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he Basics

Photoshop is still the ultimate graphics program, although it s far different from the first version released about 15 years ago. Even though it s mainly used for photo retouching and image manipulation, you can also use it to create original art, either from scratch or based on a photograph. You can even use it to set type and turn plain fonts into gleaming metal or three-dimensional puffy satin, or whatever you like. It s much more fun than a video game and much less difficult than you might think.
Finding Your Way Around

When you first open Photoshop, you ll see its toolbox on the left side of the screen, the ool Options bar just under the menu headings at the top of the screen, several sets of floating palettes on the right, and a Welcome Screen in the middle with links to some introductory Help topics. You ll also see your desktop, or whatever else is open at the time, if you use a Mac. You won t see a work area because Photoshop, unlike many other programs, doesn t automatically open a new document for you. his actually makes sense because most of your work in Photoshop will be done on pictures that you have brought in from some other source. Maybe you ll be using digital images from your digital camera or scanner. Possibly you ll work on files you ve downloaded from the Internet or on photos from a CD-ROM. In chapter, Opening and Saving, you will learn all about opening these pictures. Right now, let s create a blank image document so that you can try some of Photoshop s tools. Starting a New Image

File->New is the first item on the first Photoshop menu. When you choose it, you open theNew dialog box, shown in Figure 1.1. You can enter a title for your new file at the top of the dialog box, such as New Image, or leave it untitled for now. he following sections provide a brief overview to get you started setting up a new file.Figure 1.1. Use the New dialog box to create a blank document.