Start by resetting the default preferences and ensuring that the examples here match what you see on your screen. You need to make sure there are no customized preferences to follow the examples laid out in this book. Customization may thwart your progress by giving unexpected results.

1. Launch Adobe Photoshop.
   If you have an alias on your desktop(or in your Dock if you have a Mac), you can launch by double clicking the icon. Otherwise, go to your Applications menu(Start, Programs or All Programs in Windows)and click Adobe Photoshop CS.
2. Immediately hold down 
   Option+Command+Shift(Windows: Alt+Ctrl+Shift)while Photoshop is still launching to reset the default settings.
   If the dialog box in Figure below doesn’t pop up, then you probably didn’t hold down the keys long enough or soon enough. Close Photoshop and try launching again with the reset keys.
3. When the window pops up, click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the Adobe Photoshop Settings File.
4. Another window asks if you would like to adjust your color setting. Since you can do that later, select No for now. See Figure below.
5. The last pop-up window is Adobe Photoshop CS’s Welcome Screen. Click Close in this window.

 You should see this dialog box after Step 2.

 Say no to this. You can adjust your color setting by going to your preferences at any time.

 You can access this great resource at any time by going to Help Welcome Screen

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If you’re reading this, then you will probably find helpful the tutorials, tips, tricks, and other information contained within the Welcome Screen. You can also access tutorials, links, and informational movies from this screen. Some of the information is in PDF format, which requires Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can retu to the Welcome Screen anytime by going to Help; Welcome Screen.

Now your default Photoshop screen area should look like Photoshop is an ideal cross-platform application because it has so few user interface differences between the Mac and Windows versions.

Notice how the Windows and Mac versions look virtually identical. The main differences are in the menu bar and the background. The Mac has the program(Photoshop)menu and the ever-present Apple menu. Windows generally likes to hide the desktop when a program is maximized, whereas Mac shows the desktop unless you have a document maximized.

Asic Layout Elements

show basic layout elements and shows Terms in blue are Photoshop-specific components;those in black are general terms. Each of these elements is covered in more detail following this overview.

The menu bar at the top of the screen contains all the major commands that enable you to navigate and manipulate files. The commands are accessed like most other computer programs;just click the menu option so the drop-down menu appears.Then click an option from the drop-down menu. 

 The menu bars for Window’s version of Photoshop CS (bottom) and MacOS’s version of Photoshop CS (top).

If I went on a litany of each and every menu option of the menu bar, would you remember all of it? Probably not. The best way to find out what an option does is to use it in context. It does help to have a general overview of what each menu title holds, so you can basically deduce where to find what you are looking for. You can find that in Table .

 Menu Title Contents

shows all of the menu bar’s drop-down menus. Photocopy this page and keep it next to your computer as a quick reference.(It beats having to click each menu header and looking through to find where that particular command is located). Notice that the Mac has an additional drop-down menu under the Photoshop heading. All the options listed there are located throughout the other menus in the Windows version.

Here are all of the menu bar’s drop-down menus for both the PC and the Mac

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I’m not going to provide an exhaustive detail of each and every tool. (Boring!) Rather, I want to familiarize you with the names and shortcuts and help you conjecture how to use each tool. If you want to look further into a particular tool, Adobe has plenty of help in the form of its user manual and online help, but this book should cover everything you need to the capacity that you need it for VFX work.

To select a tool, click it. If the tool button contains a small triangle in the lowerright coer, additional hidden tools or alteate versions of the current tool exist in a flyout menu. To access this menu, click and hold the tool; you don’t have to click the tiny triangle, but you can try if you’re into that kind of thing. If you have a two-button mouse, you can just rightclick to get the flyout menu. Drag through the flyout menu to select one of the additional tools. Positioning your pointer over a tool displays the tooltip with the tool’s name and keyboard shortcut. The flyout menu also contains this information. Both the tooltip and flyout menu contain he tool’s name and keyboard shortcut.

The toolbox is arranged into loose categories:tools, swatches, and modes.You can select a tool by clicking it or access the tool via its shortcut(by pressing the letter indicated in the flyout menu). For example, pressing R selects the Blur tool. Holding Shift and pressing the shortcut key cycles through the hidden tools. Repeatedly pressing Shift+R cycles between the Blur, Sharpen, and Smudge tools.

Beneath the tools are the color, masking, screen mode, and ImageReady choices, respectively. Some tools, such as Paintbrush, use the foreground color. Some tools, such as Gradient, use both the foreground and background colors. To switch between the back ground and foreground color swatches, click the curved arrow icon to the upper right of the swatches. Click the Default Colors icon on the lower left to reset the colors to the default of pure black and pure white. When you click the bottommost icon, you launch Photoshop’s sister program, ImageReady.

provides more information about the toolbox and  offers an exploded view. Toolbox Arrangement

 Keep a copy of this handy.

More about Mask and Screen Modes

The Mask mode buttons are for editing in standard or quick-mask modes. The left button is the Edit in Standard Mode button, and the right button is the Edit in Quick Mask Mode button. Quick Mask offers a way to view, make, and edit a selection using a painting technique. This is hard to explain without an example, so leave the mode set to Standard right now.

