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Latest Photoshop tutorials

Welcome to Photoshop Essentials, where everyone can learn Photoshop! We offer fun, exclusive, step-by-step tutorials for all skill levels, and all written with beginners in mind. From Photoshop Basics to Photo Editing and Retouching, Photo Effects, Text Effects and more!

Check out our latest Photoshop tutorials below. Or download our tutorials as PDFs and get exclusive bonus content!

Photoshop Brushes – Scattering Options

Learn how to dynamically scatter multiple copies of your Photoshop brushes as you paint, creating a ‘spraying’ effect, using the options found in Scattering, the second of six Brush Dynamics categories in Photoshop’s Brushes panel!

Photoshop Brushes – Shape Dynamics

In this Photoshop Brushes tutorial, learn how to dynamically control the size, angle and roundness of your brushes as you paint using Shape Dynamics, one of six Brush Dynamics categories in Photoshop’s Brushes panel!

Photoshop Brushes – The Brush Dynamics Options

In this series of tutorials, learn how to dynamically control various aspects of our brushes as we paint in Photoshop, including brush size, shape, color and more using the Brush Dynamics options in the Brushes panel!

How To Make Your Own Custom Photoshop Brushes

Photoshop ships with lots of great brushes for us to use, but it’s way more fun and interesting to create our own! In this tutorial, learn how to create a new brush from scratch, and how to control the behavior of the brush with dynamic brush options!

The Magnetic Lasso Tool In Photoshop

The Magnetic Lasso Tool is one of the best selection tools in Photoshop, giving us much better results than what the standard Lasso Tool offers in less time and with less effort and frustration. In fact, with a little practice, you may find yourself hopelessly attracted to it!

The Polygonal Lasso Tool In Photoshop

The Polygonal Lasso Tool, another of Photoshop’s geometry-based selection tools, allows us to easily select objects with straight, flat surfaces with just the click of a mouse!

The Lasso Tool In Photoshop

Photoshop’s Lasso Tool is probably the easiest of the selection tools to use, allowing us to draw freehand selections around objects in a photo as if we were outlining them on paper with a pen or pencil. We’ll also learn how to fix up problem areas and dramatically improve your results!

The Elliptical Marquee Tool In Photoshop

The Rectangular Marquee Tool may be one of the easiest Photoshop selection tools to use, but it isn’t much help to us when we need to draw oval or circular selections. That’s where the Elliptical Marquee Tool comes in. In fact, the Elliptical Marquee Tool is really just the Rectangular Marquee Tool with extremely rounded corners!

The Rectangular Marquee Tool In Photoshop

Being able to select objects or areas in a photo is one of the most important Photoshop skills you need, but not all selections need to be complex or time consuming. The Rectangular Marquee Tool, one of Photoshop’s basic selection tools, is perfect for making selections based on simple geometric shapes.

Why Do We Need Selections In Photoshop?

There’s lots of ways to make selections in Photoshop, some simple, some advanced. But having lots of ways to do something doesn’t explain why we need to do it in the first place. In this tutorial, we’ll look at why we need to make selections in Photoshop at all, and why Photoshop doesn’t see things like we do.

Photoshop CS4 New Features – Multi Document Layouts

Photoshop CS4 makes viewing and comparing multiple images easier than ever thanks to the new Arrange Documents feature and a bunch of new multi document layouts! Learn how to use them and even how to zoom and pan all of the images in a layout at once!

Photoshop CS4 New Features – Tabbed Document Windows

If you’ve been wishing for a better way to work with multiple images open at once in Photoshop, one that doesn’t involve endlessly dragging document windows around on the screen, check out the new Tabbed Document Windows feature in Photoshop CS4! Switching between multiple images has never been easier!

Photoshop CS4 Interface Quick Tour

New to Photoshop or upgraded from an earlier version? Check out our quick tour of all the features in Photoshop CS4’s user interface, the most streamlined, efficient and user friendly interface so far! Learn what’s what, what’s new and where it all is, including a look at the brand new Application Bar and Application Frame!

Saving, Loading and Reusing Layer Styles in Photoshop

Photoshop’s layer styles are a great way to create fun and interesting photo effects and text effects without a lot of effort, but remembering how you created an effect isn’t always easy, and recreating it can take time. Thankfully, Photoshop lets us save our layer style masterpieces and re-apply them instantly with just the click of a button!

How To Use Actions In Photoshop

Tired of doing the same things over and over again? Why not let Photoshop do them for you! Learn everything you need to know about Photoshop Actions, including what they are, how they work, how to edit and customize actions, and of course, how to record your very own actions from scratch!

Create Your Own Custom Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts

If you love customizing things to suit your own style, or just want to work faster and more efficiently in Photoshop, learning how to create your own custom keyboard shortcuts is a great place to start!

Faking A Layer Mask In Photoshop Elements

Photoshop Elements has very limited support for layer masks, and officially, we can only use them with Adjustment Layers. But not only are Adjustment Layers incredibly useful, they’re also pretty easy going, and they have no problem at all sharing their layer masks with any other layer that needs them!

Creating Custom Shape Sets In Photoshop

In this second of a two-part tutorial on creating custom shapes in Photoshop, we learn how to collect and organize all the shapes we’ve created into easy-to-manage Custom Shape Sets! We also look at some best practices for how to avoid losing our shape sets if something goes wrong!

Create Your Own Photoshop Custom Shapes

Creating our own custom shapes in Photoshop can be lots of fun. In this first of a two-part tutorial, we learn how to create a basic shape, how to add details to the shape, how to save it and use it as a custom shape, plus a whole lot more!

Making Selections With The Pen Tool In Photoshop

Still using the Lasso Tool to select everything that isn’t a rectangle, square or circle? It’s time to take your selections to a whole new level! Learn how to outline objects with paths using the Pen Tool, and then how to easily convert those paths into professional quality selections!

Understanding Layer Masks In Photoshop

Still permanently damaging your images with the Eraser Tool because you think layer masks are beyond your skill level? If you know the difference between black and white and can paint with a brush in Photoshop, you have all the skills you need!

Photoshop CS3 Essential Preference Settings

If you’re upgrading to Photoshop CS3, making sure the newly renamed and reorganized Preferences are set up correctly is one of the first things you should do to make sure both you and Photoshop are working efficiently.

Multiple Text Strokes With Smart Objects In Photoshop

Need to add multiple strokes around your text? Normally Photoshop only lets us add a single Stroke effect to a layer, but in this tutorial, learn how to easily get around that problem using Smart Objects so you can add as many stroke outlines to your text as you need!

Editable Blurred Type With Layer Styles In Photoshop

Most Photoshop users turn to the Gaussian Blur filter when they need to blur text in an image or design, but in this tutorial, learn how to keep your blurred type fully editable by creating the same effect with layer styles!

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!

Textured Text Effect In Photoshop

Learn how to create an interesting effect by adding a texture to text in Photoshop, using nothing more than a photo for the texture, a layer mask, a simple image adjustment, and of course, some text! Includes a trick for pasting an image directly into a layer mask in Photoshop!

Faking Text Wrap In Photoshop

Reality isn’t the only thing we can fake in Photoshop! Thanks to paths and Photoshop’s ability to use a path as a container for text, we can easily fake the “Text Wrap” feature you’d normally find in a page layout program!

Wrapping Text in 3D With Photoshop

Take your Photoshop skills into the third dimension! Wrapping text around an object in 3D couldn’t be easier and takes only a few simple steps!

Worn And Torn Text In Photoshop

Learn how to easily give text a worn, cracked look to it using nothing more than a basic selection tool, a brush filter and a layer style.