Photoshop Tutorial II

You survived the Adobe tutorial and now you want to apply what you've learned to a real life situation, like your project, for example....

This brief tutorial will give you the opportunity to apply most of what you learned in the first tutorial to an image of your own.

In order to proceed, you will need:

1) Something to scan (a book, photo, newspaper clipping, map, etc.)
2) Time on the scanner. PLEASE: Prepare yourself and your material before sitting down at the scanner, otherwise the other people in your class will not have enough time to scan their work as well. READ all of this tutorial first.
3) Patience. Have a good time with this.

TIPS:

1) Think about how you will use the image BEFORE you scan it.
2) Ask yourself, 'AM I ever going to print this?' This fundamental question generally decides your scanning resolution.
3) Save, and save often.
4) If it is for the screen, then if it looks good on the screen STOP MESSING WITH IT and move on with your life.

That said, let's begin....

What you are going to do:

1) Scan an image
2) Fix up the image for the purposes of using it in an Authorware (screen) presentation
3) Create a thumbnail image
4) Save the files in a variety of ways

SCANNING

1) Open Photoshop. Make sure the scanner is on.
2) Choose File...Twain Acquire to select the scanner

3. Place your image face down on the scan bed. Make sure there are no paper clips or other evil things attached to the page. If at all possible (tough with expensive books for example) close the printer cover.

TIPS: Place a few pages of white paper between the sheet you are scanning and the next page for a cleaner scan. Place a book on top of the scanner to reduce vibration and possible image blurring.

4. Select the appropriate Image Type, Color Photo or Black&White Photo (even for lineart, see the Photoshop 5 book for more info).

5. Preview the image.

6. Use the marquee to select the area of the image you wish to scan. It appears automatically when you move the pointer over the image.

Draw a rectangle by holding down the mouse and dragging diagonally, just like you did in the 'Working with Selections' chapter of the Photoshop tutorial.

7. Once you have selected the area, hit the Auto button to fix up the contrast and color (or B&W image quality).

8. Scan the image by pressing SCAN.

Photo Retouching

9. Here is the image brought into Photoshop:

Begin by SAVING the image in your Originals folder. Use the following naming scheme:

Imagename_yourintitials.filetype, so a Photoshop file might be called

Beakboy_mal.psd

10. Bring all of your Photoshop prowess to bear, everything you've learned in the tutorial and from your colleagues and on your own to make the image beautiful (in your eyes of course). Pay special attention to the circumstances mentioned in in the Photoshop 5 book, pages 549-553.

For example:

I chose to get rid of (replace) the background of the image above because it is from the back cover of a book. I selected the background, deleted it and replaced it with a solid black fill. Here's the resulting image, before and after:

11. RESIZE the image to your final specifications, keeping in mind how big you wish it to be on the screen.

It is very important to change the Print Size resolution to 72 ppi. If you don't change this, you may get unexpected results in Authorware. Do this FIRST, then change the final Pixel Dimensions.

SAVING

12. You will create three (3) files. You already created the first one. You have been saving, right?

Image 1: Save your ORIGINAL, fixed and happy Photoshop file, layers and all, in your Originals folder, named as above.

13. Save a COPY of the image, sized to final specifications, as a JPEG file.

Choose File->Save a Copy... and change the directory to your Images folder.

TIP: What? No Images Folder?. Select the New Folder option and create one in your folder. Make sure not to put it inside your Originals folder.

Name it ImagenameBIG_yourinitials.filetype. For example:

BeakboyBIG_mal.jpg.

Photoshop will ask you what quality you want to save at. All the images on this page were saved at 5. 8 is the safest setting, so try that first.

14. Create a thumbnail image by resizing the image to a height of 100 pixels. Choosing a fixed height guarantees your thumbnails will all line up.

The image will get really small and blurry. How can you make the image clearer? (Hint: See page 13 of the Photo Retouching tutorial)

Save a COPY of the image, sized to the thumbnail size, as a JPEG file.

Choose File->Save a Copy... and change the directory to your Images folder.

Name it ImagenameSML_yourinitials.filetype. For example:

BeakboySML_mal.jpg

Congratulations! You are now a seasoned Photoshop veteran. Go forth and scan!

fini