An Introduction to
Photoshop
By Fred Nick
What is Photoshop?
 The digital equivalent of a Dark Room.
 Photo editing lab.
 Creative tool chest.
 Translator of formats characteristics.
 A scanning package.
 Everything above and more all in one
package.
What Photoshop is not.
 A drawing package.
 A slide organizing package.
 A movie making program.
 An internet tool.
 A web page development tool.
Major Categories of Photoshop
Use
 Scanning and then Manipulating.
 Photo Retouching and Alterations.
 Adding Special Effects using Filters
 Preparing Images to be Printed.
Preparatory Concepts-Color
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RGB (Screen based)
CMYK (Printing full-color Prints)
Lab (Cross platform standard)
Bitmap (Black & White)
Grayscale (256 Shades of gray)
Duotone (Two-four color channels – posters)
Indexed (256 colors in one channel)
MultiChannel (24 spot channels)
Preparatory ConceptsTerminology
 Layers - Overlays of separate parts of the final
Images. Like transparencies.
 Channels - Separation of the colors of the final
images onto distinct sheets.
 Paths - Recorded tracings from the image. Some
tools will follow the path while performing a
task. Vectors not part of the image.
 Canvas versus image. Canvas is AREA you can
work in. Image is presently used area.
 Actions - Recorded series of tasks for repeating
or automating steps.
Preparatory ConceptsTerminology
 History – Complete list of tasks performed.
Allows multiple step undoes or the deletion of a
previous step followed by the remaining steps.
 Gamut – The range of colors that a color system
can display or print. The Spectrum of colors seen
by the human eye is wider that the gamut
available in any color model.
Preparatory Concepts - Gamut
Lab
RGB
CMYK