How to learn Photoshop for free

In this free class stream we’ll cover the basics of Photoshop so you can get started using it for photo editing or design. You’ll learn what kinds of things you can do with Photoshop, get a live tutorial of using the app so you can get started using Photoshop for photo retouching, or to create graphics for web, social media, print, and more.

Learn More

Continue learning in our comprehensive Photoshop classes (attend Live Online or in New York City):
Photoshop Classes
Photo Retouching Certificate
Graphic Design Certificate

In this video seminar you’ll learn:

• What can Photoshop do? (many people don’t realize how much)
• Which Creative Cloud plan you should purchase
• Retouching with the Healing Brush
• Color Correction
• Layers
• Making Selections
• Adding Type
• What is the appropriate resolution for web, print, etc.?
• How to save your files (appropriate file formats)

This seminar is for people who are new to Photoshop.

Slides

The slides shown in this online seminar can be viewed at nobledesktop.com/presentation/intro-to-photoshop

Video Transcription:

Hello and welcome. My name is Dan Rodney, and I am an instructor at Noble Desktop. I teach several of the Adobe programs and some of the other classes that we offer. This tutorial will discuss Adobe Photoshop and get you started in the program. First, let’s talk about what this introduction to Photoshop will cover.

Overview

The tutorial will start with discussing what Photoshop can actually do. Most people fail to realize all the various tasks that Photoshop can perform. So you are aware of how flexible Photoshop is, it's important to note that the program is not just for photo editing. It will also help you determine which Adobe Creative Cloud plan you should purchase. You will need a Creative Cloud plan to access Photoshop.

The introduction to Photoshop will also provide a tutorial showing you how to start using Photoshop. We'll go over Photoshop basics and cover some of the fundamental concepts needed to use the program. Finally, we’ll discuss ways to continue learning after completing this course to build on those new essential skills. You can continue to develop your skillset here at Noble Desktop. We're based in New York City, and we've taught courses in Photoshop for the past 30 years.

So, what can Photoshop do? Let's go through some of these things to see the program in action. While this course will not be able to cover all of the things Photoshop can do, many students are surprised to learn of its incredible capabilities.

What Can Photoshop Do?

Photoshop for Photo Editing

As the name suggests, Photoshop is mainly used for photo editing. You are able to crop images, change colors, and remove color casts to create a certain mood within a photo. Whether you want to adjust the cool or warm tones or even create a unique appearance, Photoshop allows you to retouch and remove any elements you don’t want in your image.

You can even put photos together and composite multiple photos into a single new photo. For example, let's say you have three different photos, each with multiple people in the photo. While there's a good face in each photo, you don't have one photo where everybody is smiling or has their eyes open. Photoshop makes it easy to take their three different faces, put them together, and composite them into a single image.

All sorts of creative effects can be done within the program. You can blur backgrounds, create illustrations, and truly do so many different tasks. From simple effects to more complex editing, you can create an entirely new world right within your photo.

Now that we’ve discussed the photo editing side of Photoshop, we can move on to the design side of the program. Many Designers use Photoshop in their careers because it’s a pixel-based graphic editing tool and pixel-based design. This means you can create graphics for websites, social media, email marketing, or design an app right within the program. This means determining what the app will look like or what a website will look like.

There is also a capability to do print design right in the program. Essentially, Photoshop is a great tool for when you’re working with text and graphics.

In some instances, Photoshop may not be the most appropriate program. For example, if you’re working on a multi-page document, Adobe InDesign may be a better choice. Adobe Illustrator would be a better program for creating logos or drawings. 

Overall, Photoshop is extremely versatile and can assist with a wide variety of graphic design projects. You can even create patterns with the pattern maker for web page graphics, fashion designers, and numerous other tasks.

Photoshop for Animation

You can even animate and create simple animated GIFS with Photoshop. These animations are used for emails, social media, and email marketing. Animated GIFs are extremely popular in email marketing, and Photoshop is an excellent tool to create these simple GIFs. 

Photoshop is more geared toward simple animation, but it is possible to integrate your work with other Adobe Programs. For example, you can design a graphic in Photoshop using its tools and then move that graphic into programs like Adobe After Effects to work on more complicated animation tasks. After Effects is great complex animation, so you can design your graphic in Photoshop and then move it to After Effects and animate it. With the ability to import Photoshop files directly into After Effects, this process is simple and quick. 

Photoshop for Video Editing

Believe it or not, Photoshop can even do minor video editing. However, these are only basic video editing tasks. If you need more advanced video editing capabilities, Adobe Premiere Pro is an excellent choice.

So, you may be wondering why they even put video editing tools into Photoshop? Essentially, Photoshop has gained the reputation of being the “Swiss Army Knife” of Adobe Apps. With the number of people that have learned Photoshop over its 30 years of development, Adobe has added different features for those who need additional functions.

When you’re first learning Photoshop, you won’t need all of these functions right away. Generally speaking, most people will not use or need these things. It’s important to focus on the parts you want and need to learn. 

This means that if you are a photographer, just focus on the photo editing side to get started. If you’re a designer, just focus on the design side. Fashion designers should learn the functions specific to fashion design, like patterns, and marketing professionals can focus on the animation side of the program. 

Don’t feel like you have to learn everything in Photoshop. No single person knows everything about the program or every technique. Even when you’ve mastered the software, you may find the tools you already know used in a different way than you’ve ever considered before.

Overall, Photoshop is very flexible, and you can use it in many different ways. It’s important not to let that discourage you from learning the program. Use it as encouragement and motivation that there are ample tasks you can complete in Photoshop and that the platform will continue to grow for years to come. If you continue to grow with the program, you will gain new knowledge and master new skills.

Looking back at video editing, one of the main reasons it may have been added to Photoshop was for ease of use and convenience. For example, if a photographer needs to create a quick video, it’s easier to do it directly in their editing program rather than learn entirely new software like Premiere Pro. Even though Premiere Pro is a more advanced video editing program, the photographer is going to have an easier time working directly in Photoshop. This can help make the process quicker and exporting files simpler while eliminating the need to learn a new program.

The video editing tools found in Photoshop are just a part of the large array of features they offer. It’s helpful for those who want to work directly in the program without having to learn something new. Next, let’s take a deeper look into the different things you can do in Photoshop and go over some real-world examples of these functions. It’s important to note that this tutorial will not cover every tool within Photoshop, though Noble Desktop offers additional courses covering the program.

Retouching

Retouching removes unwanted elements from your photos. Here, we have a before and an after photo. In the original, some bright spots that took away from the photo quality. Retouching allows us to go in and remove all of those unwanted areas. You can gain a more in-depth understanding of this in our Photoshop In a Day or Photoshop Bootcamp classes.

