All of our Photoshop tutorials are now available to download as PDFs!
Tired of always needing to open the Color Picker to change colors in Photoshop? With the Creative Cloud 2014 updates, you don’t have to! Learn all about the newly-enhanced Color panel and its great new features that make choosing colors easier than ever!
In this second part of our tutorial on the new Focus Area selection tool in Photoshop CC 2014, learn how to improve and fine-tune your initial focus-based selections with Photoshop’s powerful Refine Edge command!
Photoshop CC (Creative Cloud) has been updated with exciting new features for 2014! In this first tutorial, learn how Focus Area lets us make selections based on the in-focus areas of an image!
Learn some simple tips for customizing your Layers panel in Photoshop to keep it free of unwanted clutter and create a cleaner, more efficient workspace.
In the previous tutorial, we learned the basics of zooming, panning and navigating around images in Photoshop. This follow-up tutorial offers a complete collection of all the essential tips, tricks and shortcuts you need to navigate your images like the pros!
In this Photoshop Basics tutorial, learn the essential tools and options you need to zoom, scroll and navigate your way around your images quickly and easily!
Workspaces in Photoshop let us easily switch between different panel layouts for different tasks. In this tutorial, learn all about the built-in workspaces that ship with Photoshop, and how to save your own panel layouts as custom workspaces!
Much of what we do in Photoshop involves the use of panels, and with so many panels to work with in Photoshop CS6, things can seem a bit overwhelming. In this tutorial, we learn how to manage and arrange the panels to optimize your work space and keep it all organized!
Tired of your photos always opening in Windows Photo Viewer when you want to edit them? In this tutorial, learn how to easily set Photoshop as your default image editor on a Windows PC.
In this second tutorial in our series on Photoshop clipping masks, we learn how to use type as a clipping mask to easily place a photo inside your text!
Learn how two great new features in Photoshop CS6 – Background Save and Auto Save – will improve your workflow and help minimize annoying interruptions.
In this first tutorial on the new features of Photoshop CS6, learn all about the new darker interface and how to control its appearance with color themes!
When it comes to making color-based selections in an image, most Photoshop users turn to the Magic Wand Tool because it’s easy and it’s right there in the Tools panel. But if you dig a bit deeper, you’ll find the Color Range command, and in this tutorial, you’ll learn why it’s time to wave that Magic Wand goodbye!
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!
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!
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!
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’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!
Photoshop gives us quick access to a few type options in the Options Bar, but its more interesting and advanced options for working with type are found in the Character and Paragraph panels. In this tutorial, we learn all about the Character panel options like leading, tracking, kerning, baseline shift, and more!
Learn the difference between point and area type in Photoshop, and how area type lets us easily wrap larger amounts of text onto multiple lines inside resizable text boxes!
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometimes we still need to add our own words to an image or design layout. In this tutorial, we cover the basics and essentials of adding, editing and working with type in Photoshop!
By default, Photoshop places each new vector shape we draw on its own independent Shape layer, but in this tutorial, we learn how the Add, Subtract, Intersect and Exclude options let us combine shapes in more interesting ways!
Learn the differences between the Shape Layers, Paths and Fill Pixels drawing modes for the Shape tools in Photoshop, and why one of them in particular is almost always a better choice than the others!
Learn how Photoshop’s Custom Shape Tool lets us add hearts, flowers, animals, snowflakes, music notes, copyright symbols and other useful shapes to our designs with no drawing skill required!
Learn the essentials of working with vector shapes and Shape layers in Photoshop, from drawing simple rectangles and ellipses to stars, starbursts, direction arrows, and more!
Learn how to easily and automatically align and distribute layers within a Photoshop document using the Align and Distribute options, and how layer groups make it easy to center multiple layers with the document itself!
As you add more and more layers to a document in Photoshop, your Layers panel can quickly become a cluttered mess of confusion. In this tutorial, learn how layer groups make it easy to keep things neat, tidy and organized!
