Heads up! To view this whole video, sign in with your Courses account or enroll in your free 7-day trial. Sign In Enroll

Digital Media Through Photoshop

Well done!

You have completed Digital Media Through Photoshop!

Sign up for Treehouse Back to Library
Preview
Video Player
00:00
00:00
00:00
  1. 2x 2x
  2. 1.75x 1.75x
  3. 1.5x 1.5x
  4. 1.25x 1.25x
  5. 1.1x 1.1x
  6. 1x 1x
  7. 0.75x 0.75x
  8. 0.5x 0.5x
Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume.

New Documents and the Photoshop Interface

5:00 with Shon Dempsey

Now that we know where Photoshop came from, let’s get started with a new document and take a look at an overall layout of the Photoshop Interface

We've tackled resolution, types of imagery and graphics, color space, and 0:00
even a very brief history of Photoshop. 0:05
Let's dive in and have a look at Photoshop. 0:07
When you launch Photoshop CC17 we're greeted with this screen, 0:11
which is the start workspace. 0:15
Here we'll find any recent files we've been working on to quickly reopen. 0:17
Or we can start a brand new document. 0:22
Let's go ahead and start a new document. 0:24
The New Document dialog window is actually one of my favorite things that's received 0:28
an overhaul in recent versions. 0:32
Along the top, we have our preset categories. 0:34
To the right, we have the details for each of the selected templates. 0:38
The Recent tab is a short list of recently used settings for new documents. 0:41
In the Saved tab we can see any of our custom sizes we've used, 0:46
which also will come in handy if we're consistently creating unique sizes not 0:51
found in a preset. 0:55
Currently I don't have any. 0:57
Below our blank document templates we see some free template examples from Adobe 0:58
stock offering free and paid templates, images, and more. 1:03
On the right, we can make any adjustments to each template to best fit our project, 1:08
if we know ahead of time. 1:12
For the most part, Adobe's preset details for each template are a rock solid start, 1:14
and it really makes it much easier to get started on the right path. 1:19
For our purposes now, let's go ahead and 1:23
select the iPhone 6 template from the Mobile gallery, and click Create. 1:25
Now we've landed on a Photoshop user interface. 1:33
Let's get our bearings and take a look at some tips for navigating the app. 1:36
I've got a fresh install of Photoshop here, and using default presets. 1:40
So if you've used Photoshop previously, your screen may look a bit different. 1:44
Along the top, we'll see the settings for the tool we currently have selected, 1:48
which will adjust accordingly as we switch tools. 1:53
Along the left-hand side, 1:56
we've got our tools panel containing all the tools available to us. 1:58
I found that they're grouped into a few different categories. 2:03
Moving and selecting, creation and adjustment, and navigation. 2:06
Notice the tools with the small triangle in the bottom right. 2:13
If we click and hold on each particular tool with one of those options, 2:17
we're gonna see a few other tools. 2:21
So instead of this ellipse marquee tool, 2:23
perhaps I wanna go back to the rectangular. 2:25
At the bottom, we'll find our foreground and background colors. 2:29
Clicking on them brings up the color picker. 2:34
Now let's head over to the right-hand side. 2:43
Here we've got a customizable area of panels. 2:45
A panel is a mini window that displays options, settings, and adjustments for 2:48
tools and of your document. 2:52
Think of these panels as the deep preferences for our tools, and 2:55
shortcuts for modifying our content. 2:58
In fact, we may seem some overlap in the options within a panel 3:00
that can be found in this top toolbar. 3:04
For instance, this could be handy if we're working quite a bit with type. 3:07
Currently, we don't see the character panel, so let's open it. 3:10
Click on the Window menu and select the Character panel. 3:14
We can have our type tool panel open on the right-hand side even as we're using 3:19
the brush tool. 3:24
These panels can be collapsed or 3:29
expanded by clicking on the double arrows in the top right of each panel column. 3:30
We can also move tabs to different locations and even pull a tab out of 3:38
the side bar into its own little window, so we always have it floating on top. 3:42
If we accidentally close a panel, we can always get it back from the Window menu, 3:48
by selecting Window and the name of the panel that we closed. 3:53
It'll appear right back where we left it. 3:56
Each panel also has its own set of additional options within 3:59
the hamburger menu on the top right of each panel. 4:02
If you're not entirely sure where to start, Photoshop also has a lot of preset 4:06
options for you to choose from for your panel layouts. 4:10
We can find these here in the top right of the application window. 4:14
The Essentials layout is the default, but we can select a preset, such as 4:18
Photography, to see some of the most common panels photographers might use. 4:22
Like our document presets, 4:27
it's a great starting point that we can further customize to save to our liking. 4:28
Let's go ahead and reset our layout to the Essentials panel. 4:33
We'll open other panels as we need them. 4:39
So that's a quick tour of the interface, there's a lot to explore. 4:42
One tip I can share is that it may take you some time to figure out 4:46
which panels are important to you. 4:50
Browse the presets, then make one your own. 4:52
In the next video, we'll take a brief look at the structure of a Photoshop document. 4:56