Jennifer Smith - Adobe Photoshop CS6 Digital Classroom

Contents

Starting up

About Photoshop Digital Classroom

The Adobe Photoshop CS6 Digital Classroom provides a broad foundation of essential Photoshop skills. It is the perfect way to learn Photoshop if you are just starting out with the software, upgrading from a previous version, or if you have never received formal training-even if you have been using Photoshop for years. The Adobe Photoshop CS6 Digital Classroom provides you with essential skills across a wide range of Photoshops capabilities. Whether you plan to use Photoshop for color correction and retouching of images, creating digital artwork, designing web pages, or creating advertisements, the Photoshop Digital Classroom is your starting point for beginning to understand everything that Photoshop offers. It has been a best-selling Photoshop book for many versions, and is widely used by schools teaching Photoshop, digital imaging, and digital design.

The Adobe Photoshop CS6 Digital Classroom helps you get up-and-running right away. You can work through all the lessons in this book, or complete only specific lessons. Each lesson includes detailed, step-by-step instructions, along with lesson files, useful background information, and video tutorials on the Digital Classroom website: www.digitalclassroombooks.com/epub/photoshopcs6 . It is like having your own expert instructor guiding you through each lesson while you work at your own pace. This book includes 14 self-paced lessons that let you discover essential skills, explore new features, and understand capabilities that will save you time. Youll be productive right away with real-world exercises and simple explanations. The Adobe Photoshop CS6 Digital Classroom lessons are developed by the same team of Photoshop experts who have created many official training titles for Adobe Systems.

Prerequisites

Before you start the Adobe Photoshop CS6 Digital Classroom lessons, you should have a working knowledge of your computer and its operating system. You should know how to use the directory system of your computer so that you can navigate through folders. You also need to understand how to locate, save, and open files, and you should also know how to use your mouse to access menus and commands.

Before starting the lessons files in the Adobe Photoshop CS6 Digital Classroom , make sure that you have installed Adobe Photoshop CS6. The software is sold separately, and not included with this book. You may use the free 30-day trial version of Adobe Photoshop CS6 available at the adobe.com website, subject to the terms of its license agreement.

Adobe Photoshop CS6 versions

Photoshop CS6 comes in two versions: Adobe Photoshop CS6 and Adobe Photoshop CS6 Extended. The Extended version offers everything you find in Photoshop CS6, along with additional tools for editing video, motion-graphics, 3-D content, and performing image analysis. This book covers both versions of Photoshop CS6. Where appropriate, we have noted any features that are available only in the Extended version. Adobe Photoshop CS6 is used to refer to both versions of the software throughout the book.

System requirements

Before starting the lessons in the Adobe Photoshop CS6 Digital Classroom , make sure that your computer is equipped for running Adobe Photoshop CS6, which you must purchase separately. The minimum system requirements for your computer to effectively use the software are listed below and you can find the most current system requirements at http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/tech-specs.html .

Windows

Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 64 processor

Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 3 or Windows 7 with Service Pack 1

1 GB RAM

1 GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on removable flash storage devices)

1024768 display (1280800 recommended) with 16-bit color and 256 MB (512 MB recommended) of VRAM and OpenGL 2.0capable system

Broadband Internet connection required for software activation and access to online services.

Mac OS

Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support

Mac OS X v10.6.8 or v10.7

1 GB RAM

2 GB of available hard disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on a removable flash storage device or case-sensitive volume)

1024768 display (1280800 recommended) with 16-bit color and 256 MB (512 MB recommended) of VRAM and OpenGL 2.0capable system

Broadband Internet connection required for software activation and access to online services.

Starting Adobe Photoshop CS6

As with most software, Adobe Photoshop CS6 is launched by locating the application in your Programs folder (Windows) or Applications folder (Mac OS). If you are not familiar with starting the program, follow these steps to start the Adobe Photoshop CS6 application:

Windows

Choose Start > All Programs > Adobe Photoshop CS6. If you have a Creative Suite installed, you will navigate to that folder to locate the Photoshop CS6 folder.

Close the Welcome Screen when it appears.

Mac OS

Open the Applications folder, and then open the Adobe Photoshop CS6 folder. If you have a Creative Suite installed, you will open that folder to locate the Photoshop CS6 folder.

Double-click on the Adobe Photoshop CS6 application icon.

Close the Welcome Screen when it appears.

Menus and commands are identified throughout the book by using the greater-than symbol (>). For example, the command to print a document appears as File > Print.

Resetting Adobe Photoshop CS6 preferences

When you start Adobe Photoshop, it remembers certain settings along with the configuration of the workspace from the last time you used the application. It is important that you start each lesson using the default settings so that you do not see unexpected results when working with the lessons in this book. The method described in the following steps restores Photoshop back to the original setting. If you have made changes to your Colors Settings and wish to maintain them, follow the steps in the section, Steps to reset default settings, but keep color settings.

Steps to reset Adobe Photoshop CS6 preferences

If Photoshop is open, choose File > Exit (Windows) or Photoshop > Quit (Mac OS).

Press and hold the Ctrl+Alt+Shift keys (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift keys (Mac OS) simultaneously while launching Adobe Photoshop CS6.

A dialog box appears verifying that you want to delete the Adobe Photoshop settings file. Release the keys then press OK.

Steps to reset default settings, but keep color settings

As you reset your preferences to the default settings, you may wish to keep your color settings. This is important if you have created specific color settings, or work in a color-calibrated environment.

Use the following steps to reset your Adobe Photoshop CS6 preferences and save your color settings.

Launch Adobe Photoshop CS6.

Choose Edit > Color Settings, and then press the Save button. The Save dialog box opens. Enter an appropriate name for your color settings, such as the date. Leave the destination and format unchanged, then press the Save button. The Color Settings Comment dialog box opens.

In the Color Settings Comment dialog box, enter a description for the color settings you are saving and then press OK. Press OK again in the Color Settings dialog box to close it. You have saved your color settings so they can be accessed again in the future.

Choose File > Quit, to exit Adobe Photoshop CS6.

Press and hold the Ctrl+Alt+Shift keys (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift keys (Mac OS) simultaneously when launching Adobe Photoshop CS6. A dialog box appears verifying that you want to delete the Adobe Photoshop settings file. Release the keys then press OK.