Photoshop Lesson Plan
By Leigha Tracey
Goal: The stated goal is to make students aware the basics
of Photoshop, and introduce a learning environment in which students
feel comfortable enough to experiment, test, and develop their
own tips, tricks, and ultimately, skills.
Objective: To give a brief overview of Photoshop capabitlites
and uses for Photojournalism students when editing their photos
through demonstration and opening activity.
Process:
Activity (20 minutes)
Put students in small groups. Give students magazines and have
them cut out photos and backgrounds to place together as a new
photo.
Lecture/Demonstration (40 minutes)
Introduction: Adobe Photoshop is without a doubt one of the most
powerful image editors on the market today, if not the most powerful.
It offers professional-level capabilities in print and electronic
media. The trick is to learn how to put it to use, maximizing
its power and capabilities, yet minimize the time it takes to
accomplish what you need to do
What is Photoshop
Photoshop is foremost what you might call a digital darkroom,
hence the name Photo-shop. It can open and edit a wide variety
of digital images--images created in Photoshop or another software
or traditional photographs that have been scanned (a technique
that creates a digital image of physical images). What was once
accomplished with chemicals in the photographer's darkroom is
now accomplished in the computer by manipulating pixels.
Pixel is short for picture element. In computer terms, it refers
to a square of light that comprises your screen. This is important
because this is how Photoshop creates images. In fact, this is
how all digital images are created, viewed, and edited. So, as
you can imagine, Photoshop has enormous power for editing images
on a pixel-by-pixel basis.
Let’s take a look at the Photoshop interface.
Menus
The menus across the top of the screen contain the commands that
enable you to open and manipulate files. They are accessed by
simply clicking and holding the mouse and dragging down to the
desired command.
When you see an arrow or an ellipsis off to the right of a menu
command, that indicates that there is either a subcommand, in
the case of the arrow, or a dialog box, in the case of the ellipsis.
NOTE: The menus are handy, but time-consuming. Every time that
you have to move the mouse pointer up to one is a distraction
from the work at hand. To speed your work there are keyboard equivalents
to the menu commands.
Toolbox
The toolbox is command central for Photoshop. It is where you
select the tools you will use to edit images. It should always
be open and available for you to access. To select a tool, simply
click it. The toolbox has more to it than meets the eye. Notice
the tiny arrows at the lower right of some of the tools buttons.
This indicates that if you click and hold your mouse button a
roll-out menu will appear with other variations on the tool. Now
that we know where to find the menus and toolbox, let’s talk
about some of the tools that are useful to editing images.
Tools
Magnifying Views
This is an incredibly useful feature for viewing as well as editing
images. When you magnify an image, it enables you to do precision
work. You can edit on a pixel-by-pixel basis, which gives you
very fine control over your subject.
NOTE: Pixel is short for picture element. These are the little
squares on your screen that make up an image. If you zoom in really
close (say around 1000%), you can see them.
The Zoom Tool
The Zoom tool is found at the bottom of the toolbox. It resembles
a magnifying glass with a (+) sign in it. To magnify an image,
select this tool and click in the canvas. There are several modifier
keys that go along with the Zoom tool. If you press Alt (Command
on a Macintosh), the (+) sign changes to a (-) sign. This reduces,
or zooms out, of an image. The primary difference between this
tool and using the menu commands is that with the Zoom tool you
can zoom into particular areas of an image, whereas the Window+Zoom
In affects the entire image. To zoom into a specific area of an
image with the Zoom tool, click and hold the mouse button down.
This will enable you to drag a marquee (a selection sometimes
referred to as the "marching ants") to the area you
want to magnify. When you have selected the desired area, simply
release the mouse button and the magnification will occur.
Let's experiment with using the Zoom tool to magnify specific
sections of an image.
Making selections- Editing Photos
We need to begin to learn how to edit photos. Editing a picture
to improve the composition is entirely reasonable, if it's a picture
for your own use.
How Much Change Is Okay?
It's clear that you can't always believe what you see. The supermarket
tabloids frequently feature pictures that stretch the bounds of
believability. Remember the one of the President shaking hands
with the "space alien"? Or the "big foot"
carrying off the scantily clad woman. (Why was she dressed like
that in the snow, anyway?) On the other hand, if a model is having
a bad hair day or her face breaks out, retouching is required
and expected. Where do you draw the line? The answer depends on
how the picture is to be used. Reputable newspapers and magazines
tend to have strict guidelines about what they'll allow for photo
manipulation. The general rule seems to be that if a change affects
the content of the photo rather than its appearance, you can't
do it. You can lighten an over-exposed picture of the politician,
but you can't change the soda can in his hand into a beer can
(or vice-versa).
Editing photos is accomplished in large degree with selections.
Selections are just what they seem to be--portions of the image
that you have selected. There are several ways of making selections.
You can use the Marquee tools, the Lasso tools, and the Magic
Wand. By using the Marquee tools, you can create selections. These
selections then can be cut out of images, copied, moved, rotated,
and much more.
