Photoshop’s Toolbox
In this lesson, you’ll be introduced to Adobe Photoshop’s Toolbox, and a lot of the tools it has to offer. A solid understanding of the tools showcased in this tutorial will lead to better comprehension of Photoshop in general.
Anatomy of the Toolbox
The toolbox in Photoshop is split up into 4 unique categories so that finding the right tool is never a hassle. Those categories are:
- Selection, Crop & Slice Tools
- Retouch & Paint Tools
- Drawing & Type Tools (Vector Tools)
- Annotations & Measurement Tools
In addition to these 4 sections a few other components make up the toolbox, most notably, the Foreground and Background colors.
Now that you see how the tools are all organized, let’s take a look at some of the most vital tools Photoshop has to offer. This is really just a cursory glance of the toolbox, as we’d be crazy to go into detail for EVERY SINGLE tool Photoshop has to offer in a single lesson, but you ought to now have an understanding what some of the tools are capable of. We’ll go over how to use many of these tools in later lessons.
Selection Tools
The Marquee Tools are used for selecting objects such as rectangles, squares, and ellipses.
The Move Tool is used to move selections, objects, and layers.
There are several Lasso Tools which are used to make irregular selections. There is a polygonal lasso tool for polygon selections, and a magnetic lasso tool which automatically follows edges of objects.
The Magic Wand Tool selects an area of similar colors in a single click (such as the white in the cloud logo).
The Crop Tool allows users to redefine their active image area but not resize the ENTIRE image. It’s sort of like cutting out a smaller picture from a larger photo with a pair of scissors.
Retouch Tools
There are several healing tools in Photoshop which are used to repair imperfections in images, or handle blemishes and red-eye.
With the Clone Stamp Tool, a user may select a source starting point somewhere on an image, and then paint elsewhere using that starting point as a reference, effectively cloning the source.
The Eraser Tool can be used to erase parts of an image, selection, or layer.
The Sharpen Tool is used to sharpen edges in an image, while the Blur Tool burs edges. The Smudge Tool smudges an image, similar to using fingerpaint.
The Dodge Tool lightens parts of an image while the Burn Tool darkens. The Sponge Tool is used to saturate, or desaturate parts of an image.
Painting Tools
The Brush and Pencil tools are used to paint strokes in graphics. These tools can be highly customized for very effective painting.
The Fill Tools are used to fill entire layers, selections and areas with a solid color, or gradient.
Vector Drawing & Type Tools
The Type Tools are used for creating and setting type in an image. Both vertical and horizontal type can be created.
The Pen Tools are used to create clear shapes and paths which can be used as vector objects that can be scaled to any size.
Cutom Shapes are vector objects that can be created on the fly from a list of presets (including user created shapes).
Foreground / Background Color
A foreground color and background color can be set to be used to paint with, color text, and fill objects among other things. This view provides an easy way to see what colors are currently selected, and allows for easy switching between two different colors.
Using Tools
To actually use a tool varies from case to case (again, we’ll be covering nearly everything you’d want to know in the future lessons). To Select a Tool from the toolbox, simply click it once. If the tool displayed has a black arrow in the bottom right corner, that means that there are more tools of that type hidden underneath it. To select one of these hidden tools, hold down the mouse button while over it, and then release once you’re over the tool you’d like to select.
125 Comments
Thank you so much:)
Flag as inappropriateyey~ thanks to this tutorial, i got a perfect grade in my assignment in i.c.t.~!!!!!
Flag as inappropriateGood overview of what each tool does. Esp dodge, burn, etc.
Flag as inappropriatecould you be more specific about which tools to use it is for begginners
Flag as inappropriateGood for starter
Flag as inappropriateThis is really good way to start learning Photoshop
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i have 1 qustion plz answer me?
how can i Successful in phptoshop?
thank u
nice and very helpfull tutorial .. thanks.
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Flag as inappropriatethanks
Flag as inappropriatethank u so much friend, for ur valuable information.
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Flag as inappropriateGreat information and wonderful way of explaining things. THanks so much
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Flag as inappropriateWhat a relief to finally come across a site that sets out the steps to learning this so well. I’ve owned PS for a while now but until now been unable to find any tutes that teach this in a style a beginner can comprehend and not be overwhelmed by complicated terminology Very grateful to you..thank you.
Flag as inappropriateThank you for your information.
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Flag as inappropriateVery Helpful design for lerning of new designer . . .. . . .. . .
Flag as inappropriatei haven’t the expressions to thank you.
Flag as inappropriatewow Cool tip thank for sharing.144
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Flag as inappropriatewow Cool tip thank for sharing.124
Flag as inappropriateGreat article. Thank you.
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Flag as inappropriatehi, pls tell me more about the new count tool in photoshop CS3.
vikas kumar
Flag as inappropriateReally, it meets the requirements of the beginners. Thanks a lot
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Flag as inappropriatehi, I’m new for photo shop. so, i like your teaching and thanks for teaching
Flag as inappropriateThe study is better than any other websites which also teach how to use PhotoShop.
