you launch Photoshop, unless you have changed your preferences, you see a start screen, as shown in Figure 1-1. This start screen can making it easier for you to find files that you have recently worked on or jump right into a new document.
If you would rather not have this screen every time you launch Photoshop, you can choose Edit ⇒ Preferences ⇒ General and uncheck Auto show the Home Screen. On the Mac you would choose Photoshop ⇒ Preferences ⇒ General and uncheck Auto show the Home Screen.
FIGURE 1-1: The Start screen in Adobe Photoshop appears as a default.
The New Document Window
If you are still using Photoshop at its default settings, you can click the New button in the start screen, or choose File ⇒ New. The initial New Document dialog window appears. Just like the start screen, the default New Document window may be more than you have asked for, but it is meant to offer you more control and options when creating new files. Note in Figure 1-2 that you can choose the type of document that you are working on, such as Photo, Print, Art & Illustration, Web, Mobile, Film, and Video.
Each one of these selections offers standard size and resolution defaults for the medium selected in addition to templates that you are able to open and customize for your own needs.
If this is a little much for you and you want the standard, smaller, more compact New Document dialog box, choose the Close button in this window and then select Edit ⇒ Preferences ⇒ General and check Use Legacy “New Document” Interface. (On the Mac, choose Photoshop ⇒ Preferences ⇒ General and check Use Legacy “New Document” Interface.)
FIGURE 1-2: The updated New Document dialog box has many options from which to choose. In this example the Photo category was selected.
Sample Images Can Help You Investigate More Features
Of course it helps to have an image open while exploring Adobe Photoshop. You are free to use your own or use the samples image files located here: https://www.agitraining.com/dummies. This downloadable file includes files that can be used throughout the entire Adobe Creative Cloud All-in-One For Dummies book.
1 Go to https://www.agitraining.com/dummies.
2 Click on the DummiesCCFiles folder to download the compressed folder.
3 After the folder is downloaded, right-click (PC) to access the contextual menu and choose Extract All and locate an easy-to-find location or Control-click (Mac) and choose Open.Inside the DummiesCCFiles folder, you find separate folders for each minibook. Images are available for you to use in the Book03_Photoshop folder. There are also additional miscellaneous images in the Images folder at the top level of this folder.
Opening an Image
You can open an existing Photoshop image in one of several ways:
If you see the start screen, you can click on the Open button and navigate to the folder that contains the image you would like to open.
Choose File ⇒ Open, select the file in the Open dialog box, and then click the Open button.
Choose File ⇒ Browse in Bridge. By selecting Browse in Bridge instead of Open, you launch the Adobe Bridge application. Read more about Adobe Bridge later in this section and also in Book 2.
If you’re opening a folder of images that you want to investigate first, choose File ⇒ Browse in Bridge to open Adobe Bridge, the control center for Adobe Creative Cloud. You can use Adobe Bridge to organize, browse, and locate the assets you need to create your content. Adobe Bridge keeps available, for easy access, native AI, INDD, PSD, and Adobe PDF files as well as other Adobe and non-Adobe application files. Adobe Bridge does not install by default with Adobe Photoshop. If you do not have it loaded you can read through the directions and highlights of using Adobe Bridge in Book 2, “Adobe Bridge.”
Getting to Know the Tools
You use tools to create, select, and manipulate objects in Photoshop CC. When you have Photoshop open, the Tools panel appears along the left side of the workspace (see Figure 1-3), and panels appear on the right side of the screen. (We discuss panels in the later section “Navigating the Work Area.”)
FIGURE 1-3: The Photoshop CC workspace includes the Tools panel.
Table 1-1 lists the Photoshop tools, describes what each one is used for, and specifies in which chapter you can find more information about each one.
TABLE 1-1 Photoshop CC Tools
| Button | Tool | What You Can Do with It |
|
|---|