It is important to remember that when you are dealing with selections,
for better or for worse, only the area within the confines of
the marquee may be edited. It is, in a sense, the only active
area of the canvas. Thus, after a selection is made, you can perform
whatever action you desire, but before you move on, the selection
must be turned off, or deselected, by clicking outside of your
selection with the Marquee tool. Until you do so, you can only
edit within the selection's boundaries.
The Marquee Tools
The Marquee tools, Elliptical and Rectangular, are found in the
upper left corner of the Toolbox. These tools are so important
to most Photoshop users that they are, at least the Rectangular
one, selected by default when the application is opened.
To swap back and forth between the Marquee tools and the Crop
tool, you can click and hold on the tool. A selection will roll-out
and you will be able to select the desired tool. You also can
select the different Marquee tools in the options palette drop-down
menu (Window+Show Options).
1. Click the Marquee tool in the Toolbox.
2. Move the tool over the canvas--the cursor will appear as a
crosshair.
3. While over the canvas, click and hold the mouse button.
4. Drag out a marquee. Experiment with dragging out an elliptical
marquee. Try to get a sense for how they appear. Try dragging
from different directions.
Crop Tool
If there are certain portions of the photo that you do not want,
simply select the cropping tool and select the area you want to
keep. Photoshop will crop out the unwanted portions of the photo.
Feathering Selections
Feathering is a term that indicates a slight blurring. It is a
great technique to use when you want to avoid sharp edges or abrupt
color changes.
You can feather selections by specifying a desired amount in the
Marquee options palette.
You won't see any evidence of feathering in the marquee itself
beyond a rounding of the corners. The higher the number you enter
as the feather radius, the more rounded the corners become. Feathering
only takes place after you fill the selected area, because it
is a gradual lightening of pixels.
If you prefer not to specify a general feather size in the Marquee
tool options palette, you can feather individual selections differently
by selecting Select+Feather. In this dialog box, you can set the
feather size up to 250 pixels.
The Lasso Tools
As useful as the Marquee tools and their modifier keys are, there
will come times when you will have to select irregular shapes.
Perhaps you might need to select a person out of a crowd You can
go about this in two ways. The first is more difficult up front.
You can either painstakingly follow the outline of the flower
with the Lasso tool (which is difficult, but if you can do it,
that's great). The other option is for those of us with unsteady
hands or impatient brains. Photoshop has taken us into consideration
also. Go ahead and make a less precise selection and use the Magic
Wand tool.
The Eyedropper
Sometimes you need to paint over part of the image, either to
fill in scratches or to remove unwanted lines, spots, or in-laws.
Use the Eyedropper tool to select a color to paint with. Simply
click the Eyedropper on any color in the image that you want to
replicate, and that color becomes the foreground color, ready
to apply with the Paintbrush, Airbrush, or whatever painting tool
you choose. All you need to do to paint in the background is to
find another spot in the picture where the color or gray shade
is the same one that you'd like to use. Select the Eyedropper
and click it to make that color the foreground color. Then, use
your brush to paint in the selected shade. Smudge the edges very
slightly if necessary to make the new paint blend in.
This process can be used to clean up a photo if there are dust
spots on the image. Try zooming in on the photo, then cleaning
up the unwanted spots.
Blur Filters
The Blur filters (Filter+Blur) are useful tools when you want
to soften the effects, either of a filter you have just applied
or of brushstrokes in the painting. Blurring can gently smooth
a harshly lit portrait or, when used on a selection instead of
the whole image, can throw an unwanted background out of focus,
making it less obtrusive. The Blur filters include:
* Blur
* Blur More
* Gaussian Blur
* Motion Blur
* Radial Blur
* Smart Blur
There are two basic Blur filters: Blur and Blur More. They do
exactly as their names suggest. Blur is very subtle. Blur More
is only a little less so. With the blur tool you can make minor
or major changes to the image foreground or background.
Summary
Arguably the most powerful feature of Photoshop is the Layering
feature. This enables you to combine images and create collages
by working on one part of an image at a time. Each layer is totally
separate from the others, thus enabling you to change its opacity
and edit to your heart's content without ever touching a single
pixel in the other parts of the image.
And finally, the "greatest" feature of Photoshop is
Undo. This enables you to take some chances, go out on a limb
and try something, then Undo and go back to the image with which
you started. And if you go too far, because Photoshop only enables
one step backward, you can choose File+Revert. This command will
take you back to the last saved version of your image.If you are
new to the program, be prepared to be amazed.
Some of the best learning is going to come when you take it upon
yourself to try something new. Let the spirit of experimentation
guide you. Take the ideas and processes discussed herein and make
them your own by pushing beyond, trying new steps and new ideas.
With Photoshop, there is always something new to learn, and a
different, perhaps easier way, to accomplish a task.
And finally...have fun!
Materials Needed:
