I. The Selection Tools
- Selection Brush - make a selection
Steps to use:
- Select the Selection Brush tool from the Toolbar Selection Brush.
- Adjust the shape and the size of the brush in the Options palette.
- Select the Selection or Mask mode from the fall-out Mode menu.
- Set the value of the Hardness parameter.
- If the Mask mode is activated, you can set the values for the Overlay Color and Overlay Opacity parameters in case when the default values do not work.
- If the Selection mode is activated, you should paint over the parts of the image that should fall into the selection contour. If there already is a selection, the new selection will be added to the previous one. To subtract the new selection from the old one, you should keep the Alt-key pressed when making a new selection.
- If the Mask mode is activated, you should paint over the parts of the image that should be excluded (these parts will be covered with semitransparent red). If there already is a selection, the painted fragments will be subtracted from the selection. To add the new selection to the old one, you should keep the Alt-key pressed when making the new selection.
- Marquee Tools - used for selecting objects such as rectangles, squares, and ellipses.
Steps to use:
- Activate the marquee tool by clicking on the icon The Marquee tool, or (if the marquee was not the last tool applied) select it from the floating window.
- Bring the mouse cursor to the point of the image where the corner of an imaginary rectangle/elliptical circle should be, and press the left mouse button.
- Keeping the left button pressed, move the cursor diagonally to the opposite corner and release the button.
- Lasso Tool - allows creating freehand selections.
Steps to use:
- Select the Lasso tool from the Toolbox by left-clicking on the icon Lasso tool, or (if Lasso was not the last tool applied) select it from the floating window.
- Bring the mouse cursor to the object that must be selected and outline it keeping the left button pressed.
- Polygonal Lasso - makes freehand selections, but its contour is made up of straight segments.
Steps to use:
- Select the Polygonal Lasso tool from the Toolbox by clicking on the icon The Polygonal Lasso tool, or (if Polygonal Lasso was not the last tool applied) select it from the floating window.
- Bring the cursor to any point near the object to be outlined and press the left mouse button - it'll be the first point of the contour.
- Move the cursor to the next point of the contour not far from the first one and left-click it again. The program will automatically draw a straight line between the two points.
- Keep putting points in this way until the whole object is outlined and close the contour.
- Magnetic Lasso - makes a freehand selection that do not need to follow the contour of the object precisely.
Steps to use:
- Select the Magnetic Lasso tool from the Toolbox by clicking on the icon The Magnetic Lasso tool, or (if Magnetic Lasso was not the last tool applied) select it from the floating window.
- Bring the mouse cursor to the border of the object that should be selected.
- Press the left button and start dragging the cursor along the object. Pay attention to fastening points that appear as you outline the object and when you male a click. If a fastening point is irrelevant you can remove it by pressing the Delete key and return to the previous fastening point to continue outlining the object.
- Close the contour, that is join the first fastening point with the last one by bringing the cursor to the first point or by making a double-click.
- Magic Wand - selects a consistently colored area.
Steps to use:
- Select the Magic Wand tool in the Toolbox by clicking the icon The Magic Wand tool.
- Bring the cursor to the pixel of the image that must be included into the selection and left-click it. As a result an outline appears around the pixel. It includes colors of the image similar to the color of the selected pixel according to the specified Tolerance value.
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II. The Alteration Tools
- Clone Stamp tool and Healing Brush - clone (copy) pixels from one part of an image to another, to another layer or even to another image.
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Steps to use:
- Choose the tool from the Toolbar.
- Set the parameters for the tool in the Options panel: size, blending mode, the amount of opacity and others.
- Check Use All Layers, if you need to work with several layers at once.
- Check Aligned to create one clone selected from the area around a starting point. The mouse button can be released and new fragments selected. Also, the mode and size of the tool can be changed. If Align is unchecked, then each application of the tool will create a clone from the same starting point.
- Set a starting point. Do this by holding ALT, and then left-clicking on the point from which the clone will be taken.
- Move the cursor to the location where you want to copy the fragment.
- Press the left mouse button and the clone will be applied. If the Healing Brush is used, then the cloned fragments, texture, luminance, and shadows, will be processed in relation to the pixels of the background image.
- Patch tool - repairs an area with pixels copied from another area or image.
Steps to use:
- Choose the Patch tool from the Toolbar.
- Choose the shape and size of the tool in the Options panel, and select Source in Patch's options.
- Draw a line with the Patch tool around the part of the image that needs to be restored.
- Drag the selected area to a new spot, from which the clone will be created.
- Pattern Stamp tool - works by drawing with a repeating pattern.
Steps to use:
- Choose the tool from the Toolbar.
- Set a pattern, by choosing it from the Pattern Palette in the Options Panel.
- Choose the size and shape, blending mode, amount of pattern opacity and other parameters for the tool in the Options Panel.
- Press the left mouse button and drag the tool into the image.
- Color Replacement tool - replaces one color in an image with another.
Steps to use:
- Choose the tool from the Toolbar.
- Set the color which will be used to replace the intended color in the image.
- Set the parameters for the tool in the Options Panel, such as: size and shape of the brush, the color's blend mode, color choice mode, opacity, etc.
- Click on the color in the image to be replaced.
III. The Vector Tools
- Custom Shape tool - used to make custom shapes.
Steps to use:
- Activate the Custom Shape Tool.
- The Options palette will show the settings for the tool. When you click the triangle near the word Shape, you see a drop-down palette with available shapes. We have chosen a shape from the "Ornaments" shape presets.
- We will create a frame that can be used for a letter of congratulation, or a notice or a visiting card. Actually there are ready to use frame presets in the Custom Shape presets too, but we will create one of our. We have chosen a decoration and now draw the shape in the left lower corner of the sheet. A new layer appears in the Layers palette.
- We want to put this flower decoration into 4 corners of the card. We copy the layer with the decoration by right-clicking on the Shape 1 layer and selecting the Duplicate Layer command from the drop-down menu. Or you can just drag the Shape 1 layer to the icon to the same effect.
The card will look better if all buds of this flower decoration will point to the center. It's easy to flip or rotate the copied decoration.
- Having put the second decoration to the right lower corner, we activate the Line Tool to draw a line for the frame. The Line Tool is located under the same icon as the Custom Shape Tool.
- What we need now is to copy this part to form the upper part of our frame. For this purpose we put the cursor to the Shape 1 copy layer, right-click it and select the command Select Similar Layers from the drop-down menu. All vector layers will be selected.
Then right-click the active layers once again select the command Duplicate Layer from the drop-down menu.
- The duplicated layers are active and we call the command Edit => Transform => Flip Vertical to mirror the copied decoration vertically. Now use the Move tool from the Toolbar to drag the decoration upwards. You can also use Shift + the Up arrow key on the keyboard to this effect (only when the Move tool is active in the Toolbar).
- In the next step we draw vertical lines as described in Step 5 and get the following result.
- The frame is ready, but it is not easy-to-use, as lines and decorations are on different layers. To be able to edit the frame as a whole, to move and scale it we should group the layers.
Put the cursor to one of the shape layers in the Layers palette, for example, on Shape 1 layer. Right-click on the layer and choose the command Select Similar Layers. All layers with shapes will be activated.
Now right-click the layer again and select the command Group into New Smart Object.
- As a result all layers with shapes form one "smart object". In the Layers palette you see that they reduce to one layer.
- Now you can easily scale the frame with the command Edit => Free Transform. You will see markers along the frame's borders that you can drag with the left mouse button to change the frame's dimensions. To scale the frame keeping the width/height ratio, hold the SHIFT key while dragging. When ready, press Enter on the keyboard to apply the changes.
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