PS Instant Expert Training: Creating Photoshop Files
PS Instant Expert Training: Creating Photoshop Files
Table of Contents
Understanding Document Settings ................................................................................................ 3 Opening an Existing Document ...................................................................................................... 6 Image Size and Resolution, Working with Tabbed Windows, Combining Images by Copying and/or Dragging ............................................................................................................................. 7 Choosing a File Format and Saving Files ....................................................................................... 10 Saving Specifically for Web Use .................................................................................................... 14
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Understanding Document Settings
Creating a new document in Photoshop is a pretty straightforward process. All you need to do is click on ‘File’, choose ‘New’, and some options will appear. These options are shown in the screenshot above. One of the first options available is the option to change your width. Let’s say that you wanted to create a Facebook Timeline Cover image. The width that Facebook recommends for this is 851 pixels. So, in this case you would want to set your width in ‘Pixels’. You can change this setting by clicking on the dropdown menu next to the ‘Width’ field. Then you would change the number in the ‘Width’ field to 851. The recommended height for a Facebook Timeline image is 315. So, again you would select ‘Pixels’ in the dropdown menu that is in line with the word ‘Height’ and change the number in the corresponding field to 315. The ‘Resolution’ for any web-‐based document is ‘72’, so you would want to change this as well. Next you’ll see an option titled ‘Background Contents’. By default this is set to ‘White’, and in most cases you can leave this setting as-‐is. The default settings in Photoshop are usually fine for most projects. Therefore, it is recommended that you leave the rest of the settings as they are in most cases. When you are done entering in your custom settings click ‘OK’, and if you
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have followed the instructions thus far, you will end up with a panel that is sized perfectly for a Facebook Timeline cover. This is shown below.
Let’s say that now you wanted to create an image for a print book cover and the dimensions for this cover needed to be 6x9 inches. Again, you click on ‘File’ and then ‘New’, and when the options window appeared, you would change the settings in the dropdown menu back to ‘Inches’. The width and the height would need to be 6x9, except that with a print book you would need to allow for bleed. A normal bleed for a print document is 1/8th of an inch, which is .125. Of course, this will need to be allowed on both sides. So, you would multiply .125 by two and subtract it from the total. Therefore, you would set the width to 6.25 inches. The same exact formula can be used for the height; it would come out to be 9.25. You would also need to reset the resolution to 300 since this book cover is going to be printed. When you are done entering in these settings, click ‘OK’, and you would end up with a pallet with these very dimensions. This is shown below.
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Opening an Existing Document
If you would like to open up an existing file or photograph in Photoshop, you simply click on ‘File’ and choose ‘Open’. You will then need to browse your computer in order to find the folder that contains the file you want to work with. Once selected, simply click on ‘Open’ and you will find that your image is now place within Photoshop’s interface. You can open multiple files when you’re importing existing documents into Photoshop. The process is the same, except this time you would want to select multiple files, which you can do by holding down the ‘Ctrl’ or ‘Cmd’ key down. All of the images that you selected should be highlighted when you click ‘Open’. Each of the images will open up in their own tab within the program. This way they are all isolated and you can work on them independently. In an upcoming lesson, you will learn how you can work on them in combination as well.
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Image Size and Resolution, Working with Tabbed Windows, Combining Images by Copying and/or Dragging
Let’s say that the image you are working with needs to be resized. You can do this by clicking on ‘Image’ followed by ‘Image Size’. When you do, a window will appear that contains a number of sizing options. This window is shown in the screenshot above. As you can see, the current picture has a width of 75.958 inches and a height of 50.625 inches. It also currently has a resolution of 72 pixels per inch. That’s pretty large. Now, what would you do if you wanted to use this image for your Facebook Timeline Cover? You would need to scale this image down quite a bit, right? You may remember that it was previously stated that Facebook’s recommended dimensions for a timeline cover were 851x315. If you were to change the width of the image to 851, the height dimension would automatically change to 567. That is because the program is trying to rescale the image proportionately. Now, you can turn this feature off by clicking on the rectangular icon to the left of the words ‘Width’ and ‘Height’. This would allow you to change the height setting without the program automatically readjusting the width. However, a better option would be to just readjust the width and allow this automatic change to take place. Then, you can simply crop the photo so that it is the right height.
