Photoshop for Beginners

The next few entries will be about what may be the most popular editing software ever created-Photoshop.
There are enough books, tutorials, blogs, sites and write-ups about Photoshop, but I have discovered that if you don't know your brush from your lasso, you will get lost. I have also noticed and even pointed out to my own teachers and instructors that, more often than not, what is described in 20 steps can be done in less than 10. "Experts" tend to over-explain and that makes people confused, not better informed.
I do not have CS4; I have been quite content with my lowly 7.0 version. Later versions have a few additions, but nothing truly necessary. I have tried the CS4 and was not really impressed, but reviews state that for beginners, it is a better version.
So, let's get familiar with this do-it-all program and kill the mystery behind it.

Across the top of your screen when you first open Photoshop, you will see your drop menus: File, Edit, Image, Layer, Select, Filter, View, Window, Help.
File: This works just like any other program File selections. Let's try clicking on "New". This will open a window showing Name(which starts as Untitled, so you can give it any name you want or leave it), Preset sizes drop menu, Mode and Contents.
Preset Sizes: Self-explanatory, really. Once you decide on your size, you can adjust the numbers. For example, if you want a blank at 10x10 inches, simply chose "8x10" and change the number 8 to 10. You'll notice there are also choices for pixels, points, cm, mm, pica and, in the top drop choice, column. Points and pica are generally used for type and are converted anyway to the size you choose, so unless you're a Photoshop expert, fugeddaboudit.

Your mode choices given are RGB, Grayscale, Bitmap, CMYK and Lab Color. RGB is generally for web, but is the most common choice of image. CMYK is for print and many online print services require this mode. Bitmap is also web-based and are pixel based and resolution dependent. This simply means that the number of pixels per inch dictates the clarity of the image; a 72ppi(or, as shown in Photoshop, dpi) is much more pixellated than one at 300ppi(dpi) because those 72 dots per inch obviously take up less space than the 300 dots per inch. So, If you are looking to print what you are doing, don't choose Bitmap and do choose a resolution of 300dpi.
Grayscale has no color memory, so only choose it if you are working in Black and White.
Your last choice on the new file is "Contents", where you will see "white", "background color" or "transparent" as your choices.

We will jump over to "Windows" because without anything going on, you won't need the other menus right now. You should always have "Layers" checked, which will give you a window showing all the layers you may be working on. You will notice that if you have chosen "Transparent" as your file content, it shows as "layer 1", but choosing "white" or
"background color" shows as "background". A transparency remains its own layer and anything you do becomes a separate layer unto it. You can draw on it, color it in and move it around. If you were to choose the other options, anything you do to them becomes part of them and can't be moved around; they are locked. In other words, backgrounds are like paper, transparency is like a table you place paper on.
Hope that's clear!! Get it? Clear! Transparency!
I slay me....

Before we get to your other menu options, we need to look at the tools in Photoshop. There are many and some you will use almost religiously and some not at all. I never use the slice tool for example, a lapse that will probably never get me my ACE (Adobe Certified Expert), but so be it.

From left to right starting at the top we have our marquee tools, move tool, lasso tools, magic wand, crop, slice, healing, brush, clone and stamp, history brushes, erasers, bucket and gradient, blur, sharpen and smudge, dodge, burn and sponge, path and direction selections, Type, pen and point, shapes, notes and annotations, dropper with sampler and measure, hand, magnifier. The tools that show a little triangle on their box are the ones that, as listed, are more than one tool per box. Photoshop decided at some point in time which were the most important and/or used most often and placed those first both as the default shown and in descending order.

Below the tools are the foreground and background colors, quickmask, screen modes and export to Image Ready.

Open an image(File, Open), start playing with the tools and see what they do. Each tool, when selected, opens a taskbar of choices just under your menu selections. By playing around, selecting from the taskbar, you can do all kinds of really cool things to your image. Just always be sure that if you want to save what you've done, rename the image before closing it. Once it's saved, whatever you have done can not be undone.
Next time, we'll actually play with some of the more used tools and see what they can do.