Color Adjustment

There is also the capability for color adjustment. Looking at this photo, there is the “technically correct” color and the color you feel that you’d like the image to be. For example, in the beginning, the image is warm and has reddish tones. But technically speaking, the koalas are gray. This shows us that the initial warm, reddish color was not correct. We were able to correct it to be a more neutral gray in the “after” image. 

However, it’s important to note that you don’t always have to be “officially correct” with the colors in your images. When you consider platforms like Instagram, there are filters that transform images. They don’t look like “normal life,” just as many movies have colors that don't reflect real life. The images have a certain color aesthetic. We often like to create a feeling with our color, contrast, and how an image looks. You can go for realism, true and proper color, or you can skew it in any way that you want. 

Special Effects

You can also do special effects. Looking at this image, it was just the simple task of blurring the wheels to make it look like they were spinning. We did this by blurring both of the wheels and also blurring the background, so it looks like it’s moving as well. 

These are animated GIFs created in Photoshop to show examples of things built in Photoshop.

Designs for Social Media & More

Moving on from photography to design, you can use Photoshop to design different types of content for social media and marketing. Whether it’s digital prints, combining text created in the program, retouching, or color correcting images, you can work with them in Photoshop. You can even bring in logos and vector artwork from Adobe Illustrator, combine the content altogether and export the image to upload to social media or to print or put on a website.

Here you can see a simple social media graphic where the background image was edited. If it was a color image, it may have been converted to black and white with this color applied to tie into the color scheme of this graphic.

Essentially, the graphic was brought in, and text and drop shadows were added. This is a great example of a social media graphic that could be designed in Photoshop.

Animated GIFs

As we discussed earlier, animated GIFs are extremely popular in emails. This is helpful for any people in marketing that want to learn how to create simple animated GIFS for social media or emails in Photoshop. 

Here we have an example of a frame-by-frame style animation, where the GIF shows one picture after another.

Other types of animations may not be static with repetitive pictures. For example, looking back at some of our class projects, it could show simple basic text or more complex animations. 

This example here shows animation that’s a little more complex, as it has to move on a certain path. However, you can build these up in Photoshop. You can even take a video into Photoshop and export it as an animated GIF. This is extremely helpful because videos don’t work well in emails, but animated GIFs do. 

If you need to create more complex animations, there will be a point where Photoshop is not the best choice. After Effects is a much better choice for complex animations. However, you are able to create a design in Photoshop before transferring it over to animate it in After Effects.

Here we have another example, which we actually do in our After Effects class. Essentially, we laid the design out in Photoshop before moving it into After Effects to do the animation. We made the type fall in, and the icons slide over the GIF. Though we initially designed this as a static image, we were able to integrate it into After Effects and animate it.

If you’re an Animator, you will probably spend time working in programs like After Effects. A lot of designers are unfamiliar with After Effects and don’t know how to animate. It’s more likely these designers will know how to work with Photoshop or Illustrator. They would design the graphics in those programs before moving them into After Effects for further animation.

Web Design

Here's an example of a responsive website that has been designed in Photoshop. Photoshop has been used and is continued to be used by a lot of designers that already know the program to design websites or applications. However, there are newer design tools that are more effective for designing websites. 

Adobe XD was created by Adobe as a new design tool for both website design and app design. Adobe XD is essentially their version of Sketch, which is made by a different company. These apps are better tools for designing websites, but some people prefer to use Photoshop for this type of work and will continue to over time.

Here we have an example of how it would look on a phone, tablet, and desktop.

So, you have the ability to mock up how it will look across different screen sizes and optimize the graphics. While Photoshop is capable of designing websites, it’s not the best choice for things like UX design. This is because there are no prototyping tools built into the program. Now, you can take your designs into another program like Invision to do the prototyping, but as far as a workflow goes, it's better to use an integrated design tool like Adobe XD or Sketch.

Within Adobe XD, you can design, create different screen size designs, prototype, and animate all within one design tool rather than using Photoshop. So, you can do web design tasks in Photoshop, and we teach you how to do that here in one of our classes. We also teach Adobe XD and Sketch, so look into those programs if you want to learn the proper web design tools.

As a Web Designer, I'm still going to use Photoshop to do the retouching and graphics that support that. I'm going to retouch my photos, color correct them, and then take them into Adobe XD. This means that Photoshop still is part of the web design workflow, but I wouldn't be using it as my main web design tool. 

Unless you're working at a company that is already using Photoshop and you just want to fit into that workflow, Adobe XD and Sketch are better choices for web design and app design programs.

Essentially, that's an overview of things that you can do in Photoshop. Before we move on to our live demonstration of using Photoshop, we will quickly cover the different Adobe Creative Cloud plans. If you don't have Photoshop or are confused by the different plans, this section will help to provide some clarity and ensure you purchase the right option.

Adobe Creative Cloud Plans

We’re going to start by covering the Photography Plan. When you purchase the Photography Plan, you get three apps: Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, and Lightroom. You may be wondering why they offer two Lightroom apps. Let’s take a deeper look at this.

Lightroom Classic is the original version of the program and is used by a lot of photographers. It’s the older, more capable program of the two.

Lightroom is a newer, simpler app that essentially was reimagined from scratch. While Lightroom Classic was once just called “Lightroom” there was a change in names to create a distinction between the two.

While Lightroom is the newer app, it’s truly not as capable as the original version. It doesn’t have as many tools or functions as Lightroom Classic. Another big difference is that the newer Lightroom is a “cloud-first” program. This means that all of your images have to be stored online in your Creative Cloud storage.

Now, the main benefit of cloud storage is that you can access your images from any device. You will be able to access your content from your phone, tablet, Mac, or PC. With everything being stored online, it means you can access it anywhere and everywhere. 

It’s important to remember that every single photo you have in Lightroom must be stored online.

These apps are management apps, which means they allow you to manage your photos. This entails everything from importing images to editing. Photoshop is more for the creative side, and when you can't achieve what you need to in Lightroom. If you’re a photographer and need to import, manage, organize, and edit your images, Lightroom or Lightroom Classic can still work for you.

Overall, it’s good as a photo management tool. However, when you hit a wall in Lightroom and can’t do what you need, you can move over to Photoshop. Photoshop can perform nearly any task and takes away any creative limits. It’s a great tool for nearly any task, especially if you are compositing images or doing work that requires great attention to detail.