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After making these changes, your image might become a lot smaller within the interface. This is demonstrated in the screenshot above. There are two ways to zoom into the image. The first is to select the zoom tool, which is within the tool bar on the left-‐hand side (it looks like a magnifying glass). Once this tool is selected, you can click on the image until you get it to the size that you want to work with. Another way that you can zoom in and out, if you’re on a PC, is to hit the ‘Ctrl’ button along with the ‘+’ button or the ‘-‐‘ button. If you are on a Mac, you do the same thing except that you will use the ‘Cmd’ key. Now let’s say that you wanted to combine two images together. The easiest way to do this is to select one of the images, click the ‘Move’ tool, and left click and drag the image onto the tab that you would like to place the image within. As soon as you release the image, it will lie on top of the other. Another way to do this is to use copy and paste.
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When you merge two images like this, you’ll notice that each remains on a separate layer. As you can see in the picture above, there are now two layers showing on the bottom right of the interface within the screenshot above. This occurs by default. It may be easier for you to use keystrokes to copy and paste an image. To do so, you would simply hit ‘Ctrl+A’ (Cmd+A) to select the image and then ‘Ctrl+C’ (Cmd+C) to copy it. After that, you would click on the tab that you would like to move it to before using ‘Ctrl+V’ (Cmd+V) to paste the image. You can also use your menu options in order to copy and paste an image. It doesn’t matter which method you use to transfer one image into another tab. No matter how you go about it, you get the same result.
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Choosing a File Format and Saving Files
Obviously, knowing how to effectively save your document is an important part of using Photoshop. Photoshop gives you the option to both ‘Save’ and ‘Save As’, just like you would use in most other programs. Both of these options are listed under the ‘File’ menu. It would be preferable to use ‘Save As’ in most cases, but that of course is up to you. Whenever you choose ‘Save As’, a window will appear which allows you to change the file name and the file’s destination if you like. It also will allow you to see or change what format your image is being saved under. Photoshop allows you to save your image in a number of different formats. You’ll use some of these on a regular basis, and you may never use some of them at all. The ones that people most commonly use are: •
Photoshop (.psd)
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JPEG
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PNG
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TIFF
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•
Photoshop PDF
The native Photoshop format (.psd) is one which you should use if you are making changes in Photoshop. This format allows you to save your changes in separate layers, and use paths, and basically keep things separate so that you can go back and edit details later. If you are done with your work, and you have saved a Photoshop version that you can edit later on (just in case), you may want to save a version in a different format. If you are going to use an image on the Web, JPEG or PNG would probably be the two best options for you to select. If you are going to use the image for print, such as for a book cover or for a brochure, then you might want to save your image as a TIFF image. That’s because this is a postscript file format that is fully compatible with the image setters that are used for print. There is a Photoshop PDF format that is based on the Adobe PDF file format. This format also has the ability to maintain layers. You can also convert the layers into separate pages within the PDF. So, that is an option you may want to choose as well. If you choose to save your image as a Photoshop PDF file, when you click ‘OK’ a secondary window will appear. This window brings up the standard Adobe PDF presets. The default setting will be ‘High Quality Print’, and it is recommended that you just stick to that unless you have a particular reason to change it. Another one of the options that this window contains is the option to ‘Preserve Photoshop Editing Capabilities’. You’ll want to make sure that you have this option checked if you are planning on making any changes to your file later on. You may also want to select ‘Optimize for Fast Web Preview’. Both of these options are usually selected by default, but it would be wise to take a moment to glance at them and make sure. If you think you’ll want to view the PDF after saving it, you will want to select ‘View PDF After Saving’. If you do, Adobe Acrobat will launch and open up the document as soon as you click on ‘Save PDF’. This will give you the opportunity to view your PDF and how it appears.
