Photoshop 2

I. Image Editing Preparation

A. Opening Files

We'll be opening and using one file for this session: "kendall.gif". This can be located on our website at http://www.csuchico.edu/stcp/workshops/download. Select the "2001_Photoshop_1.exe" file for download.
Save the file to your Desktop. On the Desktop, double-click "2001_Photopshop_1.exe" to install the files. Now, you are ready to begin using Photoshop!

1. Go to File in the Menu Bar and pull-down to Open. An Open window pops-up. At the top in the "Look in:" field is the current directory (also called a folder) that you are in.

2. Click on the pulldown menu next to the current directory name (also called a folder).
From there, choose the C: drive.

3. Now, double-click on the "My Documents" folder and then double-click on the "STCP_Tutorials" folder.
Inside is where the file "kendal.gif" is located.

4. When "kendal.gif" is found, double-click it to open it.

 

B. Zoom in and zoom out

You can zoom in and zoom out on your document by using the zoom pallete or by going to Window > Zoom In/Zoom Out.

C. Resize the window.

Resize the gray editing window that surrounds the "Kendall_Hall.jpg"
image.

1. Click and drag one of the window's corners away from the image to expand your working area.

D. Grid & Gridlines

Enable viewing the gridlines; also set the Snap-to-Grid feature.

1. Found under the View menu, first select Show and in the pop-up choose Grid .
2. Then go to the View menu again and this time select Snap to and select Grid from the pop-up menu.

E. Select, Crop & Resize

Select the Rectangular Marquee tool from the Toolbox . Starting in the upper-left hand corner just outside the image, we can easily select an area of 255 pixels wide by 165 pixels tall by pulling right and downward with our mouse.

1. Check on the selection's size. Click on the Info palette (next to the Navigator palette) and verify that it reads W: 255 H:165.

Crop the image.

1. All resizing tools are located under the Image menu. Cropping is found by going to Image and pulling down to Crop .

F. Colors

Swap the Foreground and Background Colors

1. It's possible to quickly switch the Foreground and Background colors with each other by simply clicking on the curved double-arrow.

Choose a new Background color.

1. Click on the black Background color box.
2. In the next window, at the bottom check the Only Web Colors box. Now choose the rightmost third red from the top (HEX #990000).
3. Click OK .

G. Type & Text

Add the word “ CHICO ” to the image.

1. Select the Type Tool from the Toolbox . Click anywhere on your image.
2. In this window, look for the Options bar. Here, you can change the font to Impact .
3. Type in “ CHICO ” and click the checkmark within the Options bar.

Stretch (or Transform) the text so that it covers most of the image.

1. Go to the Edit menu.
2. Pull-down to Transform , and select Scale .
3. Grab the handles (the little squares around the text) by clicking and dragging with the mouse towards the image corner.
4. Pull the text corners until they are 2 grid cells away from the image's edge.
5. Press Enter on your keyboard.

II. Working with Layers

 

Look at the Layers palette to the right. Notice that you have two layers: " CHICO " and "Background." Layers are like overhead transparencies that are stacked on top of each other. Whichever layer is selected is the layer that you are applying the tools to. Currently we have the " CHICO " text layer selected.

Now we need to "set" the text so that it acts as the image on that layer. Once the text has been rendered in this next part, it is no longer editable.

Change the text into a rendered layer.

1. Go to the menu and click Layer .
2. Pull-down to Rasterize , and select Type from the submenu.

The "Background" layer has the photo that we wish to superimpose onto the text.

1. Select the “Background” layer by clicking on “Background” under the Layers palette.

Now we need to select the whole Background image because we want to cut the entire background image so we can paste it into the text: “ CHICO ”.

1. In the menus above, choose Select and then All .
2. Go to Edit and pull-down to Cut .

Now that we've removed the photo, the background is the red we selected earlier.

A. Selection & Layers

Here we need to switch back to the text layer and select " CHICO " so that we may paste the "Kendall_Hall" picture back into it.

1. In the Layers palette, click on the “ CHICO ” text layer to activate it.
2. Choose the Magic Wand tool from the Toolbox .

The Magic Wand tool will select everything that is the chosen color. There are two options that you may set:

• Contiguous selects everything that is continuously adjacent
• Non-contiguous selects everything of the specified color whether or not it is connected

We want to select everything that is a white letter in CHICO , therefore:

1. Confirm under the Options bar that "Contiguous” is UNCHECKED.
2. Click on any of the white letters.

All of the letters in " CHICO " are now selected. We're ready to paste "Kendall_Hall" into our text.

1. Go to Edit in the menu and choose Paste Into .

Now, we want to give a black border and feathered edges to our CHICO logo. There are several different ways to do this, but here we will cover only one. We'll begin with editing the background layer.

1. Select the "Background" layer again from the Layers palette.

Because we want a black border all the way around the image, we should select black as our color. Since we want a feathered edge, it's best to choose black as the background color.

1. Change the Background color to "black."

Let's select the area that just surrounds the text.

1. Choose the Rectangular Marquee tool from the Toolbox .
2. Starting one grid cell away from the edge in the upper left corner, click and drag to the lower right corner, giving your selection one cell distance all around from the edge.

If we choose to feather this selection, we will end up feathering inside rather than outside our CHICO text. We need to select the inverse of our current selection instead.

1. In the menu above, go to Select and then Inverse .

B. Effects

Feathering is a powerful effect to dissolve edges or to feather them into another color. Feathering works well for softer edges or borders, especially for photos. We wish to feather our selected “border” from red into black.

1. Up in the Menu Bar choose Select and beneath it, Feather…
2. Change the Feather Radius to "5 pixels" and click OK .
3. Press the Delete key on your keyboard.

Now our selected “border” fades red into the background color (in our case, black).

III. Finishing up

We're almost finished! Let's tidy up and save our image.

Begin by deselecting the image.

1. Go to Select and choose Deselect .

Hide the gridlines from view.

1. Go to View , pulling down to Show and clicking on Grid again.

Let's view your new image at 100% (or it's actual size).

1. Go to View , this time choosing Actual Pixels .

A. File Types & Saving Files

If you're unsatisfied with your new CHICO Logo or want to return to it later to do more editing, then you should save the work as a Photoshop file (.psd). This way, all information is saved and every layer is preserved for future editing sessions.

B. Flattening Images

If you're satisfied with how your new CHICO Logo turned out, and you won't be editing it anymore, then you must flatten the image before saving it in a usable web-image format.

1. Flatten your image by going to Layer and then to Flatten Image .

Notice that all of your layers in the Layer palette are gone and only one layer exists there now. If you are finished editing and/or will be posting to the web, save it as a JPEG/GIF file (.jpg/.gif).