Tired of dragging images from one Photoshop document to another? Learn how the Load Files into Photoshop Layers command, first introduced in Adobe Bridge CS4, can open multiple images at once as layers inside the same document!
Layers are easily Photoshop’s most important feature, but one special type of layer – the Background layer – comes with a few rules and limitations we need to be aware of to avoid confusion and frustration.
For Photoshop CS5 and earlier. Learn all about the Background layer in Photoshop, what makes it special, and how to get around its rules and limitations.
Take a whirlwind tour of the Layers panel in Photoshop and learn the essential skills you need for working with layers! For Photoshop CS5 and earlier.
If there’s one thing every Photoshop user needs to know, it’s how to work with layers, Photoshop’s most powerful and important feature. In this intro to layers, we look at the difference between working with them and working without them!
Photoshop’s Opacity and Fill options in the Layers panel both control the transparency of a layer, but in this tutorial, we learn the important difference between them when working with layer styles!
In this Photoshop Basics tutorial, learn how to create more interesting text layouts in your designs using custom shapes as text frames, and watch as your text fills the area inside the shape!
In this Photoshop Basics tutorial, learn how to create fun designs and interesting logos by combining text with custom shapes! You’ll learn how to convert text to a shape, how to add other shapes to text and how to use shapes to cut holes out of letters!
In this third tutorial in our series on repeating patterns, learn how to create fun and interesting patterns from Photoshop’s custom shapes!
In a previous tutorial, we covered the basics of creating and using simple repeating patterns in Photoshop. In this tutorial, learn how to add colors and gradients with Solid Color and Gradient fill layers!
Learn the basics of creating and using simple repeating patterns in Photoshop!
Dragging and dropping photos between documents has always been an essential skill in Photoshop, but is it still possible with the new tabbed document windows in Photoshop CS4 and CS5? Of course it is! This tutorial shows you how!
Before we can use Photoshop to blend photos together in creative and interesting ways, we first need to know how to move photos from one document to another. In this tutorial, we look at three easy ways that work with any version of Photoshop!
Learn how to easily make your type flow along the shape and direction of a path. For Photoshop CS5 and earlier.
Learn how to select and download photos from your digital camera or memory card to your computer using Adobe Bridge CS5 and the Photo Downloader!
Photoshop’s Free Transform command is one of its most useful features, a one-stop shop for resizing, reshaping, rotating and moving things within a document. Learn the essential skills and shortcuts for getting the most out of this powerful feature, including how to switch to other helpful transform modes without leaving Free Transform!
Tired of drawing selections in the wrong size, shape or location you needed and trying again and again until you get it right? Learn how to fix the selection you’ve already made with Photoshop’s Transform Selection command, and create a fun picture-in-picture effect while you’re at it!
If you’re using Photoshop CS3 or higher, you’ll definitely want to learn all about the Quick Selection Tool and how it lets us select objects in an image simply by painting over them!
The Magic Wand, one of the oldest and most basic selection tools in Photoshop, selects pixels in an image based on tone and color. Learn how it works and how a tool so simple can make replacing the sky in a photo quick and easy!
Make sure you’re getting the most out of Adobe’s most powerful version of Photoshop to date with a quick look through Photoshop CS5’s essential Preferences settings!
Tired of switching between Photoshop and Bridge every time you need to open a new image? Now you don’t have to! Learn how the new Mini Bridge in Photoshop CS5 lets us easily locate, preview and open photos from Bridge without ever leaving Photoshop!
Adobe Bridge CS4 may be great at managing and organizing our ever-growing collection of photos, but first, we need some photos to manage. Learn how the Photo Downloader in Bridge CS4 makes it easy to get your photos from the camera to the computer!
Digital cameras give us the freedom to snap as many photos as we like, and Adobe Bridge CS4 gives us an easy way to locate, manage and organize them! In this tutorial, we take a quick tour of Bridge CS4’s many features and options.