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When you are saving your document, the default ‘Compression’ settings are typically what you’ll want to go with. The same thing goes for the ‘Output’. Under ‘Security’ you are given the option to require a password, which you may want to do if it’s a sensitive document you are saving. You can also restrict the ability for others to print, edit, or otherwise change your document. These options are shown in the picture above. In the picture above, you can see that ‘Summary’ is listed right beneath ‘Security’. This menu simply contains a list of the settings you have chosen. There’s really no reason to change anything in this options menu either. When you are done making your selections, click on ‘Save’, or ‘Save PDF in this case. Another window may appear which simply informs you that the version of your document that you are saving may not be compatible with earlier versions of Photoshop. In most cases you can simply click on ‘Yes’ to move forward. You can save your document multiple times, if you like, in order to have it available in multiple formats. You’ll likely run into different options with each format that you choose. For instance, the PNG window allows you to select a different compression. You can choose between ‘None/Fast’ or ‘Smallest/Slow’. In other words, you have the choice to not compress your image at all, which makes for a fast save, or you can save it with the smallest compression possible, but it takes longer for the file to save this way. There is also an ‘Interlace’ option in
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this window. You can normally just choose ‘None’ for this option, which it is set to by default. When you are done making your selections, click ‘OK’ to finish the process.
When you save your image in the TIFF format, the window above will appear. As you can see, the first option you have within this window is to set the compression. It is recommended that you use LZW if you plan on using the image for print. Under ‘Pixel Order’ you’ll find two options: ‘Interleaved’ and ‘Per Channel’. By default ‘Interleaved’ will be selected, and you can just leave it at that. Next, you’ll be able to select the ‘Byte Order’. Here you will simply need to select whether this is being saved for a PC or a Mac. So, you simply need to choose the type of computer you are using. It is likely that you will ever use any of the other options within this window, so when you are done making the selections discussed above, click ‘OK’ to finish saving.
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Saving Specifically for Web Use
You have an additional file saving option that you have in Photoshop if you want to save files specifically for the web. You will find the option to ‘Save for Web’ under the ‘File’ menu. When you choose this option, the window shown above will appear. Within the window shown above you’ll find a picture of the cartoon character Dexter. The background has been removed from this image and it is transparent. Let’s say that this was a picture that you wanted to save for the web, but you wanted to keep the transparency. Over on the right-‐hand side of the screen you’ll find the options you need to do this. At the top you will see that ‘PNG-‐24’ is selected. This is the preset that you would typically use to maintain the transparency of a document. There is also a ‘Transparency’ option below this that you can select to make sure that the transparency is maintained. If you were to set the preset to ‘JPEG’, a background would be removed and the option for transparency would no longer be available. Another option that you have is to save your file in the GIF file format. This can come in handy if you are creating animations where each layer is another frame in the moving picture. There are a number of different presets for the GIF format. If you were to select one of these, such as
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GIF 128 Dithered, you would notice that this preset does give you the option for transparency as well. This preset also gives you control over how many colors are rendered, and you have a color table at the bottom of these options. You can see this demonstrated in the picture below. These settings give you the ability to know what exactly will be saved from a document and information perspective if you’re saving it in this file format. If you were to save this file as a PNG-‐24 file format, there would be no color table because in this case you are saving it in the full 24-‐bit format. Down at the bottom right-‐hand corner, you’ll find that the program actually shows you the full file size. In the picture above, the file size is currently 84.8K. This file size would change if you changed the format. For instance, if you were to switch it over to ‘JPEG High’, the file size would now be 19.8K. On the other hand, if you changed it to ‘GIF 128 Dithered, it would end up being 22.08. So, PNG is definitely a larger file format, but that’s because you are preserving more color data without compression. Once you choose the file format that you want to use, simply click ‘Done’. The program will automatically send it to the folder you have chosen. Now you know how to save an image for the web in Photoshop.
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