Subscribe via RSS

This is Hendron’s Digest: on educational technology.

Adobe Photoshop Workshop

For a number of years, I’ve been teaching Adobe Photoshop to students and educators alike. For the 2008 Virginia Society for Technology in Education conference, I’ve put together this updated tutorial for my 2.5 hour workshop on using Photoshop. This tutorial applies to versions CS-CS3 of Photoshop. The video tutorials are from version CS 3 on the Macintosh.

Adobe Photoshop CS 3

Learning Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is an image manipulation program design for professionals in print and web design. Because of the appeal of the program, and the fun in working with visual images, Adobe began, years ago, in cross-marketing leaner versions of Photoshop with lighter price tags, including Photoshop LE and Photoshop Elements. The techniques covered here will apply to many, if not all, versions of Photoshop, beginning with version 5, and upward through CS3.

Because Photoshop is a professional-quality, high-end program, it is impossible to become an expert overnight. It’s also impossible for me to provide every detail of what this application can do in one webpage’s worth of space. There are countless tutorials online for using Photoshop, and books on Photoshop continue to be best sellers. Anyone seriously interested in Photoshop should consult these sources. I’d recommend the series published by Adobe, as well as the “Wow!” series of books.

What This Workshop Covers

I’ve been using Photoshop since version 2 in the early 1990s–that’s over 15 years at using Photoshop at least once a week! Yet, with the newer versions that Adobe keeps producing, it’s impossible to know it all. What I plan to do in this workshop is provide some basic techniques and provide a solid foundation for going on to more advanced topics in Photoshop. In fact, as time allows, I plan on adding to this guide with more tips and demonstrations.

I know educators want to use this tool, and time is precious. The emphasis for me here is the manipulation of digital photographs that you may want to print or post online. I’ll also cover some basic, creative effects you can perform on the images from your own collection.

Finally, we’ll look at two tools on the Macintosh platform that can help you with your “workflow” of images: Aperture and iPhoto. In the future, I’d like to compare some of the features between Photoshop and the GIMP on Linux.

If you would like to use some of the photos I do in the videos, below, download the photo archive (ZIP, 6.1 MB).

File Formats

Photoshop produces a variety of file formats for graphics. Among the most popular are:

  • JPEG (photographs)
  • GIF (animation, graphic images)
  • PNG (graphic images, photos, transparency)
  • PDF (contain embedded compressed graphics)
  • PSD (Photoshop Document)
  • TIFF (Tagged Inline File Format)
  • EPS (Encapsulated Post Script)

Photoshop also allows us to edit images in two color modes: RGB and CMYK. Other color modes available include:

  • Lab
  • 16-bit RGB
  • Grayscale
  • Mono-, duo-, tri- and quad-tone
  • Index
  • Bitmap

The native format for Photoshop files is PSD. I always recommend saving your work in PSD format, until it is time for publication, at which time, you can re-save a copy of your work in an appropriate format. JPEGs, GIFs, and PNGs are good for the web, JPEGs being superior for photographs. The benefit of the PSD file is no compression artifacts, and the ability to save in layers and a variety of color modes. On a Mac, PSD files can now be natively opened and used in OS X, including in applications such as Preview, Keynote, and Final Cut Pro.

Most often, you will want to edit graphics in RGB color mode, which provides 24-bit color. Reserve CMYK for printing only–printing to press. Most inkjet printers, while they print in CMYK, are built to accommodate RGB-mode images for the accurate reproduction of color.

One note on file resolution. The resolution is how many pixels (individual dots, or points of light) fit into a given space. Even though the resolution of LCD monitors today is fixed at around 100-110 ppi (pixels per inch), Photoshop treats images on the Web at 72 ppi. So, all images destined for the Web need to be saved at 72 ppi.

Your photo printer likes high-resolution images. That’s why you bought your 6, 7, or 10 megapixel camera! When preparing photos for printing, aim for at least 150 ppi, upwards to 600 ppi, if you have that much resolution in the photo. (To find out, play with the Image > Image Size parameter in Photoshop.) While making smaller photos is fine, refrain from adding pixels to images to increase resolution! If you constantly need bigger (higher resolution) images, then it’s time to upgrade your camera.

Tutorial One: File Preparation

Before you do any other editing to a file, you ought to check it for quality. Sometimes pictures come out of the camera looking great. Other times, they need some serious help. This tutorial covers levels adjustments and color correction techniques.


Tutorial 1: Photo Preparation in Photoshop from John Hendron on Vimeo.


Tutorial 1.5: Color Correction in Photoshop from John Hendron on Vimeo.

Tutorial Two: Creating Better Black and White Images

There are many different techniques for creating black and white photographs from color originals. In this tutorial, we’ll cover a method that’s both quick and easy, with superior results over simply choosing “Desaturate.” Creating black and white photographs is the first step in more creative techniques (explored below).


Tutorial 2: Making Better B&W Images from John Hendron on Vimeo.

Tutorial Three: Cropping and Resizing for the Web

Preparing images for the Web isn’t as simple as you might expect. There are lots of things to consider: the final size, the trade off of compression vs. quality, and whether or not you want to crop an image when resizing. We’ll also cover some tips for creating your very own thumbnails.


Tutorial 3: Cropping and Resizing for the Web from John Hendron on Vimeo.

Tutorial Four: Creating Web Photo Albums

What if you want to create a simple photo album for your website? Current Web 2.0 solutions like Flickr are great, but sometimes you want to do things yourself on your own server. We’ll cover the options available via Photoshop for creating a web photo album.


Tutorial 4: Creating Photoshop Web Photo Albums from John Hendron on Vimeo.

Tutorial Five: Tinting and Hand-Coloring Photos

Both tinting and hand coloring are techniques borrowed from traditional photography roots, but take on new possibilities in Photoshop’s digital darkroom. Both techniques start with a grayscale image in RGB mode, exactly the type of image we’d end up with after going through the earlier technique in this set of tutorials.


Tutorial 5: Tinting and Hand-Coloring Photos from John Hendron on Vimeo.

The key to this technique is creating layers: each colored layer should composite using the “Color” blending mode, and you can adjust the opacity level of each layer to control the amount of color. While we did not cover it in the video, you can also apply gradients of color to a layer which can produce subtle shifts in color across the image.

Tutorial Six: Basic Compositing

What’s compositing? It’s when we join different images from different sources together to make a new image. You might, for instance, want to cut something out from one picture, and place the cut-out into a second picture, creating a composited image. While a variety of methods are available for cutting objects out of photographs, we’ll use the more automated Extraction filter in Photoshop to create our masterpiece.


Tutorial 6: Basic Photoshop Compositing from John Hendron on Vimeo.

This was a silly example, for sure, but I wanted something to show you both the selection by color and the extract methods.

Tutorial Seven: Using Helper Applications

In this tutorial, we’ll gloss over what can be found in both of Apple’s image edition applications, Aperture and iPhoto from iLife ‘08. A similar application that can also be used is Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom. All of these applications bridge the gap between the camera, file management, and Photoshop.


Tutorial 7: Helper Apps with Photoshop from John Hendron on Vimeo.

Where Can I Go for More?

I hope you did enjoy watching these informal videos. I think they’re more valuable than written-out instructions, and I hope I was able to provide some of the reasoning behind my choices and techniques. Remember: we’re just getting started! There is so much you can do in Photoshop. I recommend the following video podcasts for even more inspiration and guidance in using Adobe’s premier image editing tool.

Content at this domain is © 2005-2010 johnhendron.net. Many of John’s presentations and presentation hand-outs are available via a Creative Commons license.