Photoshop Starter Session

Assumptions:

• You know how to get an image onto your computer
• You have any version of Photoshop

It is important to establish a routine way of working (a workflow)
Suggest

• Open image in Photoshop eg 1234.jpg
• Immediately save in photoshop format with a name . eg super_photo_start.psd so you are working on a copy
• Crop picture to get rid of any border content not required
• Repair any dust or other defects
• Remove anything you don’t want in the picture
• Save again either with same name or eg super_photo_base.psd
• Perform any Colour or Contrast or dodge/burn required
• Save again
• Make resolution of image in pixels/inch suitable for printing eg 150 or 200pixels/inch
• Prepare to print
• Print
• Save Again

Before you start make sure you are happy with the colour on your monitor or else set it up monitor using something like the Adobe Gamma tool found in the Control Panel, but only do this once your monitor has been on for about 30 mins.

Learn and use the shortcut keys in Photoshop, these will save a lot of time and save your mouse arm.

DEMO STARTS

1. open imgxxxx.jpg
2. save as something.psd
3. Select Crop tool by pointing to it or just pressing C
   Draw a random crop on the picture
   You can then point to the centre and move it around, and/or stretch it, when happy with the position click on the tick . To undo the crop press CTRL+Z, to then redo it press CTRL+Y (in photoshop UNDO & REDO are CTRL+ALT+Z CTRL+SHIFT+Z
4. Repair any defects using the clone stamp tool – either click on it or press S to select it, make sure you use the stamp tool and not the pattern stamp tool, set the opacity to100% and choose a soft edge stamp, the size of the tool can be changed using the [ and ] keys. Zoom in or out on the picture by using CTRL++ and CTRL+- respectively, to pan around the picture hold down the space bar while also holding down the mouse button and using the mouse to move to where you want to be. To return to a full view press CTRL+0.
5. Correct appearance of picture.
   Do -> enhance->adjust lighting->levels or just press CTRL+L, this will bring up the Levels window -
   
   Adjust the appearance using the sliders and the dropper tool if necessary until you are happy with it. ( I will spend time covering the use of Levels for picture adjustment until everyone is happy or you have found out how little I know) The colour wheel can be used to decide which colours to adjust to get a good colour balance.
6. check image size – do -> Image->Size->Resize or just press CTL+ALT+I
   Go to the boxes for width and height of picture and put in size eg 291mm x 204mm for A4
   Note size is 72 ppi change to 200 ppi (print resolution) making sure resample image is NOT ticked.
   If picture is smaller (in inches) than desired then tick resample image and then type in new size.
7. Apply the Unsharp Mask to print at 150/200ppi as a start use a radius of 1, a threshold of 0 and an Amount to your taste. Experience says best results are obtained using original inks and paper, other papers will make varying degrees of difference to the colour and compatible inks will give huge (generally unsatisfactory) results.