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Flag as inappropriateHello David,
I am happy to visit your blog. congratulations for the efforts you have been taking to spread the knowledge among amateurs and professionals. I am still an amateur, could you please explain me the use of mesh warp tool and its benefits?
With regards
Flag as inappropriategaurav
Thank’s very much for taking the time to create this great explanation por First time user of PS.
Flag as inappropriateI have used PSP for about 8 years, but I am new to Photoshop. The terms are familiar, but their use is not. So, I hope these tutorials start from the beginning. If I have to know anything that PSP didn’t teach me, I will be in the dark.
Flag as inappropriateHello David,
I am happy to visit your blog. congratulations for the efforts you have been taking to spread the knowledge among amateurs and professionals. I am still an amateur, could you please explain me the use of mesh warp tool and its benefits?
Regards
Flag as inappropriateSachin
Thanks very much, its handy to have each tool briefly explained.
Being able to get rid of red eye in photos that easily is quite cool too. :)
Flag as inappropriateHi sir,
I’m Wisnu Kala from Indonesia
Your tutorials are very Freakin’ Awesome!
I can learn more than enough here,,
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Flag as inappropriateHi David, Very nice work on Tutorials Thank you
Flag as inappropriatehi sir
your are intelligent .and your article are knowlege oriented
sir am a biggner lurning to adobe photoshop. please tell me how we can use pen tool to meke an apple?.
Flag as inappropriatepls provide me full detail about pen tool use
Hey David, thanks for your efforts and congratulations on this wonderfully crafted and well maintained FREE tutorial!!! All the best for your further efforts in this direction.
Flag as inappropriatewhat do slice do? its not explained here?
Flag as inappropriateWow! Dude, your site is awesome and these tutorials are great if your getting into the world of photoshop. And the best part… is FREE! Keep it up, you’re doing a great job here!
Flag as inappropriateyou think you can help with outlining for pencil drawings?
Flag as inappropriateInformative, Thank you verymuch.
Flag as inappropriatevery good, thanks
Flag as inappropriateHi – This is a big help, as all your tutorials are. Did you leave out the SLICE tools here though?
Flag as inappropriateIt really helpful for beginner like me!. thanks
Flag as inappropriatethanks for the tutorial. really helped me a lot!
Flag as inappropriateThanks a lot, nice TUT!
Flag as inappropriatetnx tutorial9.net, you really help a lot in my assignments and activities.godbless
Flag as inappropriate@ Amanda – If it was working correctly before, a simple fix could be simply restarting Photoshop. See if a quick restart does the trick. If not, it may have to do with your Photoshop preferences.
Flag as inappropriateI have a slight problem. When I select a tool or brush, etc the picture of what i have selected isnt on the screen. what i mean is that say i want eyelashes as my brush, usually once i select it is then visible as my cursor so i can see what im doing but now it looks like 4 dots in the shape of a diamond with a dot in the middle so I cant see what im doing.I really hope this makes sense.Can you please help me??
Flag as inappropriateI feel bad. We paid for CS3 and I am using possibly 1/50th of its potential.
On to the next tutorial…
Flag as inappropriateWell, mostly because I haven’t found the need to upgrade to CS3. I may upgrade when CS4 comes out, but there just wasn’t enough change in CS3 to justify purchasing it for someone with my kind of budget.
With all that said, the differences in how things work are hardly any at all. Someone who can navigate CS2 will just as well be able to navigate CS3 or previous versions of Photoshop.
Flag as inappropriateAwesome tutorial for beginners. Question though, why did you create the tutorial using Photoshop CS2? When CS3 has been out for over a year now?
Flag as inappropriateI really enjoy your tutorials. They are soooooo incredibly helpful to us beginners. Please keep it up!
Flag as inappropriateperfectfor my classhereinthe philippines. thanks a lot. very nice indeed.
Flag as inappropriateCan I just say that these are some of the most useful tutorials I’ve ever seen for beginners of Photoshop. They really do give a brilliant overview of the program…I have a friend who has recently begun to share my addiction to Photoshop, and I’ll definitely be showing him this site. Can’t wait till you guys start publishing more advanced tutorials viz Grey Cobra.
Jimmy
Flag as inappropriatecan i translate it on albanian ?
Flag as inappropriatewow nice tutorials
Flag as inappropriateThanks Tyler =) I’m trying my best to get as much writing done as possible right now. It’s a bit hard as I’m pretty involved in other things outside of the Tutorial world, but I’m committed to making Tutorial9′s content as polished as possible.
@ Domi L. – I will be going over all of the tools with time. I personally consider the Annotations & Measurement Tools the least important for getting started with Photoshop (typically, those tools are used more in a group environment), but will be going over them nonetheless sooner or later. Hope you’ll stick around!
Flag as inappropriateHi. Nice tutorial.
Flag as inappropriateWhat about the “Annotations & Measurement Tools” though? Will you tell us how they work? Thank you.
man your pumping these things out like crazy
Flag as inappropriateAlways a nice thing to hear JAZCASH =) I’ll be covering each set of tools in more detail throughout the rest of this series, so stick around!
Flag as inappropriateAnother nice tutorial, this should help me a fair bit, cheers.
Flag as inappropriate