In the beginning, most designers use the menu bars for their work but gradually they start using shortcut keys which are much easier than that. It sounds difficult but if you know where to start, you can become a professional in photoshop and can be a better designer than before.
Here I will tell you the different futures that you will get in a trial version of Photoshop.
So let us start the journey to make you aware of everything which you need to know.
Starting an Image File
After opening the Photoshop software, you will see some kinds of artboards that are already made by photoshop, that includes Photo, Print, Art & Illustration, etc. You can select any of them and can start your work from there.
Most of the settings are mandatory to be managed by you, but I’ll mention bit depth (located to the right of Color Mode ). The maximum number of colors that you can easily use is called Bit Depth.
This is very important because as the bit depth goes up, the size of the image also goes up, but the larger the file, the more color, especially if you plan to zoom in.
Save You Work
To save your work, you have to go to the ‘File’ menu in the top left corner of the screen, once you click on it then you will see two options called ‘save’ and ‘save as’.
You can click on the ‘save’ option if you want to save at the present location and the ‘save as’ option if you want to save at the other location.
Photoshop Workspace
There is a default workspace available to you if you are a beginner and also you can customize it according to your need.
But it is recommended to use the default workspace option if you are a beginner.
The look of the photoshop is same as Microsoft Word and you will be very comfortable while using it which is also a cool part of Photoshop.
The ‘Options Bar’ can be moved anywhere you want by using the ‘gripper’ on the left edge of the bar. (Tip: If the Options bar is not visible in the workspace, access: Window menu > Options.) And you’ll have the Tools Panel.
Using Tools
One of the common tasks in Photoshop is to delete the background and make the image transparent to use the parts of the image for your creative works like a website or your presentation and all.
Here is a secret for you (Don’t tell anyone): Use PNG format (Portable Network Graphic) to keep the background transparent (Thank me later).
You can also change the settings like the size of the text, color of the images or texts, font type, etc. by the top bar of the artboard. This is also a cool feature of Photoshop.
Using Smart Auto Features
This is the only feature that can give you a feeling of a professional designer because it will help you to remove background and edit a background smartly and easily.
A few More Starter Tips
The basic transformation commands used to alter an object are available from the Edit menu and the Transform menu command [Edit menu > Transform]. These things are called Skew, Distort, Wrap, Flip, Rotate, Scale, etc.
You can also use another option available in photoshop which is the eraser tool.
This tool erases some of the pixels and can restore some of the parts of the image. (The shortcut is ‘E’)Another Eraser tool is called the background eraser tool which can erase the background easily and can create transparency. The last eraser tool is the magic eraser tool which can create transparency by clicking on the solid colored part.
Final Thought
These are the basic tools and methods which should be known by every designer to enhance their knowledge to become a better designer.
So these are some of the cool features that you will get in the Photoshop trial version and by start practicing them, you can not stop yourself from buying the premium version of it.
The only thing you need to do is practice these tools by uploading some of your images. Start by getting rid of the background, writing some texts, adding some light and color, making a better look of it, and also using it for different formats like social media, websites, or even for print purposes to understand how things work.
Just learn this 20% of this software and you will become a master of Photoshop one day and can learn 100% of the things in a very short duration of time that you can’t even imagine.