While Photoshop has more tools than Lightroom, it is not a photo management tool. It doesn't let you organize your library photos, while Lightroom does, which is why I like to use Lightroom Classic. That's what a lot of photographers use because we don't want to store our vast image library completely online. Depending on your library, there may not be enough Creative Cloud storage to do that.

With the photography plan, you get all three apps. There is a “Lightroom Only” plan where you just get the new Lightroom and no other programs.

Looking at the Adobe website, you can see the 3 Photography plans and the “All Apps” plan, which is great if you want to get the entire Creative Cloud. Since this is a Photoshop seminar, there’s a good chance you’re just interested in Photoshop. 

Next, let’s look at the price points. It’s important to note that the pricing may change if you are located in another country. The prices listed here are U.S. pricing. Overall, there are still two price points for the photography plans.

If you get the full Photography plan with less online storage, you're going to get Photoshop, Lightroom (the new version,) Lightroom Classic, and Photoshop. You will get all three apps for $10 per month. This plan also comes with 20 GB of online storage.

There is a photography plan that offers all of the same programs with additional online storage. The plan is an extra $10 per month and provides 1TB of storage.

If you just want to use the new Lightroom and not Photoshop or Lightroom Classic, you can purchase the Lightroom plan to get 1TB of storage for just $10 per month. However, the most affordable way to get Photoshop is with the photography plan at $10 per month.

While that is the cheapest way to get Photoshop itself, the “All Apps” plan may be more appropriate if you need a variety of applications. With the “All Apps” plan, you will receive 20+ apps of the entire Creative Cloud. These plans here are more focused on the Photoshop side. Now that we’ve discussed the different Creative Cloud plans, let's get started with Photoshop.

Essential Photoshop Tools

Now, you can open Photoshop. I have it launched here, and I'm going to open up some photos for us to work with. 

When you go to file > open for the first time, the program will ask whether you want to open documents from the cloud or from your computer.

If I want to open up something from my computer, which I do, I can click on my computer, and it will switch over so I can see my files. If I want to switch back to cloud documents, I can always click back over to open cloud documents and get back to that window.

*When you go to open a file in the future, it will default to the previous choice you selected.

Since I chose my computer, it stayed on that option. If I ever want to go back to the cloud, I can do that. The advantage of cloud documents is that they're accessible across devices. There is a Photoshop app for iPad, but it's not as fully featured as the desktop version of Photoshop. 

They are building the Photoshop iPad version up, and I’m sure they will continue to add more features to this version of Photoshop over the years. 

So, if you have cloud documents, you can access them on your iPad, for example, and or your Mac. But I'm going to open this up from my computer. This happens to be a photo from Unsplash.com.

If you’re unfamiliar with Unsplash.com, this is a website where you can get free, high-quality stock imagery. Of course, if you're a photographer and you're shooting your own images, you can retouch your own images. But if you're doing marketing or design and you're looking for free, decent quality images, you can do a search here for what you need.

Once you find an image you like, you can click it on to download it. All of the images on this website can be used commercially for free with no attribution. While you’re not required to give credit, it’s good to support photographers and provide credit.

As you can see, I've downloaded that JPEG and just renamed it. Now, let's take a look at retouching this image.

Zoom and Navigation

First, let’s look at zooming in and out and navigating around your documents. You can select the zoom tool in the toolbar and drag the image to the right or left to zoom in/out. Where you drag in/out is the area that will zoom.

As you can see, I’m zooming in and out on the forehead and the ripped part of her jeans. Just put your cursor where you want to zoom and drag left or right. It is similar to a scrubber on the screen that allows you to drag back and forth to zoom in/out.

Once you are zoomed in, the scroll bars are not the most efficient way to move around the file. Instead, these Adobe design apps have a hand tool that allows you to drag around your image. You can drag in any direction, including diagonally. It’s similar to scrolling without having to tediously grab the scrollbar.

Zooming in/out and navigating around your image are done frequently, which is why there are keyboards for these things. You can find these commands when looking at the zoom in and zoom out option in the menu bar.

Keyboard command for zoom in and zoom out:

Mac: command, plus (+) or minus (-)

Windows: control, plus (+) or minus (-)

If you are zoomed in and want to scroll around, hold the spacebar on your keyboard. This eliminates the need to keep grabbing the hand tool and allows you to scroll regardless of what tool you’re currently in.

To zoom out and see the entire image, go back to the menu and select fit on screen.

Keyboard command for fit on screen:

Mac: command, zero

Windows: control, zero

Retouching and Layers

Looking at this image, there are some things we want to get rid of. These bright lights and red areas take away from the subject when we want to focus on her.

When you’re working, it’s extremely important to pay attention to the layer you’re currently on. Layers are where pixels live, and pixels are little square blocks. Photoshop is a pixel-based program.

If we zoom in, eventually, we're going to see all of these little pixels that are making up our image. And by default, there's this white kind of outline around all those pixels. Personally, I'm not a big fan of that white outline.

You can turn that outline off by going to view > show and uncheck pixel grid. 

When you boil an image down to its core, it's really just little square blocks of color. Those blocks are called pixels, and a layer is a layer of pixels. It's just a layer of square blocks. 

You can have additional layers put on top of other layers. However, in this image and particular layer, there’s just one set of colors. There’s no color behind it or in front of it on this layer.

The reason it’s important to pay attention to your layers and pixels is that you may be unknowingly permanently changing the background layer. For example, if I grab my paintbrush tool, and then I come down here and see that my foreground color is black, I'm going to be painting with my foreground color. When I make those marks, it’s actually permanently changing the background layer.

If I were to save this file and close it, the image would be permanently changed. The information that used to be under the black is now gone. It’s not going to be there anymore because I replaced the pixels that were once there with black pixels. Those pixels don’t remember what used to be there, as they are completely changed to black. Once you save and close out of the file, there is no memory of what used to be there.

As of right now, Photoshop does have an undo function that can reverse the last change made to the file. However, if you save and close out of the file, the undo function will not be there.

Whenever you’re doing pixel-based changes, you must remember it’s permanently changing those pixels. When you're working on one layer, you only have one color. It's either the previous color or it's black. 

You can create additional layers. If you create an additional layer, then this is now a new place where I can add things without affecting the background layer. There is a top to bottom ordering in Photoshop, meaning whichever layer is underneath is going to be behind.

You can use the move tool to move the different layers. I am able to just click on them because the auto select layer is turned on. This means that anything you click on will automatically select the correct layer and move it around. For example, you can see the black marks are covering over the red marks assuming they're on top of it.

At any point, I can delete one of these layers. If I just want these red marks, I could delete the black ones by dragging them to the trash. Essentially, it's through layers that we're building added ability into our documents. It's how we build a memory of what used to be there.

