Adobe Photoshop Tutorials and Training
Anyone Can Learn Photoshop With Tutorials At Photoshop Essentials.com!
Welcome to Photoshop Essentials, where anyone can learn Photoshop! We offer Photoshop tutorials you won't find anywhere else, with step by step training that's perfect for all skill levels! Each tutorial is written with beginners in mind, so even if you're brand new to the world of image editing, you can easily follow along! You'll be amazed at what you'll be able to do in Photoshop in no time at all!
For best results with our tutorials, we recommend using the latest versions of Photoshop (CS4 or CS5), but most of our tutorials apply to any recent version of the program so don't worry if you're using an older version.
Many of our tutorials will also work with Photoshop Elements, especially the latest versions (Photoshop Elements 9 and 10).
Scroll down to view our latest tutorials for each section (Photoshop Basics, Photo Retouching, Photo Effects, Text Effects, and Digital Photo Essentials), and be sure to check back often for the latest additions! Enjoy learning Photoshop!
New! Download our Photoshop tutorials as convenient, print-ready PDFs!
Latest Photoshop Basics Tutorials - View All
Photoshop Type - Creating Warped Text
Learn how Photoshop's built-in Warp Text options make it easy to twist, stretch and distort type into all kinds of different shapes and designs, all while keeping the text and the effect itself fully editable!
Photoshop Type - An Easy Way To Set Your Type Size
Tired of guessing at font sizes when adding text to your Photoshop documents? Learn how to scale your type to any size you need, with a live preview of the results that makes it easy to choose the right font size every time!
Photoshop Selections - Feather Selections With Quick Mask
There are lots of times when we need to feather, or soften, our selection edges, but Photoshop's Feather command gives us no way to preview what we're doing. In this tutorial, learn a better way to feather selections using Quick Mask mode!
Unlock The Full Power Of Basic Selections
If all you've been doing with Photoshop's basic selection tools is making a new selection every time, you've been missing out. In this tutorial, learn how to unlock their full potential by adding to, subtracting from, and intersecting selections!
Photoshop Type - The Paragraph Panel
Photoshop's Character and Paragraph panels work as a team to give us full access to every type option available in Photoshop. In this tutorial, we learn about the paragraph-based options in the Paragraph panel like alignment, justification, paragraph spacing, and more!
Latest Photo Effects Tutorials - View All
Folds And Creases Effect In Photoshop
In this Photoshop Effects tutorial, learn how to easily add folds and creases to a photo as if it had been folded and unfolded like a map!
Radial Zoom Enhanced Eyes Effect
In this Photoshop Effects tutorial, learn how to give someone's eyes a fun, easy to create 'zoom' effect with blur streaks that zoom out from the center of the eyes. We'll also enhance the brightness and color of the eyes while we're at it!
Faded Pixels Photo Border Effect
In this Photoshop Effects tutorial, learn how to create a "faded pixels" photo border, with the image appearing through randomly-sized and scattered square pixel shapes that gradually fade into a solid colored background.
How To Blend Textures With Photos In Photoshop
Learn the essentials of blending textures with photos in Photoshop, including how to quickly cycle through the layer blend modes, how to blend only the brightness values of the texture to keep the photo's original colors, how to invert textures for different results, and more!
Photo To Colored Dot Pattern
In this Photoshop effects tutorial, learn how to easily turn a photo into a pattern of colored dots, using one of Photoshop's filters, a layer mask and a simple repeating pattern we'll create from scratch!
Latest Photo Retouching Tutorials - View All
How To Lighten And Brighten Eyes With Photoshop
In this Photo Retouching tutorial, learn a fast and easy way to lighten and brighten someone's eyes in a photo using nothing more than a simple adjustment layer, a layer blend mode and a brush!
Darken Overexposed Photos With The Multiply Blend Mode
In the previous tutorial, we learned how to quickly brighten an underexposed photo using the Screen blend mode. In this tutorial, learn how to darken and tone down an overexposed image just as easily using the exact opposite blend mode!
Brighten Underexposed Photos With The Screen Blend Mode
In this photo editing tutorial, learn a quick and easy way to brighten underexposed photos using nothing more than simple adjustment layers and a layer blend mode!
Crop, Straighten and Open Multiple Scanned Photos
Whether you're restoring old photos or adding them to your digital scrapbooking designs, let Photoshop's Crop and Straighten Photos command speed up your scanning workflow!
An Easy Way To Find Neutral Gray In A Photo
When color correcting photos in Photoshop, it's pretty easy to find the brightest and darkest areas in the image. But what about those midtones? Is there an easy way to find neutral gray without simply guessing? There sure is, and it's one of Photoshop's often overlooked blend modes that makes all the 'difference'!
Latest Text Effects Tutorials - View All
Stroke Text With A Brush In Photoshop
Learn how to create interesting designs out of text in Photoshop by converting the text into a path, then using brushes to add stroke outlines around the letters!
Rotate, Flip & Scale Individual Letters In Text
Photoshop makes it easy to rotate, flip or scale entire words or lines of text in a document, but in this tutorial, we take things further and learn how to select and transform individual letters in a word!
Ghostly Blur Text Effect
Learn how to give text a ghostly, supernatural look to it in Photoshop using a couple of simple blur filters!
Metal Text Effect In Photoshop
Learn how to easily create metal text, a popular effect widely used in video games and movie posters!
Perspective Shadow Text Effect
Is your Photoshop text lacking perspective? Try adding an easy to create, classic 3D-style perspective shadow!
Latest Digital Photo Essentials Tutorials - View All
Adding Contact And Copyright Info To Your Photos
Uploading your photos to the web can be a great way to get yourself and your work noticed, but before you send an image out into the world, make sure your contact and copyright information is included with the file. This tutorial shows you how!
Photoshop Essential File Formats Quick Guide
Feeling overwhelmed by the number of file formats to choose from when trying to save your images in Photoshop? This quick guide looks at the essential formats we need to know, including the pros and cons of each one and the situations where it makes the most sense to use it!
Image Compression: Seeing The Difference With Digital Photos And JPEG Compression
It's a fact of life with digital photos that sometimes we need to compress them to make our file sizes smaller. Our computer screens don't always make it easy to see the damage being done to the image, but thanks to one of Photoshop's rarely-used blending modes, the horrors of jpeg compression become strikingly clear.
Color Bit Depth: Benefits Of Working With 16-Bit Images
The whole point of editing images in Photoshop is to make them look better, so why risk making them look worse in the process if you don't have to? If you've been editing 8-bit images when you could have been working in 16-bit mode, you've been missing out on a world of flexibility.
Color Channels: RGB and Color Channels Explained
If RGB is just a three letter word to you and color channels are something you watch on tv, your Photoshop work is suffering. Learn how Photoshop displays colors in your images and take your skills to the next level.
Latest Photoshop Tips and Tricks Tutorials - View All
Saving And Reusing Text As A Custom Shape- Great for logos or copyright information!
Handy Tricks & Keyboard Shortcuts For Type- Working with type made easier!
Make Colorizing An Image With Hue/Saturation Easier- No more aimlessly dragging the Hue slider!
Make Layer Styles And Masks Work Together- Get the results you expect!
