Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Absolute Beginners
This is a tutorial for individuals who have no experience or just starting with Adobe Photoshop. This tutorial will help you to become familiarized with the user interface and some essential precepts you'll need to know to get started. INTRODUCTION
Adobe Photoshop has been a tool in web developers' toolboxes for a long time. In fact, one could say that it is the standard for working with images. While there are alternative software to Photoshop, there really isn't an alternative to knowing how to use Photoshop. It will be a requirement of almost any employment situation that deals with graphics on a professional level. For this tutorial, we'll be using Adobe Photoshop CS3 for figures and references. However, all the concepts we'll be dealing with here, will exist in previous versions. Two Types of Images
Where computer generated graphics are concerned, there are two types of images. A. Raster Images Sometimes referred to as bitmaps or bit mapped images, raster images are based on pixels. The screen you're looking at right now is composed of a grid of many tiny dots. Each of these dots is a single pixel. Photoshop was originally developed for dealing with this type of image. If I was to describe the letter "G" in pixels, it might look something like Figure 1. Attachments: Figure 1 - A "G" described in pixels B. Vector Images
The other type of images are vector images. Vector images are created through a system of points (vertices, anchors, corners) and lines (paths). Vector based images help us create smooth organic curves. They have many distinct advantages over raster images. Photoshop has the capability to create and use vector images. Vector images will be explained, in detail, in a later chapter. |