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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!

Reducing 5 O’Clock Shadow And Beard Stubble In Photoshop

Unless you’re looking at a photo of a guy in the rugged outdoors, chances are the stubble on his face isn’t adding anything to the image. In this Photoshop tutorial, we’ll see how to give a guy a virtual shave and improve his appearance.

How To Apply A Smart Filter In Photoshop CS3

Smart Filters are easily one of the best new features in Photoshop CS3, and using them couldn’t be easier. In this tutorial, we take a look at the basics of applying Smart Filters to an image.

The Color Range Command – Photoshop Selections

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!

Creating Warped Text In Photoshop

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!

An Easy Way To Set Your Type Size In Photoshop

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!

Feather Selections In Photoshop 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 In Photoshop

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!

Photoshop Type – The Character Panel

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!

Photoshop Point vs Area Type

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!

Photoshop Type Essentials

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!

Photoshop Shapes – Add, Subtract, Intersect and Exclude

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!

Photoshop Shapes – Vectors, Paths and Pixels

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!

The Custom Shape Tool In Photoshop

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!

Photoshop Shapes And Shape Layers Essentials

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!

Align and Distribute Layers In Photoshop

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!

Photoshop Layers – Layer Groups

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!

Open Multiple Images As Photoshop Layers

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!

Photoshop Layers – The Background Layer

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.

The Background Layer In Photoshop CS5

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.

Photoshop CS5 Layers Panel Essentials

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.

Photoshop Layers Introduction

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!

Layer Opacity vs Fill in Photoshop

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!

Custom Shapes As Text Frames In Photoshop

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!

Combining Text With Shapes In Photoshop

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!

Moving Photos Between Tabbed Documents 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!

Moving Photos Between Documents In Photoshop

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!

Type On A Path In Photoshop

Learn how to easily make your type flow along the shape and direction of a path. For Photoshop CS5 and earlier.

Free Transform Essential Skills And Shortcuts

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!

Transforming Selections In Photoshop

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!

The Quick Selection Tool In Photoshop

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 Tool In Photoshop

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!

Photoshop CS5 Essential Preferences

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!

Mini Bridge In Photoshop CS5

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!

How To Download Photos From Your Camera With Adobe Bridge CS4

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!

Adobe Bridge CS4 Quick Tour

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.

Photoshop Brushes – Other Dynamics

Learn how to dynamically control the opacity of our brush’s color and the flow of the paint with the Other Dynamics options, the last (but not least) of six Brush Dynamics categories in Photoshop’s Brushes panel!

Photoshop Brushes – Color Dynamics

Learn how to dynamically control the hue, saturation and brightness of your brushes as you paint, and even how to paint with both the Foreground and Background colors at once, using the Color Dynamics options, the fifth of six Brush Dynamics categories in Photoshop’s Brushes panel!

Photoshop Brushes – Dual Brush Options

Learn how to blend and mix two different Photoshop brushes together using the Dual Brush options, the fourth of six Brush Dynamics categories in Photoshop’s Brushes panel!

Photoshop Brushes – Texture Options

Learn how to use textures to change the shape of your Photoshop brush and how to paint with patterns using Photoshop’s Texture options, the third of six Brush Dynamics categories found in Photoshop’s Brushes panel!