Photoshop Mini lesson #4 notes: Retouching your photos

Selection Tools:

1. Use the selection tools to move, copy, delete, scale, rotate, or anything else you want to

do to all or a part of your image.

2. The selection tools are:

A. the marquee selection tools (use when you want to select something of a regular 

B. The lasso tools (use for odd shaped objects)

C. The quick selection and magic wand (are great when your object is of similar color)

D. Extract tool (use this to pull the object from its background in one step)

Retouching Tools: Once you have something selected you can:

1. click edit

2. click transform

3. then select any option you want from the list

4. click the check mark at the top to apply the transformation

5. To feather the edge of a selection (helpful if you have removed an object/person )

6. Click Refine Edge

7. A dialog box will appear. Input a number between .1 and 250 to the feather selection from the original background) click Select

to determine the softness of the edge. The larger the number, the thicker the softened edge.

8. Click OK.

9. To fill a selection with color first make a selection.

10. Click Edit

11. Click Fill

12. Click on the arrow with the Use option.

13. To use the custom Pattern option, click the rectangular marquee tool and select an area

14. You can decrease the opacity to fill with a semitransparent color or pattern by

15. Click OK.

16. To apply a “ghosted” white over a part of your image, select the area and set to fill

17. To correct defects in your image, click the Clone Stamp tool.

18. Click Brush and set your brush size.

19. Hold down the Option key while clicking on the area of the image you want to copy.

20. Let go of the option key and then click and drag over the area you want to correct.

21. You can apply the Clone Stamp more subtly by lowering its opacity in the Options

22. You can also correct defects in your image using the Healing Brush.

23. Click the Healing Brush tool in the menu bar.

24. Set your brush

25. Make sure the Sampled option is selected from the menu at the top.

26. Hold down the Option key and click the area you want to heal with.

27. Release the Option key and then click and drag inside the area you want to heal

area of the image to use as a fill pattern, then click Edit and Define Pattern.

changing the opacity number.

with white and the opacity set to less than 50%.

bar.

28. You can get really crazy and use the History Brush to paint a previous state of your

image from the History palette into the current image. Use this to revert just part of

the image.

29. Click the History button from the menu bar on the RIGHT side of your workspace.

30. Click the Create New Snapshot button in the History palette. This puts a copy of the

current state of the image into the History palette.

31. Change your image to make it different from the snapshot.

32. Click the left of the snapshot  in the box to the right to select it as the History brush

source.

33. Click the History brush in the tool menu on the LEFT of your workspace.

34. Click Brush and set it how you want.

35. Click and drag inside the image. Pixels from the old image are painted onto the new

image.

36. That is enough for now. Have fun!