As long as you keep your layer documents, when you come back to the file at a later date, you'll be able to have access to all of these different individual layers. You will be able to turn the individual layers on and off, and if you don't like something, you can drag it to the trash to get rid of it. 

Remember that when you save your file, you have to make sure that you save it in a way that supports layers for your editable file. This is the one that you're working with throughout your project.

When I save this, I'm going to save it to my computer. I'm not going to save it as a cloud document. I'll select don't show this again and choose to save it to my computer. If you ever do want to go back to cloud documents, you can always choose to save them to your cloud documents. 

When maximized compatibility pops up, select don’t show again. You should leave the box checked on. Be sure you are saving them as a Photoshop file.

Photoshop files support layers. This means that all of your layers will be saved properly if you save it as a Photoshop file. You should watch your file formats because not all of them support layers. For example, if you save your file as a JPEG, it will prompt you to save it as a copy because it does not support layers.

Once you open the file backup, all of the layers that are saved with your file will be there. That’s how you are able to go back and make additional changes later on. If you decide you don’t like an edit, you are able to drag it to the trash and get rid of it.

While Photoshop has the ability to undo, those on undos aren’t saved with the file. You should not view the undo function as a permanent tool you can go back on later. Once you’ve closed the file, it’s gone.

History Panel

You can look at your edit history by selecting history under the window section of the menu. You can see all of the edits we made to the layers of this image. This file is open, so I'm able to go back and see all of these changes. The next time I come to this file, it will all be gone. The history is only available while the file is open. As soon as you save and close the file, the history is gone.

Take the time to ensure you’re maintaining your layers throughout the project because that’s how you’re going to be able to come back into the document and make changes.

All of that was to show the importance of layers and to stay aware when working in those layers for retouching and getting rid of unwanted elements. You could work directly on the background layer, but you risk making changes that affect the original photo. This also eliminates the possibility of having a “before” and “after” image. It’s great to get perspective and compare the two.

I like to leave my background layer as the original image that I'm starting to work with, and I will create a copy of the background layer to do my retouching on.

Create a Copy

You can create a copy by dragging the layer down to the new icon. You don’t want to click on it, but actually, drag it down to the icon. You can also go to the menu and select layer > new > new layer via copy. 

Keyboard shortcut for create a copy:

Mac: command, J

Windows: control, J

You can rename your new layer copy. I’ll call this my “retouching” layer because that’s where we’re going to do some editing. 

Spot Healing Brush

To start getting rid of these things, we want to make sure the “retouching” layer is selected. There are several tools we can use to get rid of these spots. First, let’s look at the spot healing brush, which is a great tool to get rid of unwanted spots.

Start by selecting the tool and then check to see if your brush is the appropriate size. This brush is too small, so we can change it. At the top of the options bar, you can set various options like the tool options. For example, when I switch to another tool, I see a completely different set of options.

Once you select the tool you want to work with, you can set its options. Here, I can change the size of the brush. You want to select a brush that’s close to the size of whatever you want to remove. I don’t want it to be too big because I need to paint over the area you want to get rid of.

Generally, a brush that is just a bit smaller than what you are working with is a good starting point. You can then drag over the area of what you want to remove. Once you let go, it will go through and remove the selected area. Sometimes, it is amazing, and sometimes, it’s just okay. This can depend on what you’re trying to get rid of.

In this case, it's leaving a little bit of unevenness. I think in this case, it's hard because there are distinct straight lines going across. Looking at an area like the ripped part of her jeans, it will work a bit better. Find the appropriate brush size and cover over everything that you don’t like. You want to cover the area to where there is only what you want left remaining outside the brush. 

Look how great that worked on the ripped jeans. This tool is really, really good.

To summarize, the spot healing brush is good for working on smaller spots. It can deal with bigger areas, but it functions best when repairing small sections. You don’t have to know what to put in the area. All you have to do is cover over the whole area, and when you let go, everything inside the brush covering will be “healed.” While it doesn’t work in every situation, it’s a great tool that performs really well. Photoshop does a great job at guessing what should go in place of the removed area. 

Note that I applied the spot healing brush to the “retouching” layer. If I hide the retouching layer, underneath it is the original background layer.

So, I actually have two copies of my image. The retouched and the original one down below. To better understand what’s happening, we’ll use the move tool to select the “retouching” layer and move it aside. There are two versions of the photo that are sitting exactly on top of each other.

A Note About Creative Suite 6 (CS6)

CS6 is the Adobe Creative Suite 6. It is over ten years old, and Adobe does not officially support it anymore. You may be able to install it on your machine with the indefinite license offered with the last version. Some of the things in this tutorial may not be in CS6 or might be different in terms of location.

When it comes to using tools, if you don't see one, it might be hidden underneath another tool. So, you can click and hold to switch to a different tool. For example, if you don't see the paint brush, maybe you're on the pencil tool, and you can click and hold to choose a new tool.

The program kind of groups related tools together. If you're not finding the one you want, like these are the healing tools for healing photographs, they're all behind one group. You can click and hold and get to all of those related tools.

Regular Healing Brush

Let's keep working with some of these retouching features. The spot healing brush we just worked with is essentially Photoshop guessing what should be put there. Sometimes it does an amazing job at guessing and then sometimes it doesn't.

This might be hard for you to see, but this area is a bit splotchy. This is because the background is so smooth and the lines are so straight, I need to give Photoshop some additional help. For this, I’m going to use the regular healing brush instead of the spot healing brush.

To summarize, spot healing brush is just Photoshop guessing what it thinks it should put in the area. However, we can use the regular healing brush to tell it what to put there. 

Using the healing brush tool is a two-part process, as you need to tell it what you want to copy and where you want to paint it in.

You should start by choosing the appropriate brush size. A brush around the size of what you’re working on, or just a bit smaller, is best to paint the area. The process is similar to copy, paint and blend. 

We have to tell the brush what to put there. If you just try to click on the area, you will receive an error message. Instead, use this keyboard shortcut to define what you want to copy.

Mac: option > click

Windows: alt > click

This is not a literal copy-paste, but more like copy and paint. As you can see, I’m going to try to line up the lines here and define this as the source. Now that I have this in my cursor and can go and paint this wherever I need. As I start to paint, it’s also going to start blending in right away. I need to cover the whole area to finish the full blending and help the image look better.

This section looks smoother now because I was able to tell it what to put there. I was also able to control the blending and ensure it was going in a straight line with the flow of the background. I will do a demonstration again now so you can see that the key is to keep the mouse held down the entire time while painting over the area.