From left to right, here are your screen modes, which affect the way you see the work area:

• Standard Screen mode. This default setting shows your entire photoshop desktop, with menu bars, scrollbars, and other screen elements.
• Full Screen mode with menu bar.This mode hides your desktop background and other open images, enlarges your view of the image, and keeps the menu bar in view.
• Full Screen mode. Use this mode to hide your desktop background, any open images, and the menu bar. In addition, the Photoshop window tus to black.(You can now move an image even when it is in Full Screen mode.)

A design introduced in Photoshop 6, the tool options barshows a tool’s modifiable attributes, if available.Some settings in the tool options bar are common to several tools and some are specific to one. It simply says there are no options if nothing’s modifiable. If your tool options bar has mysteriously disappeared, you can bring it back by pressing Retu(Win: Enter) or choosing Window; Options. (Note that Retu [Win: Enter] is not a toggle for the tool options bar, it merely retrieves it.)

The tooloptions bar as it appears with three different tools

Palette Well

The tool options bar also holds the palette well. The well is great for organizing and managing palettes because you can dock most of them there. To dock your palette, drag its tab into the palette well so the palette well is highlighted. Then you can use the palette just by clicking its tab in the palette well. The palette remains open until you click outside it.

 If you don’t see your palette well in the options bar, check your resolution

If your screen resolution is less than 800×600, you do not see the palette well and many of your dialog boxes may get cut off. The user’s guide recommends at least 1024×768.

Palette Navigation

Some palettes are grouped by default. You can modify the way palettes are presented with these actions:

• If the palette you want is not at the forefront of the group window, left-click its tab. The triangle in the upper-right coer of the palette signifies a palette menu with options related to the functionality of the associated palette. For example, if you click the triangle on the Layer Comps palette, you get a submenu with options such as New Layer Comp, Delete Layer Comp, and Update Layer Comp.
• Check Show Tool Tips in the General Preferences dialog box(found through the main menu bar under Photoshop; Preferences; Generalif you have a Mac orEdit ; Preferences > General if you have a PC) and hover over a button at the bottom of a palette’s shortcut buttons. You see the button name.
• Double-click a palette tab or the palette title bar to collapse a group. This way only the title bar and its tabs are visible. Double-click again to restore the expanded view.
• Click the palette tab and drag it out of its group window to separate any palette from its group. When you release, the palette is in its own window.

Visual Palettes Overview

I have grouped the following palettes according to how they’re organized by default in Photoshop CS. You do not have all the palettes if you’re using an older version, and some are grouped differently. (For example, in Photoshop , the Color, Swatches, and Brush palettes were grouped.) These dissection views should get you acquainted with each of their functions.

Navigator/Info/Histogram

These palettes all give image information. Navigator previews the image you are working on, along with zoom information. Info displays pixel color information under the mouse pointer(no matter what tool is selected)and relates positional data. Histogram is a graphical representation of your image’s tonal range. 

The Navigator, Info, and Histogram palettes with all their submenus

Color/Swatches/Style

These palettes all deal with your tool’s paint, whether that be the Brush, Paint Bucket, or any other painting tool. Color displays the color information for the currently selected foreground and background colors. Swatches holds a selection of predefined color samples. Style enables you to apply a predefined style to your layer. A style is a combined effect of different filters that holds true for the entire layer. Since the swatches and styles are presets, you can also access the preset manager from each palette’s submenu.

 reveals these palettes

 The Color, Swatches, and Style palettes with its submenus. Notice that the preset manager is accessible via the submenu.

History/Actions

Both of these palettes deal with recording steps you take while using Photoshop. The History palette displays every task you perform in Photoshop, which allows you to selectively edit your steps. Actions holds semiautomated routines, which are Photoshop’s version of macros or scripts. 

These are the History and Actions palettes with all submenus; for more on the Action palette,

Layers/Channels/Paths

Layers, Channels, and Paths are types of content that are layered within the image, contributing to the overall image. The Layers palette displays the current image layers, with the foreground on top and the background bottommost. Each file in Photoshop is comprised of channels that store information(typically color information)in the image. Depending on the mode, Channels reflects this information and lets you manage and edit the separate channels. Paths holds the different vector lines created using the Pen tool. 

The Layers palette is probably the most often used in Photoshop.

Character/Paragraph

As you can guess, both of these palettes deal with text. Character provides formatting options, such as font and size for individual characters. Some of these options are available in the tool options bar when you select the Text tool. Paragraph gives you paragraph formatting options, such as justification and line spacing. By default, these palettes are not out; you have to go to Window ; Character or Window; Paragraph to bring up the palettes.

 Seldom do I need to use Character or Paragraph palette for VFX work, but it’s here just in case you need to create a sign on a building or something.

Brushes

By default, this palette is located in the palette well, but you can access it by going toWindow ; Brushes (though why would you do so when it is actually faster to just click on the tab in the palette well).

Every Brush palette option is shown in.

 Just so you know what the Brush palette looks like:

 Tool Presets

By default, the Tool Presets palette islocated in the palette well, but is also available via the tool options bar. You can see its two locations in Figure 18. For any tool that can set presets, this palette can be seen in a flyout palette by clicking the inverted triangle next to the tool icon in the options bar. Tool Presets allows you to save and easily reuse a particular tool’s specific settings.

 Notice that you can access Tool Presets from two different locations.

Layer Comps

Layer Comps is also located in the palette well, and is of course available via Window ; Layer Comps. Layer comps are especially handy when dealing with variations. This palette acts a bit like a History palette for layer composite snapshots. It’s shown in .

Layer Comps