Everyone needs to start somewhere, and I can tell you right now, it took me a long time to get used to Adobe Photoshop, let alone their entire collection. I read so many tutorials and books. It is not easy so stick with it. I wanted to create this beginners post to give everyone an opportunity to learn something new or refreshing their skills.

Selection Tool:

This tool will be your life saver, trust me. You will use se this tool to make selections on your image, in a rectangular shape, elliptical, single row or single column. This changes the area of your image that is affected by other tools or actions to be within the defined shape. You can use this to make quick work of deleting something or adding color/effect to the defined area. Holding the [Shift] key while dragging your selection, restricts the shape to a perfect square. Holding the [Alt] key while dragging sets the center of the rectangle to where your cursor started.

Move Tool:

Use this tool to, well, move things. Usually you use it to move a Layer around after it has been placed. Hold the [Shift] key to limit the movements to vertical/horizontal.

Lasso Tool:

Another life saver. Usethis to draw selections in whatever shape you would like. Perfect for following the outline of a person or object to take them out of the background. To close the selection, either click on the beginning point (you’ll see the cursor change when you’re on it), or just double-click. When holding the [Ctrl] key, you’ll see the cursor change, and the next time you click, it will close your selection.

Magic Wand Tool:

Another life saver (chuckles). Usethis to select a range in your photo or custom image. It will select the block of color, or transparency, based on wherever you click. In the Options Bar at the top, you can change the Tolerance to make your selections more/less precise.

Crop/Slice Tool:

The Crop Tool works similarly to the Rectangular Marquee tool (see above if you have no short-term memory). The difference is when you press the [Enter/Return] key, it crops your image to the size of the box. Any information that was on the outside of the box is now gone. Not permanently, you can still undo. The slice tool will slice up your image if you are saving it for the web.

Healing Tool:

This is a really useful tool. Mildly advanced. You can use this tool to repair scratches and specs and stuff like that on images. It works like the Brush tool (see below). You choose your cursor size, then holding the [Alt] key, you select a nice/clean area of your image. Let go of the [Alt] key and paint over the bad area. It basically copies the info from the first area to the second, in the form of the Brush tool. Only, at the end, it averages the information, so it blends. This is another great cool for editing old photos of your grandparents that may have been worn down.

Brush Tool:

This is one of the first tools ever. It’s what Photoshop is based off of. Well, not really, but it’s pretty basic. It paints your image, in whatever color you have selected, and whatever size you have selected. There’s a lot of options for it, but this is basic, so you don’t get to learn them.

Clone Tool:

This is very similar to the Healing Brush Tool (see above). You use it the exact same way, except this tool doesn’t blend at the end. It’s a direct copy of the information from the first selected area to the second. When you learn to use both of these tools together in perfect harmony, you will have a much better photo edit. This works great if you are taking someone out of your photo. (tutorial coming soon).

History Brush Tool:

This tool works just like the Brush Tool (see above) except the information that it paints with is from the original state of your image. If you go Window>History, you can see the History Palette. The History Brush tool paints with the information from whatever History state is selected.

Eraser Tool:

This tool hates the brush tool, no, seriously, it does. It works like an eraser and erases whatever information wherever you click and drag it. If you’re on a Layer, it will erase the information transparent. If you are on the background layer, it erases with whatever secondary color you have selected.

Gradient and Paint Tool:

The gradient tool creates a blending of your foreground color and background color when you click and drag it. The paint tool fill an area of color that you have selected for your foreground color.

Blur/Sharpen/Smudge Tool:

The blur tool makes things blurry. The sharpen tool reverses that. The smudge tool, well, smudges the color around.

Dodge/Burn/Sponge Tool:

The dodge tool is used to lighten whatever area you use it on. The burn tool makes things darker. The sponge tool is to saturate colors (make them brighter).

Path Selection Tool:

You use this tool when working with paths. Since this is all about the basics, I won’t go into details. It’s related to the Pen Tool (see below) though.

Type Tool:

It makes type. Or text. You can click a single point, and start typing right away. Or you can click and drag to make a bounding box of where your text/type goes. There’s a lot of options for the Type Tool. Just play around, it’s fairly straight-forward. The Mask Type Tool is so you can fill it with any color or effect you choose.

Pen Tool:

I mentioned this tool above. It’s for creating paths, in which you would use the Path Selection Tool to select the path. Paths can be used in a few different ways, mostly to create clipping paths, or to create selections. You use the tool by clicking to add a point. If you click and drag, it will change the shape of your path, allowing you to bend and shape the path for accurate selections.

Rectangle or Shape Tool:

By default it draws a Shape Layer in the form of a rectangle. It fills the rectangle with whatever foreground color you have selected. Of course as you can see by the picture, you have options. Play around with it and you will understand over time what they do.

Eyedropper/Ruler/Note/Count Tool:

The eyedropper tool works by changing your foreground color to whatever color you click on. Holding the [Alt] key will change your background color. The ruler tool takes a measurement for you. Just click on two spots on your image. The note tool, well, take notes of your work. Stop wasting paper and start using notes! Last but not least, the count tool. I really never use this. It puts numbers on your work.

Hand Tool:

You can really make short work of your job with the Hand Tool. It’s for moving your entire image within a window. So if you’re zoomed in and your image area is larger than the window, you can use the Hand Tool to navigate around your image. Just click and drag.

Zoom Tool:

I honestly do not know what this does. Well wait, it zooms! It does not make your image bigger, it just zooms into it.

Foreground/Background Color:

These are your color boxes. Foreground (in the front) and Background (in the back). Click on either one to bring up the color select dialog box.

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