Photoshop Tutorials

 This five-minute Photoshop tutorial was the perfect video to start with. It briefly introduced Photoshop and its tools. I realized that the basic function of Photoshop is a little like Illustrator. You create layers, overlay layers, add effects, and make arrangements/adjustments. The adjustments panel gives you all the color options and basic photo editing. This Adobe application gives many options to play around with, and I am eager to learn more about each of its tools. 

The effects are my favorite part of the tutorial and something that interests me. Photoshop offers many options in the filter section: 3D, blur, blur gallery, distort, noise, pixelate, stylize, etc. Each of these effect selections has selections to choose the one of preference. For example, the distort option has a sphere selection where the photograph becomes spherical and looks like a “fish eye.” Nonetheless, I look forward to trying this effect on future projects.

This tutorial was my favorite of all. One of the first lines of the video was, “Photoshop is a program to edit and create images made up of pixels.” I had never thought of it that way, and I always thought that Photoshop was the editing of a picture (sort of a collage). I learned that a pixel is a small box. with just one color. Each pixel with a certain color comes together to create an image. Moreover, I like that the function of Photoshop is similar to Illustrator, as the home option looks the same, and files are stored in the same way. 

The tutorial covered everything you need to know before starting to create. It states that the workspace is something completely personal as it is customized to how you work and the kind of projects that you do. Understanding each panel and option will make it easier to know what is needed. The one thing I will struggle with is remembering all the small but important things when starting a project. For instance, the canvas was something I didn’t quite get. This is one of the last things explained in the video; therefore, one of the most advanced. It was intriguing how you can merge different canvases, but I do not understand if you can overlay them or make them into one canvas. 

The last tutorial I watched was specific to a certain function. It was an addition to the other tutorials, and it only focused on Photoshop layers. Layers are the foundation of Adobe, and I know that layers in Photoshop are the same as layers in Illustrator, but as my father always tells me, “repetition makes perfect.” The video explained how the layers are created as multiple images, one on top of the other. By stacking images on top of each other through different layers, you can create a whole different world. Everything that you do in Photoshop is made of layers, and you decide what goes into each. Layers are one of the most important things in Adobe, as they give you independent control over every element. 

While working in Illustrator, I sometimes forgot to create a new layer, which made it difficult to edit certain things. This is the main reason why I decided to watch a video tutorial only on layers. As the tutorial states, layers are always handy for exploring design alternatives, and doing it all in one layer will result in a mess. Now, I feel a lot more comfortable with the basic function of layers. With a better understanding of their function, I realize that they are the building blocks of every document you create. From now on, I’ll definitely always remember to use layers and keep my designs organized.