Photoshop 101 for Dummies!!! (a noob tutorial)

[Eclipse]

I hear all this stuff about "zomg i dunno how to use photoshop waaaaah"
well, here ya go. my noob tut
first off, we'll start with basic vocabulary, ya gotta learn to crawl before you can walk, right? This is for photoshop CS2, but it has options similar to all the others, just located in different places, not that hard to find =P.

Layers: like cakes have different layers, so do projects in photoshop. They are different parts of your sig. for example, layer 1 could have your stock, layer 2 could have your background, and layer 3 could have brushing. just an idea. You can merge and duplicate layers, to add cool effects. To make a layer visible, click the little box next to it so that an eye appears. to make it invisible, just click it again to get rid of the eye. this is your layer box.


If you want to make a new layer, just click the sticky-note looking thing on the layer box that says "new layer" when you hold your mouse over it (pictures coming soon). To delete a layer, right click a layer and select "delete layer"

If you want to change the name of a layer, right click and choose "layer properties" and change the name ^.^

Stock: A stock is basically the picture you are using, say you want to make a riku sig, you grab a picture of riku, right? then you use that in your siggie, that's your stock.

.PSD: photoshop document, it's your project, save it as a .psd in file>save as and you can continue your work later. If you want people to see it you will have to save it as an image file such as .jpg, or .png or .gif in file>save for web.

Brushes: Brushes are just what they are. You use paintbrushes to paint a picture right? well you use brushes to paint on your siggie, different swirls and designs and stuff. You originally have just the basic ones, but to make cool sigs, you need better brushes. My sigs as you can see use sparkle brushes and swirl brushes and cloudy soft brushes. you can download brushes here at www.deviantart.com, also check this thread http://forums.khinsider.com/showthread.php?t=50940

To actually use the brushes you have, you have to move the file into your photoshop folder, which in default would be C:/program files/adobe/photoshop/presets/brushes. if you put the brush files in there, you can choose them by clicking on the brush tool in your tool box, and then clicking the little black arrow next to your brush at the top to go to the brush box. choose your brush and select it.


Filters: they do just as they say. Filters take your picture, and filter it to make it look totally different. you can access your filters by going to filter>filter gallery. You can download more filters as well, some of them are in that link to the thread i gave you for brushes. Filters can be very useful. Here is a tutorial from Cloudy_Unchained on how to make a good sig, using only filters http://forums.khinsider.com/showthread.php?t=53649
There are other filters that are really cool, if you click on filters and go all the way down and select options such as distort>twirl, you can swirl your image and stuff. There are filters to blur such as gaussian blur and others ^.^

Click:
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/9...gallery1hg.jpg

Gradients: Gradients are a rainbow of colors. if you set a gradient map, and drag it, it will basically make a rainbow of colors. It can be from black to white, or rainbow, or from green to yellow or whatever you choose. they are quite helpful. to access gradients, click on the shaded box in the tool box that says "gradient tool"when you hold your mouse over it (it might just look like a paintbucket, in that case, drag the mouse to the side and select gradeint tool)

Click:
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/8...ientmap4zl.jpg

^^ that's a gradient.

Patterns: Patterns are patterns, nifty little designs that you can spatter over a layer, think of wallpaper for a house, well you're making a patterned wallpaper for your sig. They can be downloaded from www.deviantart.com Go to Edit>fill...>Patterns to use a pattern. You could also right click the layer>>blending options>>pattern overlay.

Click: http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...9/patterns.jpg

Textures: Work just like a stock, it's basically a picture, but it has a pattern on it, just open up the image in photoshop, and copy and paste the pattern as much as you want over your sig =P

Stock Renders/Pre-Cut Stock: The correct term is pre-cut stock, but many people call it a render or stock render. They are basically cut outs of the stock from the background, say you have a picture of riku from the kh2 opening, but then you cut the picture of riku out from the background, that picture of riku is now a render. There are also things called C4D renders, which are kool 3d abstract renders that you can find.
Pic of stock render:
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...tockrender.jpg

Pic of C4D render:
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2.../C4Drender.jpg

The Pen Tool:The pen tool is the tool in the tool box that lets you basically draw, but much more precise. If you want to cut a stock out from the background, use the pen tool and slowly mark around the stock until you have an outline. Right click the last marker and select "make selection as" and make sure anti-alias is on, and make the feathering 0.5 pixels. once you do that, it will now become a selection, and if you click select>inverse at the top of the screen, it will select the background of your picture. hit the delete button, and the background is gone, but your sig is there, because you made the outline with the pen tool ^.^.
Pen tool step 1:
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...9/pentool1.jpg

Pen tool step 2:
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...9/pentool2.jpg

Pen tool step 3:
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...9/pentool3.jpg

Image adjustments/effects: Is your picture too bland? too colorful? you want to make some adjustments? go to image>adjustments and you can choose from a number of things. Hue/saturation changes the color hue of the pictue, and how saturated it is with color. Brightness/contrast controls how bright or dark the picture is, and how contrasted it is. Color balance lets you adjust the color it is (make it more blue or green or whatever) and Variations does the same. Shadow/hilight lets you control how many shadows and hilights are on the picture, and Levels lets you control the levels of black and white (this is very helpful for manga, as it erases the spare gray marks). Invert inverts the colors, and so on and so forth. Experiment with the adjustments, you will use them ALOT.

Blending options: Blending options changes how your sig blends. Right click a layer>blending options to reach it's blending options, it will show things such as drop shadow and inner glow and things like that. Drop shadow leaves a shadow on the opject. inner glow creates a light glow inside the image, and outer light glow makes a light glow outside the rim of it. Gradient overlay allows you to add a gradient to the object, and things like that. An objects blending options will come in handy. experiment with them.

