Random thoughts on art, technology, stuff, and occasionally Real Estate: Five Essential Photoshop Tools And Where To Find Them

Five Essential Photoshop Tools And Where To Find Them

If you are anything like me, you can figure out how to use most Photoshop tools pretty quickly on your own, thank you very much, but the challenge is finding where in the menu structure the BLEEPIN' tool is buried in the the first place.  And "help" is no help unless you know the correct name/term to search on.

With that in mind, I present my list of Five Essential Photoshop Tools ... And Where To Find Them.  I'll refer to Photoshop Elements 5.0 in this blog, I think that's what alot of folks here use, but, with some excpetions, the tool locations are pretty uniform throughout all versions of both Photoshop Elements, and Photoshop.  In Elements 5.0, these tools are available in the "Full Edit" tab ... forget about "Quick Fix".

1.  Resize an image:  Found under Image -> Resize -> Image Size.    I always check "Resample" so I can type in the actual pixel dimensions.

2.  Crop:  Found under Image -> Crop.  Or use the Crop icon in the toolbar.

3.  Adjust contrast/lighten/darken:  Found under Enhance -> Adjust Lighting.  Play with all three functions under adjust lighting:  Shadows/Highlights, Brightness/Contrast, and Levels  to see which tool does what the particular image needs.  In Photoshop, go Image -> Adjustments.

4.  Sharpen: In Elements 5.0 found under Enhance -> Adjust Sharpness.  In other versions of Elements, and Photoshop, it's Filter -> Sharpen .

5.  Straighten:  Elements 5.0 introduced the Straighten tool on the toolbar .  It may or may not give you the results you want.  If it doesn't go, to Image -> Transform, try Free Transform, Skew, and Perspective.  In Photoshop the transform tools are under Edit -> Transform, and Edit -> Free Transform.

 

9 comments • Cheryl Johnson • April 25 2007 08:37PM

Comments

Thanks Cheryl, I'm just learning more about photoshop.
Posted by Vicky Carlton, Auctioneer,CES,CVS - Cincinnati (REAL Solutions Realty Company) over 3 years ago

Cheryl,

I agree, those our the essentials.  However that is just scratching the surface of what Photoshop Elements 5.0 can do.

I just had a class last night where we did animations.  Very interesting.  We have been working with various layers where you can adjust lighting and many other variables.  After I am finished with the Advanced Photoshop Elements course in mid-May, I will be posting more tutorials on its use.

Posted by Mike Stankewich, MBA, e-PRO - ZipRealty, Inc. (ZipRealty, Inc.) over 3 years ago
just scratching the surface  --- My list is barely a teeny tiny scratch ....  But it seemed like a good starting point ... You're an excellent tutorial writer, so I'm looking forward to your upcoming posts!
Posted by Cheryl Johnson, Bob Taylor Properties, Inc., Los Angeles, CA over 3 years ago
Cheryl - Thanks for the tips.  I know these features exist but it is hard to find them.  i could not find the adjust Sharpness feature for the life of me.  I'll have to go back in and look.  THanks
Posted by Maureen Henry - Rockland Home Staging over 3 years ago
It is so hard - I got a book on elements but it is for Windows - a lot of the stuff is different on Mac.  When I began reading the book it says that the book is only for windows users.  I think I need to go back and get a more general tutorial book.  
Posted by Maureen Henry - Rockland Home Staging over 3 years ago

Yes, finding the tool is sometimes the biggest challenge,  :-) 

I didn't realize that Elements for the Mac was on a different version cycle from windows.... I just learned that searching on the web. 

Did you look in both the "enhance" and the "filter" menus? 

Are the help files any help?  Did you search the help files on the words "Unsharp" (as in unsharp mask) and  "enhance" as well as "sharp", "sharpness" and "sharpen" ?

One of these days, I should pick up a used Mac, just to learn the differences.

Edit - P.S.  I have an older version of Elements (2.0) on this computer, in addition to the current 5.0.  I just looked at 2.0.  In 2.0, the sharpen tool in under "Filters".  I don't think it was moved to "Enhance" until 5.0.   Maybe it's under "filters" on the Mac version?

Posted by Cheryl Johnson, Bob Taylor Properties, Inc., Los Angeles, CA over 3 years ago
Thanks, Cheryl.  It's really important to know the basics - and you have made that so clear.  Now on to more complicated stuff. 
Posted by Marie Kletke - Broker Long Beach Real Estate (JJ Sachs Realty- Long Beach, California) over 2 years ago

Cheryl,

I am particularly thankful for the how to straighten info in photoshop. I have Photshop 7 and Elements.

Posted by Kristal Pooler - North Shore & Cape Ann (Kristal Pooler & Associates. Coast & Country Properties Inc.) over 2 years ago
I think you should add "Save For Web" to this list. It will automatically optimize, let you tweak the quality, let you compare the original to the optimized version. It also will change the color mode to the correct version for the web and change you DPI to the correct amount. Something less savvy users may not know how to set properly. It makes the learning curve a lot smaller, a good feature.
Posted by Robert Krames (Smart Media Creative Solutions) over 2 years ago

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