Introduction to Photoshop Tools

Logo Of Photoshop

Some of us might be expert of Photoshop, while some know only the name the of  it. There are also a lot of people who have even never heard the name Photoshop.

Photoshop is a software which is used to draw and edit photos. This is the most convenient tool for editing pictures and making their look fantastic. Photoshop can make old pictures new, colored pictures gray and gray pictures colored, with easy usable tools.

To know how to use this software there are is a lot of things need to understand. But the most basic thing is to know that what tools are in this software?

I am giving you here a brief introduction to basic tools which you will find in Photoshop left hand side (by default).

PS toolbar

  Move Tool

As the name shows, it is used to move the objects, layers and whatever is selected.

Marquee Tool

This tool has further many other options. Basically this tool is for the selection of certain area in certain shape. The tools that are defined under this category are:

• Rectangle Marquee Tool
• Elliptical Marquee Tool
• Single Row Marquee Tool
• Single Column Marquee Tool

All these tools can be viewed by right click on marquee tool.

Lasso Tool:

This tool is used for different kind of shapes selection and cutting them according to requirement. This tool has further tools that are:

• Magnetic Lasso Tool
• Polygonal Lasso Tool

Quick Selection and Magic wand Tool:

Both these tools are also used for the selection of an area. But they are helpful in the selection of one color or one shaded areas brilliantly without touching the other color boundary.

Crop tool

It is used to re-size the entire image.

Slice Tool and Slice Select Tools

It is used to slice the image into sections and selection of a slice.

Spot Healing Brush Tool

It is used to clean small unwanted marks from an image.

Healing Brush Tool

It is used to correct the imperfection in an image.

Patch Tool

The Patch Tool corrects image using sampled pixels or pattern.

Red Eye Tool

"Red eye" occurs when the light from the camera flash reflects off the subject's retina. This can make image look bad. So This tool is used to remove this imperfection.

Brush Tool

It is used to paint strokes in the graphics. It is highly customized for effective painting.

Pencil Tool

It is used to draw freehand like a pencil.

 Color Replacement Tool

It is not the professional way to use this tool for changing or replacing colors. But sometimes you can use this as a color replacing tool.

Stamps:

Two stamps are defined in Photoshop.

• Clone and Pattern: Used for retouching, manipulating and adjusting photos.

Brushes Tools:

Two brushes are here in this tool.  

• History and Art History

Used for painting purposes. Both have same purpose but in different manner.

Eraser Tools

It is used to erase the extra parts of image, layer, or selection.

Two further erasers are there in Photoshop:

• Background Eraser and Magic Eraser

Gradient tool

Use to make an image gradient color.

Paint Bucket Tool

It fills the color in selected area.

Blur Tool

It is used to blur the edges of an images.

Sharpen Tool

It is used to sharpen the edges in an image.

Smudge Tool

It mixes the content of image area.

Dodge Tool

It is used to lighten the parts of an image.

Burn Tool

It is used to darken the parts of an image.

Sponge Tool

It is used to change the vividness of part of an image.

Pen Tool

It is used for the free selection by defining points.

• Further tools are:
• Freeform Pen Tool
• Add anchor point Tool
• Delete anchor point Tool
• Convert Point Tool

T Tool

T is used to type text. Further Tools are:

• T Horizontal
• T vertical
• Horizontal Type Mask Tool
• Vertical Type Mask Tool

Path Selection and Direct Selection

The Path Selection Tool selects and moves wreckage of existing path.

Shape Tool:

It is used to draw different shapes like:

• Rectangle
• Rounded Rectangle
• Ellipse
• Polygon
• Line
• Custom Shape(Have further many shapes)

Notes Tool

The Notes Tool allows us to attach the notes to image .

Audio Annotation Tool 
It is used to attach the audio file.

Hand Tool

This tool is used to view the different parts of the images without using scroll bars. 

Zoom Tool
Simply Zoom in and Zoom out  the image.

In the next coming articles you will be able to know more about these tools with examples. 

Posted in: graphic-design, web-design