Lesson #03 Starting with Photoshop - Part #2
Written By Darren

As we saw in the last tutorial, Photoshop is less intimidating than most people think, especially when you don't have all of the tools and functions open all at once.

I want to mention something that may seem a bit out of place, but I felt it was important to mention now before proceeding and will also help us later. As with many software programs, Photoshop has a "preferences" setting that enables you to customize and setup how Photoshop starts and lays itself out for you. For example, you can select whether you're going to use pixels, cm, or inches with your rulers that will surround your drawing area, among other settings. You can change your preferences by going to the menu strip at the top of Photoshop, and select "Edit","Preferences" and then select "General" if you wish to start at the beginning of the settings. For this tutorial, and since we'll be discussing web design, go to the "Units & Rulers" selection. On the "Rulers" selection, use the drop-down menu and select "pixels". If you're doing print work, you would set your rulers to inches or cm. All of the other preference settings are ok as they are for now.

So, what did we just do? Well, in the last tutorial, we made a new drawing area, however, when we start doing our design work, adding effects and doing the entire layout, it's much easier to use rulers and guides while we're working. This will allow us to line up objects, for symmetry and balance, and to make sure certain items are where we want in our design.

The way we place rulers around our drawing area is quite easy. Simply go to the menu strip at the top of Photoshop, and select "View", then "Show Rulers". Voila! You now have rulers around your drawing area that are set in pixels. One runs across the top and one runs along the left side of the drawing area.

You know, I hate not seeing everything well on the screen, so let's make our drawing area open up and cover the entire Photoshop workspace. Do this by clicking on the blue strip that runs across the drawing area, just like the picture below.

There. Much better. Now, we have a drawing area, with rulers in pixels, a new layer in which to play with, and the basic toolboxes open that we'll need at this time. Your entire work area should look similar to the picture below.

What you see here are your drawing area expanded to fit in the entire work area, your layers/channels/paths box, and your basic tools shown on the long vertical strip. Later, if you wish to hide the vertical tool strip, you just simply click the blue area at the top of it and it will shrink it. To expand it back again to it's original size, just click the blue tab again. Try it. It doesn't bite. The same goes with the layers/channels/paths box and other pop-up toolboxes. In order to conserve space, and also see other functions relating to those boxes, you simply click on the blue spots at the top of those boxes too. Conserving space around your drawing area helps you view your area and help you stay organized. Later, you can customize your work area to your particular taste and work habits.

NOTE: I saved this little tip for the last part of the tutorial so as not to confuse you by mixing it in with the discussion. Remember the preferences settings we played with at the beginning of this tutorial? Well, Photoshop has a bug in it, believe it or not. As you work more and more on projects, sometimes you may notice certain items, such as the masking tool, just stop working. It has to do with the actual preferences file and sometimes this just needs to be deleted. For Photoshop 6.0, the preferences file is located in a Windows subdirectory. Mine looks like this and yours probably is located here too:

C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop\6.0\Adobe Photoshop 6 Settings\Adobe Photoshop 6 Prefs.psp

If this is your first time doing this, instead of deleting it the first time, simply rename it to something like Adobe Photoshop 6 Prefs2.

With this tutorial, you learned the following:

1. Where to set up your Photoshop preferences.
2. How to set your preferences to display the correct settings for your units and rulers.
3. How to place rulers around your drawing area.
4. How to expand your work area so it's easier to see.
5. How to fix the "it doesn't work anymore" bug by deleting the preferences file.

In the next tutorial, I'll discuss the functions of the tools that long vertical tool bar. There are more tools on there than meet the eye, so get ready to roll your sleeves up for some exciting Photoshop fun.