If you cover over the entire area that you want to get rid of, it blends that into the surrounding areas beautifully for you. It does a really nice job in most instances. 

Remember: Mac = option > click or Windows = alt > click where you think it belongs before painting over the area completely. Be sure to get all of it in one pass by holding down the mouse the entire time to get rid of it entirely.

One common mistake people make is trying to whittle it away, piece by piece. They will do their option/alt click but continue to click on the area to try and blend it. While this is somewhat effective, the main problem is that the program is trying to blend a “good” area into where you’re painting.

Instead, you need to tell the program what is part of the bad area. You should try and do this in one sweep. You need to paint over the entire area with the mouse held down. This will allow the tool to look around the outside area and fully pull in all of the good areas for a successful blend. Be sure to try and accomplish this all in one shot.

Looking at the before and after of this image, we are able to see that we’ve eliminated some of the distracting light areas in the background. We don’t need to worry about the remaining spot, as we can crop that off. Now, you can see why I like to have a layer where I can show a before and after.

Crop Tool

Now, we can crop off any areas we don’t want in our image. Start by going to the crop tool and moving the crop grid to determine where it looks best. For this image, we will try to line her up in the middle to keep the symmetrical aspects of this shot. The crop eliminates extra space on the top of the image and creates a better composition in this case. We eliminated the distracting background, so we are able to look at her face rather than the lights or rips on her jeans.

There weren’t a lot of things won't with the image, but there may be some additional changes we can make like creative color changes or brightness/contrast changes. Let’s switch to a different image to explore working with color before we come back and make any changes to this one.

This is an image I took on a trip to Maui, Hawaii. It’s a photo of a large bridge, just smaller by the massive 10,000 foot tall Mount Haleakala. 

The composition in this photo is good, but the color and the contrast are a bit lackluster. We need more contrast to the dark areas, and the color appears washed out. We could add some warmth to this photo by fixing the color and contrast. Remember to focus on your layers while you are working on the image.

If we're working with layers, we can do two different types of image adjustments. We can do image adjustments, which are going to directly change the layer that we're working on. Or you can make layer adjustments. 

If you're making layer adjustments, these are going to be done as a separate layer. Most of the functions you can do under image adjustments can also be done under layer adjustments. Not everything, but the majority of things can be done as a separate layer. 

For example, let's look at image adjustments here. 

Brightness and Contrast

It’s important to note that you don’t have the most control when using the brightness and contrast tool. While you can increase the contrast to darken your darks, you are also brightening your brights.

While this is just for demonstration purposes, let’s adjust the contrast and blow this out intentionally. Be sure to note how the background is changing. If you toggle the “preview” section on or off, you can see these changes. This is changing the pixels in the background layer.Changing the pixels is a destructive, permanent image adjustment.

I do have the file open, so I could go back and undo this. However, let’s pretend I save this file, close it, and open it back up. Once I re-open the file, there’s not going to be any history or record of what these things used to be. I permanently changed the pixels. This is a problem because I'm starting out from this current state. It does not remember how it used to be, so I'd only be darkening from here. And if I tried to do that, what you're going to notice is we damage the image irreparably.

We’ve now caused massive harm to this image. Look at the sky and note these harsh bands of color. While I can bring some of this back, we removed too much useful information. Thankfully, I haven’t closed this file, and I can go back to undo these changes.

Note the differences between this original image and all of the information we had in this same area. Moral of the story, try to stay away from image adjustments and do them as layer adjustments instead.

Layer Adjustment

Now, we’re going to make these changes as a layer adjustment so that it’s done as a separate layer. On the right, you can see the brightness and contrast settings where we can make the same changes as before without destructing the image. When it’s done as a single layer, we can turn it off or back on.

Instead of being destructive, think of it as putting a pair of sunglasses on. When the sunglasses are on, the world looks darker but doesn’t actually get any darker. You can always take the sunglasses off to see the world as it was before.

You can do things through adjustment layers by going to layer > adjustment layers and selecting what you need or through the button in the layers panel. You can adjust things like your brightness and contrast with this.

The layers panel is typically stored here on the right side, so it doesn’t cover your image. Normally, you would go to the button, select your type of adjustment, and the settings would appear here. You can adjust things, and it will not cover your image.

You can turn the adjustment layer on and off or click on it to see your history. For example, if you blow out the highlights, when you come back, you're going to see that history. This allows you to just pull it back, and it's as though you never did it.

Remember, this is a nondestructive edit as long as you’re saving your file with layers. You are not harming the image by using adjustment layers. If I save this file, close it, and come back to it, the layer is still there. We could drag the changes to the trash, and it would be as though the adjustment was never made.

When it comes to color correcting, adjusting contrast, and adjusting color, understanding some fundamentals about color itself will truly help you to better understand Photoshop. For example, let’s open this RGB file.

When we take a picture, we capture files as red, green, and blue, as that is what our monitors are made of and digital cameras capture. They're the primaries of light and understanding, so that will help you to understand how Photoshop thinks about color and how you can work with color in Photoshop.

Imagine that you are looking at a pitch-black room. We turned out all of the lights because RGB is the primary of lights. You shine a red flashlight on the white wall in the pitch-black room. You will see red because you’re shining a red light. 

Next, you shine a green light. Where the green overlaps with the red will turn yellow. If you shine a blue light, you will see magenta where the red and blue overlap. If you shine all three lights on top of each other, the center white area is the presence of all colors of light.

You’re adding light, and light is brightness. This means you’re getting brighter and brighter because you’re starting with the lack of light. Black is the absence of light. As you start to add light, it will get brighter and brighter. 

We call this an additive color process because you’re adding light to get light. The brighter it gets with the more colors added, the close you get to white. You start with nothing and build up towards white. However, you might be thinking, what is this? How does this relate to color?

You will be able to see the relation to color in Photoshop once we get into the interface of color adjustments. For example, red and cyan are opposites of each other. The same goes for green and magenta and yellow and blue. This sense of opposites is extremely helpful when retouching an image. This means if you want to make something more cool, you want it more towards the blue and less yellow.

It can be helpful to think about these opposites like “hot” and “cold.” You can’t be hot and cold at the same time. If you were in the middle, you would be neutral - neither hot nor cold. You can go back and forth but cannot feel hot and cold simultaneously. This is similar to a spectrum on a slider, sliding back and forth. Think of it as a slider between the colors green and magenta or red and cyan. 

Color Balance

Looking at our image, we need to add more warmth, and there’s a variety of ways to do this with color corrections. We’re going to start with balancing color as an adjustment layer. With color balance, you will get these three sliders that range from yellow and blue, green and magenta, and red and cyan.

