An introduction to PhotoShop CS5

Photoshop CS5 Basics

An introduction to PS

Photoshop is a fantastic program for editing or enhancing your photography. Whether you’re into design, professional editing or just getting rid of those ugly red eyes, i’ll walk you through it step by step.

When  you first open Photoshop CS5 you’ll be faced with this screen 

This is the home screen, nothing fancy has happened yet. The first thing I am going to talk you through is photo enhancement so, open up a photograph that you have taken:

File > Open > (choose)

Now you have your photograph open it’s time to start making it look that little more professional.

The first two most important steps are levels and curves. These should be adjusted properly no matter what photograph you’re enhancing.

Levels

First we need to set our levels so CTRL/CMD + L and you will see this screen

Set your two end makers so that they are just touching the sides of the graph, as you can see I have done in the screenshot above, this will ensure the brightness is correct for the picture. Have a play around with these to get a feel for them. 

Curves

Next on the agenda is curves. Curves are very similar to levels, so this time its CMD/CTRL + M and you will see this screen 

You can adjust these freely to give your photograph different effects to, go on. Have a play.

The “standard” adjustments is to make an “S” shape as you can see I have done above. However there are many different effects you can achieve which I will go into in a later tutorial.

So that’s it, play around with levels and curves and email me your finished work! at matty_mcmc@hotmail.com

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