Basic Photoshop Skills

Whether you have access to Adobe Photoshop regularly or not, having skills in this photo editing program is a great knowledge base to apply with your design skills.

Many times a good design can turn into a great design with just a simple illustration or graphic element, both of which can be created using Adobe Photoshop.

There are many Web sites that offer Photoshop tutorials, such as www.good-tutorials.com. Here you can search for photoshop tutorials, and, if necessary, be redirected to different sites that offer what you need. I have found some tutorials that are quite useful to make graphics and editing photos in the past. If you have no prior experience with Photoshop, read through these tutorials in order from first to last, as these skills build upon each other.

Setting up your workspace.
Beginners should start with this tutorial. This site literally explains ALL of the basics of how to set up, and customize your Photoshop, from the time you start the program. It goes through what each tool does, and the uses for different types of windows.

Layers.
Learning how to use the layers pallet is vital to navigating through Photoshop. This tutorial explains the basics, and also some information about selections tools.

Levels.
Using levels can improve the quality of a photo, or help you reach a desired color effect. This tutorial explains the basic terminology of the different options in levels such as exposures, tones and histogram.

Document sizing.
This site is actually a video demonstration of some resizing and document size tips.