This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Lab 1.1 Exercise Answers
This section gives you some suggested answers to the questions in Lab 1.1, with discussion related to those answers. Your answers may vary, but the most important thing is whether your answer works. Use this discussion to analyze differences between your answers and those presented here.
If you have alternative answers to the questions in this Exercise, you are encouraged to post your answers and discuss them at the companion Web site for this book, located at http://www.phptr.com/phptrinteractive.
1.1.1 Exercise Answers
Is the Navigator window open by default when you open Photoshop? Observe.
Answer: Windows that open by default when you open Photoshop include one window that contains the Navigator, Info, and Tool options. Photoshop windows are logically grouped, letting you jump from one to another by clicking on their tabs.
Navigator allows you to zoom in by a certain amount by using a slider, while showing the image area in a red rectangle upon a miniature of your entire canvas.
Info contains the color RGB or CYMK (these terms will be explained in Chapter 8) values for the color of any pixel as selected by the Eyedropper. It also plots the cursor position and shows width and height of the file.
The options are always specific to the that tool you have chosen in the toolbar. When a tool is selected, the options are then named for the tool, like Move Options, Pencil Options, Paintbrush Options.
What happens when you slide the zoom slider?
Answer: The zoom slider changes your view by zooming in and out of your graphic.
What do the little mountains represent? Experiment to find out by clicking and performing other operations.
Answer: To the left of the slider is an icon of little mountains that allow you to zoom out by fixed amounts in steps. To the right of the slider is an icon of bigger mountains that allow you to zoom in by fixed amounts in steps.
Open the file "frank.psd." Select the eyedropper and click anywhere upon the "frank.psd" canvas. What has happened?
Answer: The eyedropper has selected the color of the pixel you have clicked. You could now paint with this color using one of Photoshop's painting tools or modify the color. If you click elsewhere, you will see the color of any pixel you click-selected.
What happens when you click the eye at top of the Tools palette? Observe.
Answer: A click upon the eye at the top of the Tools palette takes the user to Adobe Online by automatically logging on and connecting you to relevant information on Adobe's Web site. There is no Tooltip for this function, so the user has to click it to find out its purpose.
At the Adobe Web site the Photoshop user finds much useful and relevant information about the program and other Adobe products, from tutorials and training to troubleshooting information, power-user tips, and much provocative photo imagery by various artists. The Photoshop user is urged to visit periodically to keep abreast on the program's development and its user community.
Open "venice.psd" in Photoshop. Zoom in to 400% to examine the pixels more closely. How do you think you move in for a close up view?
Answer: On the toolbar is the Magnifying Glass.
You will need to change your view while working in Photoshop. Like a dancer, you will move in and out. Like Muhammed Ali in the boxing ring, you will bob and weave ("float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" is a good policy in creating graphics, too) for the best view and the best angle of attack.
If you work on a level of high magnification to tweak your image, be sure to check it every now and then at 100%. This is how the world will view it. Sometimes an image that makes sense magnified breaks down when seen actual size, because of some peculiarity of how the eye views adjacent colors or how they appear onscreen. The gestalt, or first glance taken in by the eye and brain, is of prime importance.
Tools on the toolbar will be explored in further detail in Chapter 4.
Perform a transformation to this image from the Menu bar. From the Menu bar choose the Filters menu and select one of the filters listed. Observe what happens.
Answer: Controls will have appeared that let you adjust the filter, and its default value will have been applied to your image's thumbnail, for you to either Cancel, adjust, or click OK if the default value is what you want.
Filters will be explored in further detail in Chapter 7.
Your image has been transformed by the filter, but you decide you don't want to keep it that way. What are the two ways that you could undo that transformation?
Answer: You could undo that filter's transformation with a simple Undo, enabled in the manner that works in most applications on your computer. The first way would be to choose Undo from the File menu. The second way would be to use a Control-Z on Windows or Command-Z on the Macintosh.
Until version 5.0 it was imperative that you know Undo while working on Photoshop, and it's still a good idea and handy to know its key command.
Yet there is a third way to Undo, and this is the most interesting and unique to Photoshop. We will discuss it in Exercise 1.1.2 when we cover the new features added to Photoshop 5.0.
What do the various tabbed palettes grouped with History show you?
Layers show the various layers that make up your image. This is useful as Photoshop assembles multiple images into one composition. For further information on Layers, please see Chapter 3.
Channels shows the multiple color channels and any image masks being employed by your image. For further information on channels and masks, please see Chapter 5.
Paths is the name of the palette used by the Pen tool. For further information on paths and the Pen tool, please see Chapter 6.
Following the History palette is the Actions palette. This palette collects and controls the sequence of automated tasks grouped into what Photoshop calls an action. It also shows sets, which are groups of actions.
Now select the tool from the toolbar that looks like a little paintbrush—do not choose the little brush with an arrow orbiting it—and make a brushstroke upon your image, not for any practical purpose on the image but to examine the options. After you have made the stroke, doubleclick on the Paintbrush tool. What do the various tabbed palettes that come up show you?
Answer: The Paintbrush options palette gives you controls that are unique or particular to the Paintbrush tool, including color mode and opacity. Each tool has its options palette customized for it.
By clicking the tab beside the title Options, you bring up the Info palette. As you move your cursor around the screen, you will see the Info palette reflect the RGB and CMYK color values of the color beneath the cursor, as well as the cursor position.
