Photoshop

The material on his page is based on a presentation by John Parks at the June 2006 MAGIC meeting.
Edited October 2011 to remove broken links - RYE.

CONTENTS
Difference in Photoshop Programs
Filters
Photoshop can work with other graphics programs
Tool Bar Selection Tools
Tool Bar Drawing
Tool Bar Special Tools
Color Management
Color in PhotoShop
Have Fun
Web Sites

Difference in Photoshop Programs

PhotoShop-7 & PhotoShop Elements are about the same
PhotoShop CS is much easier to use. It contains more information.
PhotoShop CS2 uses the "bridge" which connects all graphic products even if they are not Adobe
CS & CS2 are more pro friendly. Camera, Raw, Photos on line, etc.
Elements 4 also uses the bridge. But it does not do as much.

PhotoShop has almost 100 filters and there are thousands made by independant software companies.
Filters can alter photos in standard ways such as Sharpen, Remove Noise, Extract, and Blur.
Filters can add artistic effects such as watercolor, sketch, texture, liquify, emboss. and distort.
After market plugin filters may allow you to add water to make your own lake, or to make a brick wall.
If you can imagine it then there is probably a filter to create it.

Crop, Magic Wand, Lasso, Marquee and Mask.
These tools allow you to isolate the area you wish to work with.
Then you can change the color, contrast, or hue in a select part of the picture.
You can move a selection to another picture or area of the original picture with the move tool.

Pens, Brushes and Pencils are your drawing tools.
Pens are also selection tools.
Brushes can paint and draw, as well as being the size selector behind such tools as erasers and other cloning tools.
Pencil, which is, well, just a pencil.

Path selection tools.
Gradient tool which shades from one color to another or within a color. Good for back grounds.
Paint bucket (I never use) ( Edit -> Fill ) is better as you can change your mind and fade or make more intense if you wish.
The Shapes tool can add arrows nature.

Match your PhotoShop color with your printer & scanner color.
Many commercial softwares can do this, such as Monaco Easy color.
Adobe RBG is a color choice available on most printers and scanners with one click.
Profiles are available from your paper manufacturer for getting the best color match for your printer.

Pick your color to be used in fill, brushes, etc in the box at the bottom of the tool bar.
The front box is the foreground color and the back box is the background color.
Use the eye dropper to pick out colors from your photo to be used elsewhere. (backgrounds, painting, fill.)
You can also pick colors from color menus these will show up in the tool bar as either fore ground or back ground colors.
Styles are color fills that are combinations of color and gradients that can be used in texts or shapes.

You can do as little or as much as you wish with color, contrast, crop.
Print your own cards.
Be an artist.
Or go nuts and never get away from your computer except to eat (who needs sleep anyway?)
Talk to people once in a while (they like to know you are still alive.)

If you are serious Join NAPP. They have a Great Magazine and lots of member discounts.