Computer Graphics Lectures 4 & 5: Photoshop Tools

Study Notes

Industry-standard photo editing software for diverse tasks, from small adjustments to complex photo art.
Used for cropping, composing, correcting lighting, and enhancing photos.
Layers in Photoshop are stacked images.

Toolbar/Tool Panel: Located on the left side of the workspace, containing mouse-based tools for editing and navigation.
Tools Categorization: Organized into Move & Selection, Measurement, Retouching & Painting, Drawing & Type, and Navigation tools.
Detailed tools breakdown follows in the next sections.

Selection Tools: Move (V), Rectangular Marquee (M), Elliptical Marquee, Single Column/Row Marquees, Lasso (L), Polygonal Lasso, Magnetic Lasso, Quick Selection (W), Magic Wand (W).
Crop & Slice Tools: Crop, Perspective Crop, Slice, Slice Select.
Measuring Tools: Eyedropper (1), 3D Material Eyedropper, Color Sampler, Ruler, Note, Count.
Retouching Tools: Spot Healing Brush, Healing Brush, Patch, Content-Aware, Red Eye, Clone Stamp, Pattern Stamp, Eraser.
Painting Tools: Brush (B), Pencil, Color Replacement, Mixer Brush, History Brush, Art History Brush, Gradient (G), Paint Bucket, 3D Material Drop.
Drawing & Type Tools: Pen (P), Freeform Pen, Add/Delete/Convert Point, Horizontal Type, Vertical Type, Horizontal/Vertical Type Mask, Line, Custom Shape.
Navigation Tool: Hand (H), Rotate View (R), Zoom (Z).

Move Tool (V): Used to move layers, selections, and guides. Enabling "Auto-Select" automatically selects the clicked-on layer or group.
Lasso Tool (L): Selects free-form areas in an image.
Polygon Lasso Tool (L): Creates polygonal, straight-edged selections around objects.
Magnetic Lasso Tool (L): Automatically snaps the selection outline to object edges as cursor moves.
Rectangular Marquee Tool (M): Draws rectangular selection outlines. Holding Shift creates a square selection..
Burn Tool (O): Darkens areas painted over.
Magic Eraser Tool (E): Selects areas of similar color with a single click and permanently deletes them.
Quick Selection Tool (W): Selects objects by painting over them; "Auto-Enhance" option improves selection quality.
Magic Wand Tool (W): Selects similar-colored areas; Tolerance setting adjusts the range of colors included.
Crop Tool (C): Crops an image to remove unwanted areas.
Eyedropper Tool (I): Selects the color at the cursor location.
Rectangle Tool (U): Creates rectangular shapes (paths, pixel shapes) with sharp or rounded corners. Holding Shift creates a perfect square.
Gradient Tool (G): Creates gradual color blends; customizable gradients available.
Pen Tool (P): Precisely creates paths, vector shapes, or selections.
Brush Tool (B): Photoshop's primary painting tool.
Clone Stamp Tool (S): Samples pixels from one image area and paints over similar pixels in another area, ideal for retouching.

Pixels: Tiny colored squares on an image, often invisible to the naked eye.
Resolution (PPI/DPI): Measures the detail by the number of pixels or dots per linear inch (higher value means higher detail).
File size increases with higher resolution.
Specific print/display resolutions needed for different tasks. 72 dpi is low for print, while 300 dpi is better suited for high-resolution print.

CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key/Black): Used for printing to paper; combines these colors to create various hues.
RGB (Red, Green, Blue): Primarily used for web displays; combines these colors digitally.
Primary colors: Blue, Red, Yellow
Secondary colors: Orange, Purple, Green

Various shortcut keys for common actions in Photoshop are listed for quick access to functionalities like free transform, deselect, inverse, undo/redo and more.