By clicking the tab beside the title Info, you bring up the Navigator palette. Moving its slider allows you to enlarge or decrease your view of the image, showing numerically the degree of magnification or reduction. When zoomed in, you can move the little red rectangle on the Navigator to change which part of the image you are viewing.
Tools on the toolbar will be explored in further detail in Chapter 4.
How can the Photoshop user access other palettes that appear listed under the Window menu?
Answer: Palettes that appear listed under the Window menu may be hidden and can be brought to the forefront. Their names are preceded by "Show," such as Show Navigator, Show Color, Show Swatches, Show Layers.
The tab that is currently open always offers in the Windows menu the choice "Hide," to hide that palette.
This has been just a high-level and cursory overview of how Photoshop works. Subsequent chapters will examine this application's capabilities in greater depth.
1.1.2 Answers
If you've worked with Photoshop extensively in the past, take a careful look at the toolbar. Do the buttons' look and feel appear identical to the previous versions?
Answer: The toolbar became a bit more dimensional, with drop shadows on the tools' icon buttons and a gray background separating the black and white picture icon from its background.
Roll the cursor over the tools in the toolbar. How does the interface now educate the novice Photoshop user?
Answer: One useful addition to Photoshop 5.0 and above are Tooltips, those little yellow pop-up descriptions of tool when you rest the cursor upon it a moment. Originally only in the Windows version, they have been migrated to the Macintosh version as well and prove quite helpful.
Open "venice.psd" in Photoshop. Choose the Paintbrush icon and make a random swipe upon the image. Choose the Pencil icon and drag a line across the image. Choose the Eraser icon beside it and drag over part of the image, erasing it. If you like, make one or two other actions upon the image with any tool of your choice.
Open the History palette by clicking on the History/Actions palette. If it's not onscreen, choose Show History from the Window menu in the menu bar at the top of your screen. How can you use this function of Photoshop to remove the marks you have made upon your image?
Answer: The History palette that was developed for Photoshop 5.0 was designed as a means of multiple Undo. It shows the entire sequence of actions taken that have modified an image. Each of the tools with which you made a mark on your image is listed. Click on any of them to see the previous state of the graphic, and as you move to the top of the list each subsequent action performed on the graphic disappears. With this capability you are—or your graphic is—literally going back in time!
A philosopher once wrote that the greatest revolution in the personal computer was the invention of Undo. With readily accessible Undo capability, the novice could explore the tools freely without irreparable destruction of one's work. However, until Photoshop's History palette, most applications' Undo capability regarding an action was immediately obliterated with any subsequent action.
In Exercise 1.1.1 we promised you a third way to Undo, and this is the most interesting and unique to Photoshop.
On the Menu bar choose from the Window menu Show History. The History palette shows all the actions taken upon your file, the most recent at the bottom. After performing multiple actions upon an image that you decide are not satisfactory, you have the power of a multiple Undo with the History palette. By vertically dragging the slider on it you are able to "go back in time" as far as necessary to return to the state with which you're satisfied. The History palette is nonlinear, allowing you to branch off from a past state, work on it a while, yet still return to previous states that followed from where you branched. It is a welcome and exciting feature ... and one of the reasons Photoshop demands a lot of operating memory in RAM.
Suppose you are ready to save the work you performed upon a graphic project. Open the File menu on the menu bar at the top of your screen and choose Save for Web. What do all these multiple images and choices presented to you mean?
Answer: Later you will learn why it is essential to save a graphic at the smallest possible size for display on a page on the World Wide Web. Photoshop 5.5 gives the user previews of different file formats from which you can choose to best save your image for the Web. This allows the designer to determine the proper tradeoff between image quality and file size for this specific graphic, in this specific case. This capability will be explored in detail in Chapter 10.
For the user's information—and this won't really be clear to you until you have worked with the program more fully in the ensuing chapters—further enhancements were added to Photoshop 5.5. Masking capabilities were enhanced with the addition of the Background Eraser and the Extract Image command. The Art History brush can be used to give a painterly effect such as brushstrokes in a traditional painting medium. The Color Management Assistant was added for more precise color settings, and contact sheets of images could be quickly displayed a Web page from their folder. Editable layers for text were added, as well as layer effects and layer alignment and a new ability to blend channels. The addition of a magnetic Lasso tool and Reselect command enhanced selection capabilities. Transformations could be applied to selections and Paths, Magnetic, and Freeform pen tools were added. Wizards and Assistants now can be used to automate tasks, more tools were given live previews, and color and printing was improved.
Click on the little Adobe logo at the lower right bottom of the toolbox, whose Tooltip tells you it is the Jump to command. What takes place?
Answer: The Jump to command on the Photoshop toolbar allows the Photoshop user to move to the image processing program ImageReady 2.0, so the reader will note that his or her toolbox is noticeably different, though containing many of the same tools seen in Photoshop. The ImageReady 2.0 application prepares a graphic for the Web with compression methods and control of the export, slices layered images, and applies compression settings to each, and writes the necessary HTML code to display them all properly onscreen. Web-safe colors are specified with their hexidecimal values.
Using ImageReady, layered Photoshop or Illustrator files can be turned into GIF animations. The program also lets the designer produce JavaScript rollovers and animated rollover behavior.
The addition and integration of ImageReady 2.0 was probably largest innovation in Photoshop 5.5. The capabilities of ImageReady will be explored in detail in Chapter 11.