Introduction | Creating and Opening an Image | Editing an Image | Understanding and Switching Between Layers
Cropping and Resizing Images | Moving and Selecting/Deleting Parts of Images | Adding Text
Altering Your Images | Rotating and Drawing Shapes | Eyedropper and Zoom Tools | History
Brightness & Contrast | Layer Styles | Filters | Saving

Altering Your Images:
Photoshop's most powerful aspect is its ability to edit and manipulate images easily and with professional quality. The second section of the tool menu contains tools that specifically help you to edit your images. When you click any of these tools, Photoshop's sub-main menu will change to reflect new options available to you. Most will look something like this, or very similar:

1. Name - The name of the tool you're using.

2. Brush Picker - Here you can select the diameter, hardness, and spacing of the brush / tool you are using.

3. Mode - Effect mode

4. Opacity - The transparency of the tool's effects.

5. Flow - The flow rate of the stroke.

6. Airbrush - Click to enable airbrush capabilities with the tool.

Brush / Pencil Tool

The Brush tool can be right-clicked to also show the Pencil tool as an option. Both are very simple tools that allow you to directly draw on top of an image. Select a color with the Foreground Color option on the tool bar, and select a brush size from the tool's sub-main menu, above. Click and drag across an image to draw on top of it.

Clone Tool

The Clone tool will copy pixels from one part of an image and copy them to a new part of the image. The Clone tool is most useful in situations such as removing blemishes from a face in a photograph, clearing a few clouds out of a bright blue sky, etc.

Choose the Clone tool. Hold the "Alt" button on your keyboard, and click in an area of the image that you'd like to copy. Now click elsewhere in the image, and move the cursor around. The image will "clone" itself to that second area.

Eraser Tool

The eraser simply deletes sections of an image. Click the Eraser tool, and click and drag around your image. The eraser will "erase" the image to what's set as the Background color.

Gradient / Paint Bucket Tool

The Gradient tool can be used on its own, or right-clicked to also select the Paint Bucket tool.

A gradient is a horizontal fading of colors, most commonly used in the creation of banners for web pages. Select the Gradient tool, and go to the sub-main menu for a drop-down of available gradients. The default is the most common.

Once you've selected which gradient you wish (and a color in the Foreground color tool), just click and drag across your image. The direction you drag (left to right, right to left, etc.) determines the flow of the gradient.

The Paint Bucket lets you fill in a large section with the same color. Select the Paint Bucket by right-clicking the Gradient tool, and click in an area of your image. It will fill with the color selected as the Foreground color.

Blur Tool

The Blur tool is useful for covering up small distortions in an image by blending the surrounding pixels together. To blur something, select the Blur tool, and click and drag around the area you wish to blur.

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