Introduction to Photoshop CS3
If
you want to work with photos or graphics, Photoshop is the program you most need
to learn. Artists, photographers, designers, and hobbyists all rely on Adobe
Photoshop for creating and editing images. Discover the fastest and most
effective ways to use Photoshop from a columnist for Photoshop User magazine who
has twice been nominated for the Photoshop Hall of Fame.
This course will teach you how to use Photoshop with detailed, step-by-step
instructions that you'll have no trouble following—even if you've never used a
computer for graphics before!
Photoshop CS3 has a host of impressive new features for photographers, and
you'll meet a number of them—including the newest way to fix JPG images that
come from your digital camera. We'll begin with an introduction to the Photoshop
environment. Next, you'll learn how to create simple digital paintings. Then,
you'll be editing your own photographs to remove red-eye, get rid of dust and
scratches, and correct image exposure. You’ll also learn how to switch the
backgrounds on images and how to remove wrinkles and blemishes from photos, just
like they do in magazines.
By the time you finish this fun, hands-on, project-oriented course, you'll be
well on your way to expressing yourself with the most exciting graphics program
ever developed.
To enroll in this course, click the Enroll Now button below:
Requirements:
Adobe Photoshop CS3, Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended, or any version of Adobe
Creative Suite CS3 that includes the Adobe Photoshop CS3 or Adobe Photoshop CS3
Extended software. Software must be installed and fully operational before the
course begins.
Microsoft® Windows® XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista™ Home Premium,
Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise (certified for 32-bit editions) on Intel®
Pentium® 4, Intel Centrino®, Intel Xeon®, or Intel Core™ Duo (or compatible)
processor.
Mac OS X v.10.4.8 (on PowerPC® G4 or G5 or multicore Intel processor)
Internet access; e-mail; and the and the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla
Firefox Web browser.
A minimum of 512MB RAM (at least 1GB recommended); 1024x768 monitor resolution
with at least a 16-bit video card; 64MB video RAM
Syllabus:
All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two
lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do
not have to be present when the lesson is released, but you must complete each
lesson within two weeks of its release.
A new section of each course starts on the second or third Wednesday of each
month. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space
the start date for each course at least two months apart.
| Week One |
| Wednesday - Lesson 01 |
| Your journey begins. Whether you're an aspiring
graphic artist or a weekend photographer, Photoshop is an adventure that
can take you places you never dreamed. Even if you've never touched
Photoshop before, you'll be able to open, edit, and save files before we
finish this first lesson. You'll also find out how to download the
images we'll use in class. |
| Friday - Lesson 02 |
| Photoshop's painting tools are a lot of fun to use.
In fact, many students say that the brushes are Photoshop's nicest
surprise. The brushes are also Photoshop's most basic tools, so you'll
want to know how to use them even if you never really need to paint
anything. For example, you'll use brushes to heal and fix images later
in the course. So we'll spend today's lesson practicing with the basic
Brush tool. Although you won't need any art talent to use Photoshop's
brushes, many students discover latent art ability that completely
surprises them! |
| Week Two |
| Wednesday - Lesson 03 |
| Today, you'll learn how to scroll around your image
so you can more easily see the pixels as you edit. You'll learn how to
erase, and you'll meet one of Photoshop's neatest tricks: the Erase to
History command. This command helps you combine images or to bring
images back to the way they looked when you first opened them. The other
piece of magic you'll discover is how to colorize images or create the
always-popular sepia tones. |
| Friday - Lesson 04 |
| In this lesson, you'll learn the critical skill of
making selections. Selecting simply means isolating a specific part of
an image so you can make changes to just that part. You'll see how easy
it is to isolate rectangular or circular portions of your image so you
can add a filter or change the colors of that area. You'll also practice
creating a vignette, which is a photo with an opaque center that falls
off to a very soft edge. It's a great technique to use on a portrait
when you don't like the original background. And if you don't like the
selection you just made, you can use the fabulous new Photoshop CS3
Refine Edges command. We'll go over that today, too. |
| Week Three |
| Wednesday - Lesson 05 |
| Photoshop has some great "smart" selection tools, but
until CS3, all of the selection tools have had some limitations. You
can see the flower—why can't Photoshop? Photoshop CS3 has fixed that
with the new Quick Selection tool, and you'll get a chance to try it out
in this lesson as you practice putting two images together. |
| Friday - Lesson 06 |
| A lot of students are surprised when they see how
much control they can have over how a Photoshop brush performs. We'll go
over several different options in today's lesson. You'll learn how to
make a brush change colors as you paint, and how to make a brush seem to
dance across an image. You'll even create brush strokes that look like
stitches on a quilt, following the direction of your cursor. You'll also
learn how to use a brush to create a stamp from any section of an image,
and then use that stamp anywhere else in your image. |
| Week Four |
| Wednesday - Lesson 07 |
| Gradients are fountains of color that blend all the
hues in between a starting color and an ending color. One of the current
trends in photography is to colorize areas of a photo with a gradient.
You can spend hundreds of dollars purchasing gradient-colored stock
photos—or just use what you learn in this lesson to create them
yourself. Even portraits can be much more exciting when you add
gradients to them. |
| Friday - Lesson 08 |
| If you enjoyed the Erase to History command, get
ready for this super-charged version—the History Brush tool. This
incredible tool gives you an unlimited do-over on your photo for as long
as you have the image open on your screen. You can add filters and
generally experiment with any feature that Photoshop possesses, but
still get back to your original image or to a version of the image in
the recent past. In this lesson, you'll learn to use the History Brush
to make stunning black and white with color images, to color correct an
image, and then to make a totally wild impressionistic art image from a
photo. |
| Week Five |
| Wednesday - Lesson 09 |
| Whether you want to add type to a scrapbooking
layout, make large type for display, or learn a little bit about
Photoshop's Layer Styles, you'll enjoy this lesson. You'll try your hand
at making type that warps, wiggles, and wraps around a circle. Then
you'll see what you can do to text on your own. |
| Friday - Lesson 10 |
| In today's lesson, you'll learn how to "right size"
your images, whether that right size is for printing or for the Web.
You'll also unlock the mysteries of printing so that your prints have
the best chance to profit from your new Photoshop skills. You'll find
out how to scan an image so it's large enough, but not too large, and
how to crop an image that shows more than you really want to see. |
| Week Six |
| Wednesday - Lesson 11 |
| Today you'll learn the three R's of photo
manipulation: Retouching, restoring, and rearranging. You'll be amazed
at what you can do—and you'll no longer trust the phrase "pictures don't
lie." You'll also discover another incredible new feature in Photoshop
CS3—the Clone Stamp palette. This new addition lets you copy imagery
from anywhere in an open image and brush it into your picture while
changing size and orientation. |
| Friday - Lesson 12 |
| Sometimes you mean to take an image with a yellow
colorcast—sometimes, you don't. If you didn't mean it, then you'll enjoy
learning about CS3's new ability to edit JPG files inside Camera Raw to
help your images look their best. You can't work miracles all the time,
but if you have an image that's a bit too dark or a bit too light, you
can fix it up so that your photography looks perfect. Of course, if you
forget to take off the lens cap, even Photoshop can't help you! |
To enroll in this course, click the Enroll Now button below:
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