boat

Layers, Selection Tools and Clipping Masks

basic tools

In today's lesson we will do a few basic things:

  1. Open Photoshop.
  2. Open 2 images in Photoshop.
  3. Create a composition with 2 named layers.
  4. Use selection tools to edit the content of the layers.
  5. Use selection tools to create a new layer.

We will also do one tricky thing:

  • understand how to use clipping masks.

1. Getting organised

Create a new folder on your computer called Photoshop.

Create a subfolder called Tom Cruise.

Save these 2 images in your Tom Cruise folder.

Your project environment should now look like:

2. Opening images in Photoshop

Open Photoshop and see if you can figure out how to open the 2 images in Photoshop.

3. Video Tutorial #1

You are now ready to attempt today's video tutorial. It is about 10 minutes long.

By the end of it you should understand the importance of layers, some basic selection tools and how to use adjustment layers and clipping masks!

Don't be intimidated. Stay focused. Try hard!

By the end of the tutorial you should have something like this:

Note: Photoshop CS6 is covered in the video. If you are using Photoshop CC, you will be able to do everything in this video - try and figure it out!

4. Useful shortcuts

shortcut description
ctrl t resize/rotate an image. t stands for transform
ctrl alt z undo
ctrl d deselect a selection
ctrl + zoom in
ctrl - zoom out
ctrl 0 resize and center to fit window
[ make a brush size (including eraser) bigger
] make a brush size (including eraser) smaller

5. Submission

Save your current project as cruise-1.psd

Upload it to your Google Drive Photoshop folder