You can use this slider to go more towards the yellow or blue, for example. When you’re first starting out with color, try to see the extremes of each color. Experiment and see what an image looks like with too much yellow or too much blue. This can help you find your sweet spot for an image. When you’re first getting used to color, your eyes can work against you. The human eye wants to see what color it thinks is the correct color, while your mind knows what colors things should be.

It’s essentially telling you - yes, that’s the right color. It can identify color even if it doesn’t look exactly like the color. You want to experiment so you can see these extremes and understand the spectrum of color. 

This can help you to find your sweet spot and identify what feels right in an image. If you want to make it more warm, you don’t want to go too warm it appears yellowed. Similarly, if you want to make it more cool, you want to avoid going so cool it looks blue. Finding a sweet spot in the middle is ideal. 

If you’re looking to make it more warm, it’s important to note that yellowed images don’t always look the best. This is because the sun is actually made up of a mixture of yellow and red. If you make something more orange, it will feel more similar to the sun. These sliders are extremely helpful when you’re just getting started because they provide you with instructions on which way to adjust the color. 

If you turn the layer on and off, you can see the difference from changing the color. This image is currently in the midtones or the middle tones. There are also shadows, which are darker tones, and highlights, which are the lighter tones. We can adjust anywhere from lights to middles and darks. 

In this image, there is a lot that is light. I can switch to the highlights to make some changes there. You will see a lot of changes with this due to the sunlit areas in the image. We can make this more yellow and mix in red to bring out the warmth of the sun. Remember, the sun isn’t just yellow - it’s an orange mixture of red and yellow.

Next, let's look at shadows. Now, you could go and just make everything in the photo very warm, but it might be too much at that point. This depends on your feelings and what you’re going for. You could also cool off the shadows, as they tend to be cooler.

You could use a bit of cyan to make the highlights warmer from the sun, or you could add blue to cool off the sandy areas. Experimenting with the slider can help you find the sweet spot when there is warmth in the sunny areas and coolness in the shadows.

You’ve got the color adjustment layer that you can save as your Photoshop file. If you ever want to come back and make changes, you can reopen the file, and the layer will still be there. You can see the history and change the settings whenever you want. This is because Photoshop files support layers, while files like JPEG do not support layers. You would need to save your JPEG as a Photoshop file, at least while you’re working. You may transfer it back to a JPEG to post online, but we will discuss that in more detail later in the tutorial.

Revisiting contrast, we use this adjustment to make things brighter and darker. If we're doing brightness and contrast, the brightness and contrast adjustment itself is a bit limited. This is because both the darks and brights are changing. We don’t have independent control over what's happening to those darks and lights.

Levels and Curves

To make those more detailed changes, we can use levels or curves. Starting with levels, this is called a histogram. A histogram is a visual representation of how many pixels are in a certain tone. The term tone is meant to mean midtones, highlights, and shadows. When looking at levels, The middle tones are 50% gray, meaning they’re not lights or darks. On the left side, that’s the blackest black, and the right side has highlights. 

This is a point of reference for your lightest light, darkest black, and the middle tones that come in between. The higher the peaks, the more pixels in that particular tonal range. We can see on this image a lot of peaks darker than 50% but notice how that flatlines out to nothing in the super dark area. There’s nothing from the dark gray all the way through black because the image lacks deep black color. Looking at the highlights, you can see we do have nice white highlights throughout. You can see the different tones throughout the image, but the flatlining of the dark area is concerning. 

This area here represents the truest, darkest black. If I pull this over, notice what happens to the image. I'm reassigning my deepest black to pixels that I actually have in my image. You don't want to bring that over too far because you're now saying that this, and everything to the left is all solid black and it's called clipping. You've clipped off your shadows, you've blown them out and lost detail.

You don't want to go further than when you see some pixels start to appear. You can just pull off the dead zone and clip that off. Now, you will have deeper blacks after assigning the darkest black to a pixel you have in the image. Before, we were just wasting it on pixels that didn’t even exist in this image. It was around 90% gray but not a true black. Once we pull this over, we have a nice, deep black.

These changes are only applying to the darks, meaning the highlights stay as they are. This creates a punchy, dark area, which is nicer for this photo. This gives you more control over the adjustments when compared to the brightness and contrast slider. 

Grouping Layers

Once you start working with multiple layers, it’s helpful to hide and show all of them together. Now, we will group these together so you can learn this helpful tool. What you want to do is click on one layer and then shift click on another to select that range of layers. You will then want to select layers > group layers to throw them into a single group. 

Now, with one click, I can hide and show both of those layers in that group. This allows us to see the total before and after. We can see that I've warmed up the photo, and I've made the blacks deeper. So I've gotten nice, deep, dark shadows without blowing out the detail on them.

Moving back to our original image, we can do something similar on this one with the color, brightness, or contrast. We don’t need an overall adjustment, but maybe darkening the blacks or changing the background.

Looking at this image from a creative standpoint, the background is bright. While we can’t always change the physical background in public spaces, we can edit that section of distracting lighting. We can make the subject appear brighter than the background to help her stand out even more. Everything I've done so far in this tutorial has just been for the whole image. 

What if we want to do it to just part of an image we don't want to do to the whole thing?

Making a Selection

There are a variety of ways you can make a selection in Photoshop. For example, the lasso tool lets you custom draw a selection. Our subject is a complex selection, so we don’t want to try and trace her manually with this tool.

Under the select menu, there is a feature called select subjects. While this function does not always work, there are instances where it does. Before starting, be sure that you have the right layers selected. I am going to select the retouching layer and then select > subject. Photoshop will then go in and guess what it thinks is the subject matter. Sometimes, it does a great job, and other times, it doesn’t. 

Looking at this image generically, it looks okay. When we look more closely and zoom in, it’s hard to tell whether this is a good selection or not. It seems as though it cut in too much and didn’t get a perfect selection. Sometimes, you’ll have to be careful with your selections, while other times, it will be easier. 

Let’s look at some extreme changes. For example, let’s select the lasso tool. If I lasso an area and use a levels adjustment to make the area darker, you will see a crisp, sharp edge. If you had a soft, diffuse edge, you wouldn’t notice that. This is called feathering, and you can do that by clicking the select and mask button or select > select and mask. In this mode, you can preview this on different backgrounds to see what it looks like. 

With the feather option, you can make that edge very soft or very hard, which is the default. If I create a soft edge selection that is feathered, you won’t notice the harsh line when you go to your adjustment layer. Notice how I can lighten or darken that and barely can see the changes. This is due to the soft edge. 

Looking at this image, as long as the edge around the subject is soft, you probably won’t notice changes too much. I don’t want to make this too soft, or it will make her look as though she’s glowing. 

Let’s look into this further. If I go in and select > subject, it will create the selection around her. I will then click select and mask and zoom in on her. The tool did a good job, though it’s not quite perfect. There is a hard and ragged edge here, which is where we will go in and feather it.

In addition to the feather tool, there is also a smoothness option we can use to round it all out. I want to make sure there is no hard, distinct edge here. As long as it’s soft enough for the type of changes I’m going to make, I don’t have to worry about it being perfect. We could definitely go in and clean it up further, but it will be fine for the changes we’re going to make.

As it stands now, any changes we make would be applied to the subject. I want to darken the background, so I’m going to select the opposite.

We’re going to select > inverse to get the background to darken it. Now, the background is selected, and we can adjust it. If we do a levels adjustment and grab this, it will brighten the brightest bright. However, if we select this one down below, it limits the brightest bright. So this actually limits and says, okay, the brightest white can be white, but now the brightest white can only be this kind of gray. 

With this image and background, we do actually want to limit that and darken it down. I can also grab the midtones and darken them, so it only affects the background and not the subject. Now that she’s starting to pop off of the background a bit more, we can also brighten her a bit. 

Let’s go back in and reselect the last edit we made to restore the previous selection. Now that’s the background, not her. 

Let me once again inverse my selection to get her. I can do another levels adjustment and brighten up the midtones. I will keep the shadows dark to help pop her a little bit.

At this point, I’ve done a bunch of layers and would like to see a total before and after. Click on one layer, hold shift, and group those layers together with the group layers selection. You can now see a total before and after of the image. We removed unwanted, distracting elements from the background and darkened up that background to create a greater focus on the subject.

As long as you save this as a Photoshop file, all of those layers will remain intact. Even if you save, close the file, and come back another day, it will be there, ready to edit. The history of the file will not be there after closing, but all of the layers will remain there.

Graphics

Now that we’ve covered retouching an image, we can look at the graphics side of Photoshop. What if you want to bring in a logo or add some type? If I have an Illustrator log, I could copy and paste from Illustrator if I needed to. 

You can also place graphics, photos, logos, or icons, whether you created them yourself or downloaded them from an online website. Let’s place an embedded graphic into this file. You don’t want to create a link because you will need to keep the original file. We just want to embed the graphic directly into the file.

We’re going to select place embedded to insert the graphic. We have an EPS file from Adobe Illustrator. This could also be an Adobe AI Illustrator file, or I could copy and paste from Illustrator. 

Sometimes, you may receive a logo from a company, and it will be an Illustrator file or EPS file. These are vector graphics, meaning they are not made of pixels. They are clean, crisp vector files. This specific logo is very small, so we need to resize it and make it bigger. Because this is a vector logo, we can make it any size we want.

With pixel-based graphics, you have to worry about sizing. However, with vector-based graphics, you don’t have to worry about enlarging, as it’s always going to output at the full resolution of the file. These files have mathematically described lines to make them always appear perfect, crisp, and clean. This is why we use Adobe Illustrator to create vector graphics and logos, so they will always appear beautiful and clear.

With pixel-based graphics, if you enlarge the pixels, you will end up actually seeing them on the image. This really affects the quality of the image and can take away from it as a whole. Instead, we can bring in the vector graphic. We can make it any size we want without suffering a loss of quality. If we ever want to change it, we can go back into edit > free transform to change it to any size we want.

While Photoshop can place the graphic right into the document, it cannot directly edit it. It can add some effects, but if you need to reshape or change the vectors, you need to use Adobe Illustrator. If you double-click on the layer thumbnail, it will take you over to the Illustrator program to make those changes.

After editing content in Illustrator, be sure to do a file > save to commit to those changes. Once you’re done, those changes will apply back in Photoshop. For example, let’s change the shape of this logo. This is Vogue, so I wouldn't be doing this normally, but let's just say I go in there, and I want to pull this down. I could pull that down and save like it told me to. Back in Photoshop, we can see those changes were successfully made.

You can make any changes you need to back in the Illustrator program. For example, if you want to make this red, double click, make it red, save the changes, and it will automatically update the color in Photoshop.

While Photoshop cannot directly edit the vectors, it can add some layer effects. There is an effects button here at the bottom, and one of those effects is to overlay a color on top of the vector. This will not change the actual underlying vendor graphic, but you can just place a different color on top of the existing graphic.

It can also do other interesting functions, like add a bevel and emboss. You can use the chisel hard technique for something like this, and I would also make this bigger to make it tall enough. You can also change the light source to have it coming from the top or bottom. Moving the light source around can create a 3D type. The depth is the amount of contrast, if you will. It really just depends on how moody you want the image to appear.

You can also add a drop shadow to increase distance and increase size. You could also even drag the shadow around, which many people are unaware you can do. While I’m dragging the shadow around, notice the boss and emboss highlights are also changing. This is because if you’re changing the light source to create something believable, your highlights need to go in the same direction.

If you change your shadows, then the shadows on the bevel need to change as well. It creates a believable light source for your graphic. Now, we have a nice title added and can even add additional type.

When you’re doing type, it will always default to whatever you did last. So when you click, you might get very small or large text. Be sure to adjust your type size and color with this box to change the type color. You can also go to the icon on the type size and scrub that up to make it bigger. You can also go in and change the font. Use the move tool to move the graphic around your arrow keys to nudge it up or down. 

Once you are done, select fit on screen to go back and view the entire thing. Once you save the file, all of those effects and layers are editable and can be changed whenever you need.

Resolution and Size

Now, we have an editable Photoshop file. How can we save this image for online use or prints? How can we use this file? First, we need to understand resolution and size before moving onto file formats.

This Maui image was shot on a Canon 20D, which was an eight-megapixel camera. I’m going to select image > image size to understand how big you can print an eight-megapixel camera shot. What we care about here are print dimensions and print resolution. Be sure to turn off resample because this means adding or removing pixels. We do not want to add or remove any pixels, we just want to change the image to 300 pixels per inch.

300 pixels per inch is your ideal print resolution for professional-quality printing.

If you’re doing photo printing like an 11 x 17 for your wall, you’re not always the closest to that, and you can go lower than 300 pixels per inch. However, with things like business cards, letterheads, brochures, books, or magazines, 300 pixels per inch is ideal. Because I unchecked resampling, when I make a few pixels per inch, it's a really big print.

Consider this problem. Let’s say you have one pixel per inch. You could print 2300 inches, but that’s only one pixel per inch. Each square block is an entire inch, and that is huge. You won’t massively see giant blocks of color in your image, and that’s not what you want. 

A low screen resolution is 72 pixels per inch, but for print, it is 300. Notice what’s happening here, as the print size is reducing. As we pack more pixels per inch, the pixels themselves are getting smaller. We're not adding or removing any pixels. We're merely scaling it from something huge to something small, packing more pixels per inch, making them so small you can't see them when you print.

You can do almost an 8.5 by 11 at 300 pixels per inch. Let’s say I do an 8.5 by 11, and I’ve got a little extra I can crop off to be 274 pixels per inch. That is very close to 300 and will print perfectly fine, even from an 8-megapixel camera.

Imagine if you have a 50-megapixel camera and how big you can print. Now, if you want to zoom in on a small portion of that and print at 8.5 by 11, that won’t work too well on an image of this resolution. If you have a higher resolution, you can crop and enlarge one area.

This is now the entire image I have that I can print by 8.5 by 11. If I was doing 11 by 17, I’m at 206 pixels per inch. While that may be fine for a photo hanging on the wall, the closer you get to 300, the better it will look. As you start getting lower and closer to 150 by 72, you’re going to start seeing pixels. When you’re getting down to 200, it’s not going to be as sharp as it could be, but would still be adequate.

Notice all of this was done without resampling because I do not want to fake pixels. The mistake that people make when they go into image size is they leave resampling turned on, and so then they update to 300. But where is it getting all those pixels? The program is making them up and faking all of those pixels, which it’s not going to do a great job of faking them. If you have black and white in between, it will put gray to just even things out. 

However, maybe it should have been white, white, or black, black. Maybe there should have been a harsh, crisp edge. When you fake pixels, things can get very soft, fuzzy, and blurry. So you don’t want to resample when you’re increasing size because then you’re faking extra pixels. Rather, see what you can do realistically. Don’t check on the resample toggle and see what you can do.

You might be wondering when you would want to resample. For example, you could do this when saving for the web because you don’t need extra pixels when going to a website.

As you can see, I’ve gone into my image size, and this is almost 8.5 by 11 at 300 pixels per inch. If I’m saving for prints and staying within the Creative Cloud, I could just save it as my Photoshop file when I'm done. This is because, within Creative Cloud, Photoshop files are supported. You can even take them into InDesign, Illustrator, Adobe XD or After Effects. So, if you’re printing within Creative Cloud to your printer, Photoshop files are good.

However, what if you’re sending out to like a photo printing service?

A lot of online photo printing services require a JPEG file. For that, you can file > save as a JPEG, and then you can upload it right to the website. 

If you’re doing this for printing purposes, remember that JPEG is meant for a small, online file. So make sure that when you’re doing it for print, go with a large file.

So when you’re doing a print JPEG, go with a very high-quality JPEG. Only do this if your photo service requires you to use a JPEG file. If you’re doing this for print or other tasks within the Creative Cloud, use a Photoshop file.

What if you’re saving a JPEG for a website?

You want a small image for a website. There is a dedicated section to export web graphics where you can use export as. This allows you to create your JPEG and reduces it down for a website. For example, a developer may ask that you provide a 600-pixel wide image. In this case, you can put in a specific size, and it will cut down the file size for you.

If you are uploading to social media, you want a high-quality JPEG, as these applications do not accept Photoshop files. They would accept something like a JPEG, so you can upload that type of file to platforms like Instagram or Facebook. Social media is forgiving when it comes to file size, so it’s not of great concern. 

You should be worried about size if you are responsible for creating and optimizing a graphic that is going to be directly put on a website. Social media sites may optimize your image for you, but a Web Developer might not go back in to check your file size. It’s up to you to ensure your file is the correct size and looks good.

Think of this like the limbo bar of web design. How low can you get away with? You try to go as low as you can but want to avoid looking pixelated. If you go too far, you’ll start to lose detail. Go with an image that is high quality enough to keep the detail without being an excessively large file.

On average, somewhere in the 60 or 70 percent quality is good. While this can be quite complex, this range is good for most normal resolution images. You only have to worry if it’s going to be used for something like email or a website.

If you are given a specific pixel dimension, then you want to optimize it. However, if you’re exporting for social media, you can let the platform compress it. 

For photo printing services, go with a high-quality JPEG if that’s the only thing they support. For professional printers, they may accept a Photoshop file if it’s a book or magazine. Generally speaking, online photo services accept JPEG files.

We’ve now covered a little introduction to resolution and the fundamentals needed to get you started in Photoshop. There’s a lot more to this program, so the key is to work in it as much as you can to gain experience. There are so many things you can do in the program, and practice makes perfect. Take time to retouch images, color correct them, design graphics, whatever you want to do. 

Practice makes perfect, so retouch images, color, correct them, design, graphics, whatever it is you want to do. Remember to just have fun and practice as much as you can to build your skills.

If you want to learn more, we have Photoshop classes and certificate courses where you can learn more about Photoshop. These are live, in-person, hands-on classes where you can gain real-life experience with Photoshop. In addition to in-person classes, we have live online options for those who live outside of New York City, where Noble Desktop is based. 

Our main course to get started is our Adobe Photoshop Bootcamp. It is an 18-hour class that can be completed 3 days in a row, for 6 hours per day. You can also take the class on a night and weekends schedule, which would take roughly 3 weeks to complete. If you need a shorter or quicker option, you could choose Photoshop in a Day.

While we do offer a Photoshop for Web course, I would suggest looking into Adobe XD or Sketch instead. We also have an animated GIF course for those who know Photoshop.

It’s important to note that all of our class times are based on the Eastern Time zone, and our physical location is in New York City.

We hold all of these classes on a regular schedule. If you want to just get started with a quick class to see if it’s for you, try Photoshop in a Day. The curriculum is similar to the first day of our bootcamp class. 

If you’re looking for a more in-depth curriculum, you can sign up for the Photoshop Bootcamp. We also have an advanced retouching class geared towards photographers who need to learn more advanced skills. If you’re looking for a photo retouching certificate, we have a certificate class where you can learn Photoshop, Photoshop Advanced, and Adobe Lightroom, specifically the classic version discussed earlier in the tutorial.

For those who are more interested in learning design, we have a Graphic Design Certificate that teaches InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. These are the three main Adobe apps that designers use, and the course also goes into some graphic design concepts like typography and color composition. 

These are some of the things you can do to further your Photoshop skills. I wish you the best in getting started with Photoshop and hope this seminar was helpful for you.

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