Fundamentals of photoshop cs4

Overview
A comprehensive set of reference notes covering course topics, follow-up telephone support and, for training on Transmedia premises, lunch and refreshments.

Prerequisites
Experience of the Windows or Macintosh operating system or previous attendance on the equivalent training course.

Course Content Photoshop fundamentals

• What file sizes to expect
• System requirements
• File format differences such as raster/bitmap (e.g. TIFF) v. vector files (e.g. EPS)

Image input

• Display and output: discussion of scanners, monitors, desktop printers
• Image setters and film recorders in the context of image quality and resolution

Colour theory

• Additive and subtractive; perceptual colour - the eye, the monitor, the printed page; colour gamuts
• Device independent colour
• Photoshop's CMYK preview mode
• Spot colours; duotones, bit depth - 8 and 16 bit

Application basics

• The toolbox and panels
• The colour picker
• View modes
• Keyboard shortcuts; Navigation panels; using Adobe Bridge to find, sort and open images; N-up and multiple document view with tabs

Selection techniques

• Creating selection areas
• Adding to and subtracting from Using quick selection and refinement tool; feathering and anti-aliasing Quick Mask
• Using the magnetic tools
• The magic eraser tools to make cut outs
• The Extract command

The use of painting tools

• The standard brushes
• Custom brushes
• Linear or radial gradient fills
• Creating custom gradient styles

Retouching

• Cloning images
• Using patterns
• Smudging, blurring and sharpening
• Cropping
• Repairing scratches
• Negative to positive
• Heal tool, shadow & highlight tool
• Match colour tool, red eye tool and vanishing point filter

Using the History panel

• As an Undo
• For effects
• Using the History brush and the Art brushes to create natural media effects
• RAM and hard disk (scratch disk) issues

Content-Aware Scaling

• Resizing images while retaining the correct proportions for your subjects

Image adjustment

• Using the Adjustments panel for live
• Nondestructive image adjustment
• Brightness, contrast, gamma, hue/saturation
• Colour balance for shadows, highlights and mid-tones
• Levels and curves; the black and white conversion tool

Output generally

• Re-sampling and printing
• Resizing and adjusting resolution to the most appropriate values for printing
• Screening issues
• File formats for export

Adding type to an image

• Adjusting text
• Adjusting text appearance
• Using text effects commands
• Rendering text
• Text as a selection
• Text distortion and warping
• Text on a path

Layers

• Converting a selection path to a layer
• Controlling layer transparency
• Creating montages using components from different modes
• Defining and using Adjustment layers
• Placing guides and using grids
• Layer styles and layer management
• Layer comps
• Creating and using layer smart objects
• Introducing video & 3D smart layers (Photoshop CS4 Extended only)

Creating special effects with filters

• Soften, sharpen and numerous forms of distortion
• Transforming areas of an image, including rotate, stretch, skew, flip and alter perspective
• Using the Free Transform function
• Using non-destructive smart filters

Warping and Gradients

• Using the interactive image warping window
• Creating and editing gradients

Rapid processing of images

• Recording sequences of editing steps using the Actions panel
• Batch processing images

Web graphics

• Optimising for the web using the comparison area to check quality of image output
• Image Slicing, web panels and choosing the most appropriate file format (GIF, PNG and JPEG)
• Flash export

Creating a web photo gallery

• From existing images using customisable HTML templates