Photoshop Tutorial for Beginners
When learning How to Photoshop the first place to start is in the preferences, setting up your work environment. This tutorial is for beginners learning how to Photoshop from the ground up
Video Tutorial Outline
- Photoshop Preferences: CTRL/⌘ + k or Menu/Edit/Preferences/
/General (Tools in CC)/Untick Snap Vector Tools and Transforms to Pixel Grid
b. /Cursors/Other Cursors select Precise - Hide Pixel Grid: Menu/View/Show/Untick Pixel Grid (You need to have an image open to access this option)
- Pen Tool Presets: Press p to select the Pen Tool or select in the tool bar. All other options here will be selected through keyboard shortcuts
Choose Path
b. Select Exclude Overlapping Shapes. For example if you are cutting out a doughnut, you’ll be able to see through the hole on the inside
c. Make sure Rubber Band is ticked on. This will show you where the Path extends to when Pathing
Pen Tool Tutorial Captions
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Welcome to PEN TOOL Photoshop. In this tutorial, we’ll cover pen tool presets and preferences.
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First thing to do with Photoshop whenever you start is to set up the preferences. So, you press
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command and then K, as listed on the bottom here. And it will take you to preferences panel. If
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you don’t use the shortcuts initially, you can go down to Photoshop preferences and then general.
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The first place you want to set the options up is under- you want to untick the snap vector tools option
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That’s under the tools palette. You can click here snap vector tools and turn that off. It’s under
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tools for version CC, the latest version. Any earlier versions, versions CS6 and lower it’s under
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general, which is listed there.
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So what this tries to do is when a path tool, pen tool, is actually a vector tool and it will try
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to snap it to a small grid, which can be quite annoying when you want precision.
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The second option is to change the cursors. That’s under cursors. A lot of people like to see the
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icon of the tool they’re using. And this is great when you’re starting out, but really you need a lot
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more precision when you’re placing points and anchors and things. The pen tool is a very precise
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tool, so you need to have a precise cursor. It’s not essential, but it’s something that I would
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recommend.
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The next shortcut is to untick pixel grid. If I zoom right into this image, you can see this pixel
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grid. Some people find it quite annoying when you’re doing detail cutting out. So if you go into
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view, it’s under show and untick pixel grid. And you see, the grid goes away.
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So the actual presets for the pen tool itself- those were just some basic presets for Photoshop. If
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you press P, that will take you to the pen tool. You can see right here, if you click and hold
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down, you can see the pen tool. And the shortcut there is P. These other shortcuts, you don’t
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have to worry about at all. Because, we’ll learn shortcuts for those actual options. You wouldn’t
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actually go in and select them.
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So once you click on the pen tool, the top menu will give you the actual settings. So for us, we
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always want to use a path. Some people use shapes. There’s nothing wrong with that. But for the
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purpose of creating clipping path or creating transparency, you want to start with a path.
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The second option here is to exclude overlapping shapes. You click on that. Always make sure it
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says exclude overlapping shapes. What that does, is it just makes sure the inside path, when
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you’re cutting something out, the inside area will actually automatically exclude so you can see
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transparency through that area as well.
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The next option is under this cog, this little gear here. This rubber band. If I click and put down a
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point, I’m not sure where the line towards the next point will go. When I click on this gear and
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tick on rubber band, I can now see this rubber band come out. I can see where the path will line
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up with the next anchor that I put down, which I’ll explain in the next tutorial.
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And really, they are the basic shortcuts. Obviously, there’s a lot more to Photoshop, but as far as
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the pen tool goes, it’s as simple as that. And with these shortcuts here, there really is only a few
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shortcuts we’ll have to learn. And it’s all about practice and precision. So, there are a few points
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on the pen tool presets and preferences. And I’ll see you in the next tutorial.
