Photoshop

Lately in our course lessons we've been doing a lot of stuff in Photoshop. We got to know a lot of basic stuff as well as how to use different kind of brushes and add effects and some really interesting things. 

The first basic thing we got to know how to pick the sizes of the page. This one is actually the best for me. It's a simple A4 page. 210x297mm @ 300 ppi.

The next thing we got to know was how to add those colours to the background. 

Here we have a Gradient Tool. You select that tool and any colours that you want to use and basically play with colours all around the page. 

We also got to know how to crop smaller pictures from the actual picture so it's not affected by cropping it. Its called Elliptical Marquee tool. 

You drag it on the picture then press ctrl j to duplicate the layer of the picture so the actual one still excist. ( you dont delete the big picture you just put it on a different layer). 

How to do the rectangle from this picture? You just use a Rectangular Marquee tool and create a rectangle on your page, after that you put a gradient tool on it and choose any colours you want to use. The you click on the right click on the rectagular and wrap it and move it however you want. 

Here you can see how to add shapes to the picture. 

Over here we added simple and standard shapes into the photoshop. You can add them just by using the tools on the right side of the photoshop and change their sizes at all of the times but we have to remember to add every shape at different layer.

Here in that b&w tool you start with clicking on the image > mode > greyscale. Then you press dont flatten. After that you go to window > history. Then there will be a little box that you'll have to tick and then you go to history brush tool. 

b&w effect

To outline you need to start with opening the layers panel. You have to duplicate the layer and then rename them. You choose the brush tip and colour and create a path around the image.

Here we've put the text and moved it. What you have to do to achieve this is selecting the Horizontal Mask tool. After that you put any text you want on an image. Then you press Ctrl and c to copy the text, and ctrl x to cut it out. Ctrl + v takes the text on another layer. After that you can add shadows and colours as I did on my Disneyland pic.

Polygonal lasso tool

To create your own brush you have to use this polygonal lasso tool. You have to select the lasso tool from the tool panel. Then you just select the cursor on the edge where you want to start and then you trace the cursor all around the element you want to select. Then you need to save the brush and you are ready to use it!

To do a text around the path you have to create a shape you want the text to be in.  Then you go to paths and click the little dot thats at the bottom of the 'path box' and select the text tool. Then you click on the shape and thats it!

TRACKING, LEADING AND KERNING

When you type anything in photoshop you should autimatically have on the right side of your work as you can see on the screenshoot. If you don't have it there is an option in window. 

You just basically select your text and then change its kerning leading and tracking with the mouse. 

To create that shadowy and stretched text you first add any text you want on the page. You then add again the same text in the same font but in a different colour. Then you change its angle to 45 and copy it around 100 times (alt+arrow key). The you press ctrl and e and it takes all of the 100 layers to just one. Then you play with the angle again so you put it in -45. Then you move the text however you want and thats basically the final look.

How to add brushes & fonts to photoshoop?

To add brushes and fonts to photoshop you need to find the best website for you to use. I use brusheezy.com for brushes and dafont.com for fonts. 

You choose any fonts from these websites and then you download them onto your computer. 

With brushes, after downloading them into your computer, you righ click on them and then extract them. To add them onto photoshop, you open the photoshop and select brushes.Then open the window where you can select brushes. After that you should see a circle (settings sign) in the upper right corner and import the brushes. 

With fonts you download them from internet the same as with brushes. Make sure your photoshop is closed while downloading and extracting the fonts.  To add them you have to extract them again (after saving them). Then you right click on them and click install if that version work. In college we used a program to extract the fonts, but there's one other way how could you install them. You click on the start menu > control panel > appearance and personalisation > fonts > right click in the list of fonts and select install new font > then select all the fonts you want and ok.