Lots of small businesses have Photoshop but unfortunately find it all to complicated so never use it.

Our simple course will allow you to utilize Photoshop by showing you a number of simple tricks to get the most out of Photoshop for your business. These are all videos so you can watch and follow.

Below lets start on some basics

Using Images

How To Get Images Into Photoshop

You will need to have an image in order to create a file.  There are several ways that this can be done.

• If there is a file that already has an image, then click File, Open or File and then Browse.  Most files that have images will open in Photoshop.

• Create a new file.  Click File and then New.  Choose a name for the new file and go to the Preset menu and enter the information requested.

• Scan an image from a computer into Photoshop by clicking File and then Import.

How To Move An Image Around

You can move an image around in Photoshop when you are in the editing stage.  In fact, you will be able to multi-task as you zoom in and go around it.  As you’re editing, you can zoom in and out to see what you need to do as far as adjustments are concerned.  In order to do this, you should use the zoom and hand tools, and also the palette that is used for navigating.

Click or drag the image using the zoom tool.  The more your zoom in, the more the image size will increase and get larger.  You will be able to see how much the image has increased by looking at the status bar.  If you want to see it in its entirety, click on the zoom icon twice.  Use the ALT key to get out of the zoom function.

The hand tool is used to go around the image while you are still zoomed in.  You can drag the hand in order to do this.  If you want to move the image using the Navigation function, click Window and Show Navigator.

If you want to see more than one window of an image, click Window, Arrange and New Window.  This setup will help you to get in close up to an image, or at least part of it.  You will also be able to see another window while you are looking at the first image.

Size of Image, Resolution and Print Size

You will probably want to know more about sizes of images, resolution and print size.  You can do that by using the dialog box for Image Sixing.  In Photoshop, you need to open an image.  Select Image, Image Size and you’ll see the dialog box.

Pixels or picture elements make up digital images.  There is only one color in each pixel.  The number of pixels in an image has to do with width and height.  This also correlates with how large or how small you can see the display on the computer screen.  In the “Document Size” function, using width and height allude to how large or small the image will be when you print it.

Printing Images

When you want to print an image in a larger size, you should decrease the resolution.  If you need to change the size of an image before you print, make sure that the “Resampling Image” box is not checked.  While increasing the size, the resolution will decrease if you increase the width and height.  If you do the opposite of this, then the result will be the opposite.

If you’re printing an image for leisure use, using a resolution of 72 ppi can work.  However, if it is more on the line of newspapers and newsletters, you will need increased resolutions starting at 150 to 200 ppi.  For magazines, the resolutions would be higher, from 250 ppi on up.

Scanning Images In Photoshop

The image should be in the scanner, face down on the glass.  Photoshop will need to be opened.  Select “Import”, then Twain Acquire.”  Photoshop has scanning software that will open up to be used.

Choose the resolution for your image.  There is a certain dpi (dots per image) you will need.  Here are some suggestions for how you should set the dpi:

• If you are enlarging prints, you should use dpi starting at 300 or more.

• With general 1 to 1 printing, you should use dpi at 300.

• For projects that use PowerPoint or the internet, you should use dpi at 72.

Select preview and wait for the scanner to get to the scan in preview format.  Choose the selection tool to look at an area to scan in the preview.  You will probably need to adjust settings afterwards.  Select the tool icon and choose either photo or drawing.  This will help your image to look clearer and have a better contrast.

If you have other changes, such as color, balance, brightness, etc., do them only once the image has been scanned and imported to Photoshop.  You have more flexibility to make changes and other adjustments in Photoshop than you would with the software used for scanning.

In order to do this, choose the scan function and you will see “untitled document” in the image.  Using Photoshop, you can change the size of it.  Choose the edit menu and select “Image Size”.  If the graphics take up a lot of space, they can take quite of bit of time to load on a dial up modem.

So if this is your predicament, you would want to have a thumbnail size of the image.  This size would be much smaller than the image you’re trying to resize, and would take up less space.  When you create the first image in Photoshop, you will need to save it.  Then create the thumbnail size.  You would create these images from the scan.

When it’s time to save the file, there are several suffix formats you can use.  If the image is a photo and being used for the internet, use the .jpg suffix.  If the image is not a photo and being used for the internet, use the .gif suffix.

If the images come from the printer and they are of high quality, you can use .tiff or .jpg.  There is more information involved when you save an image using .tiff.  However, it comes without additional layers like .psd images have.  You would only save the image to .psd if it contained layers.

Save the file where you can easily locate it later on.  It may be helpful to create a folder and save it for images only.

Editing Images

You can do quite a bit with images when you use Photoshop.  The graphics software has plenty of components and tools that can help with editing images.  Here are some basic things that you should know when you are doing that:

Make sure that you have two images when you’re creating them.  The initial image should be used as a backup and have another copy that you can work on.  This is good to do in the event you don’t like the way the image looks or you messed up.  At least you will be able to start over.  You can also choose to use the file prior to when you made changes.  You can do this by selecting File and Revert.  Or you can choose the History palette.

If you do make some changes to images, only the part that is being changed is affected.  Usually, the changes would include the image pixels.

When making changes to an image and there is more than one layer, the changes usually only affect the newest layer.

Rotating Images

This is when you want to turn an image any way that you want when you’re using Photoshop.  In the graphics software, open the image that you wish to rotate.  Then click the rotate command located in the Image menu.  Select how much you want to turn the image by using the degrees of rotation.

If you have a certain number, choose Free and put in the number, then choose Ok.

When you save the file, use a different name.

Check the image and if you don’t like it, you can change it.  Go to the Edit menu and choose undo to reverse what you did.

Saving A Photoshop Image

You can be irritated trying to look for a saved file, only finding out that it’s not where you thought it was.  That’s nothing compared to what you would feel if you created a Photoshop file only to save it in the wrong format.  There are certain things that you can do in order to make sure that your Photoshop files are saved the correct way.

Here is the way you can save an image file in Photoshop:

Select File, Save; or you can use the Ctrl and the S key together.

Create a name for the file in the file name area.

Using the dropdown menu, get a file location.  You can use a drive or a folder to do this.  Select the file format that you will save it in.  You should flatten the files prior to saving them.  The saving process will work better that way.  Or if your image file has layers, you can use the PDF format in Photoshop.

Any additional options that you want you can include in the Save portion.  Go ahead and proceed to save the file.