Photoshop Level 1 Tutorial

By , Lead Web Designer
Site assembled by Donald Debona
Updated July 2004 by Jon Shih

Note: This tutorial was written for version 5.5 of Photoshop. More current versions of the program are now available. The information in this tutorial should remain useful in newer versions, although some of the detailed specifics may change.

Where do I get Photoshop?

Photoshop is available via CWA (campus-wide agreement) at a major discount. For details, go to Purchasing Department page on the Adobe products.

Why Photoshop?

This tutorial covers the basics of creating and altering graphics for web sites. There are countless methods and tools for doing this, but we’re going to focus on Photoshop, the Swiss Army knife of graphics editing tools. Photoshop is the standard program used by graphics professionals and is an amazingly broad and capable piece of software. It has a huge number of capabilities, but with a bit of practice accomplishing the basic tasks is really quite easy. Soon you’ll be superimposing your dog’s head onto a photo of the president and people you barely know will ask you to design invitations for their barbeque.

We will go through the following:

1. Basic Ideas
2. Palettes
3. Tools
4. Menus
6. Hands-on I: Make a Button
7. Hands on II: Collage with Text
8. Output for the Web

Before we begin

This site is only a way to expose you to some of the ideas, not a comprehensive tutorial. The only way to learn Photoshop, or any other program, is to use it. Spend some time experimenting with your own copy of Photoshop. Play around with each tool, palette and menu until you have a sense of what each can do. As you work and encounter obstacles, don't let them stop you. Try this and that until you get the result you want. "Undo" is your friend. Make backups of your original files and works-in-progress.

In the text that follows, when I refer to the Alt/Option key or Ctrl/Command key, the first word is the PC version, the second the Mac version, or PC/Mac. (Command key on the Mac has the apple and the loopy pound sign…I'll say Ctrl for PC and Control for Mac). Don’t worry if this confuses you, it confuses me too.

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