

user wants to select a particular
shape within a certain area of an
image. Once the user has chosen
their desired shape, they can then
choose what they want to do with the
image. They could delete the section
of the image entirely, or move the
shape to a different position within
the image.

Similarly, the magic wand tool is

used to automatically select sections
of san image in Photoshop. The area
of the image that is normally
selected is usually waste material
and is often removed or deleted.

Transform, The Transform and free transform

e.g. scale, are both similar, in the sense that
rotate, skew, they both allow the user to warp their
flip; cut; copy; image. For example, with the free
paste; crop; transform tool, the user can re-size,
trim; erase; stretch and rotate the image. The
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 undo; fill user can also select a specific layer
to transform, without the need to
select all of the layers, within
Photoshop.
Advanced
tools:
Effects, e.g. Some of the effects which can be
layer effects, applied to layers are Outer glow,
filters, Bevel and Emboss and Drop
channels; shadow.
image
adjustments, The layer effect Bevel and Emboss
allows the user to create a 3D effect
on the selected image or text. The
user can also edit how soft or intense
the 3D effect will be on the final
image.

On the other hand, the Outer glow

effect in Photoshop, is used to create
a faded light effect around the
outline of an image. This gives the
effect of a glow on the outline of the
image (hence the name Outer
glow).

The Drop shadow effect can be

used on multiple layers and produces
a dark shade of black on a desired
area of an image, this creates a
shadow which can be shifted to any
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 area of the image the user wishes.
The light angle can also be altered so
the direction of the shadow changes
to where the user wants.
Image The brightness and contrast options
adjustments, can be found in the drop down menu
e.g. brightness at the top of the Photoshop screen.
and contrast, The brightness and contrast can both
hue and be altered to either increase or
saturation, decrease both, to the demands of the
colour balance, user.
gradients,
transparency, The colour balance of the image can
invert; masks; also be edited by the user in
Photoshop. The colour balance panel
can be found in the same drop down
menu as brightness and contrast.
The colour balance can be edited
from the RGB colour range. The user
can alter the intensity of all Red,
Green and Blue within an image.

Paths, e.g. In Photoshop, the Vector path tool

vector paths, is used to design a custom shape. To
converting text design the custom shape, the user
to paths; starts by plotting anchors in certain
points to draw out the shape, once all
the points are plotted and the shape
is formed, the user then connects the
final point with finish position. This is
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 usually used to draw out the basis for
vector graphics.

Another tool that is available in

Photoshop is Text to path. This
function allows the user to create
text that follows a specific line or
pattern. This causes the text to be
altered and warped in different ways
according to the path it is following.
The Text to path feature is normally
used just to make an image more
interesting, and to make it
aesthetically pleasing.

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