Click:
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/595...options4zp.jpg

There is another side to blending, that you might find more important. if you the little box in the layer box that says "normal" and click the arrow, you can choose how the layer itself blends. There is soft light and hard light and overlay and exposure and others. Soft light makes the layer much much less visible, hard light makes it sharper. Experiment with them

Click:
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/7...ptions23pv.jpg

Here's a cool secret, take a layer and duplicate it, on your duplicate layer, change the blending option to soft light or something else. if you look, your two layers will blend together to make it look different. Soft light will make it look brighter and contrasted and such. Merge the layers together to make them become one layer.

For example, take a riku stock. duplicate it, set the duplicate stock to soft light, and then merge the two layers together and you have a whole new effect ^.^

How to duplicate layers: just right-click a layer and click duplicate.
How to merge layers together: click layer>merge visible to merge the layers that you have visible at the moment. Click merge down to merge all the layers down from the one you have selected.

Opacity: it's how visible your image is, lower the opacity and make it more transparent, heighten the opacity and it becomes more visible. just click the opacity box in the layer box and lower it from 100% to something else or vice versa.

Fill: Very similar to opacity, in fact there is almost no difference, you can use it instead of opacity, but i use opacity instead. Reach it the same way you reach opacity, just click the box and lower from 100% or vice versa.

Click: http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/82/opacityfill4mz.jpg

That is all for now, i hope you enjoyed this Photoshop 101 noob tutorial. If you would like me to add anything to this, just ask and i will

for example, if you want to know where something is or what something means, just tell me and i will add it here and answer your question =D

NOW GET GOING!! GO MAKE SOME SIGS!!!

Update 07/22/06:

I think I'll teach you some new tricks now--

Effect Layers - These are layers that you can add to your project, with special effects/things done to it to improve your project. Just click on the half white/half black circle at the bottom of your layer box and choose an option from the drop down list, like a curves layer will let you edit the contrast/brightness from an advanced scale. A photo filter will add a certain color base to your project. A color-balance layer will change the hue/color of your sig tremendously. Try all of these and see how they help your sig or how you like them:

Click: http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...fectlayers.jpg

Dodge/Burn/Sponge Tool - These tools are located next to the blur tool, and under the gradient/paint bucket tool in the tool box on the left hand side. The Dodge tool makes whatever you brush it over brighter. The Burn tool makes everything darker. The Sponge tool is really cool, because it desaturates (takes the color out of) whatever you brush it over. Take these things in mind, they will become very handy.

Click: http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...spongetool.jpg

Blur/Sharpen/Smudge tool - I don't think I need to show a picture for this one, cuz i'm sure you can find it. But i'll do one anyway. To the left of the dodge/burn/sponge tool is the blur/sharpen/smudge tool. These will come in handy as well. THe blur tool obviously will blur up whatever you brush it over. The sharpen tool will make things sharper and more pixely if you think things are getting too blurry. If you click-and-drag the Smudge tool over whatever you brush it over, it will smudge that part. Example:

Click: http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...smudgetool.jpg

And I wanted to remind you how important filters are. Sometimes filters can look pretty ugly, but if you put them on the right blending mode and move them together, you can make things pretty hawt.

Applying Images - Applying Images is easy. Just make a new layer (by hitting the little sticky-note at the bottom of the layer box) and go to Image>>Apply Image... and hit O.K. Whatever you had showing, will slap onto another layer. For example, it will slap your whole sig, onto one layer. What i would do from that point, is color burn or over lay or soft light/multiply or whatever with it, and lower the opacity to make a nice effect.

You may be wondering at this point "How do I make my own brushes?"

How to make your own temporary brushes - Make a new project/document, and brush over it with whatever you have and make something cool. When you are satisfied, just go to Edit>>Define Brush Preset. It will make whatever you have a brush. I made a "plus-sign" brush once xD.

That is all for now, tune in next time, and go read some tuts and make some good sigs!!

~~Eclipse

[_Odin_]

Silver, magicbox.to-fi.com is gone. the host family was gone.

anyways, good guide for GFX noobs.

[Eclipse]

^ good thing i got all my brushes there before it disappeared :eek:

[mendia]

Nice tut for begginers like me... Only my PS trial ran out...

[Anonymous]

Here's a n00b seeking advice:

I am really bad with computers, so, how do I convert the PSD. filed to... well, anything that photobucket accepts :D

I just finished my first sig and wanna put it up.

[Eclipse]

^ ok, i explained that, go to file>save for web. and save it as a .jpg or .png or whatever.

[Anonymous]

... Just noticed it right before you posted.

THanks either way...

[Gamergirl89]

quick question: will this tutorial work wit photoshop 6.0?

[Eclipse]

^ it's for photoshop CS2, the latest version. There are some things photoshop CS2 has that 6.0 doesn't, it's very compatable, and has many of the same things as the other photoshops, only they are located in slightly different places, but it should be easy to locate things ^.^

This is for photoshop CS2, but it has options similar to all the others, just located in different places, not that hard to find =P.

This won't really help them make a tag. It'll only help them understand tutorials, which is what the tutorial already does.

[Gamergirl89]

ok thanks!!!

[Cloud_Unchained]

Did you make this yourself?

@_@

It's very familiar.

[Eclipse]

^ what? i spent 30 minutes writing this. what do you mean it looks familiar? i took all dez pictures and wrote these words myself ^.^

[Chaos-Shadow]

Hmm very great tut, ima give u rep for dat ;) btw u know ne good sites that u can download good filters off of? i think i overused the ones photoshop came with xD

[Eclipse]

^ like i said, check out the thread i linked you to, it has a page full of links to the best filters ever

oh forgot to add one more thing!!

*adds renders and pen tools to the tut*