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PhotoShop Course Outline

"Command-Z is your best friend"

Lesson 1
exploration of palettes, tools and basic concepts
viewing and rearranging palettes (use tab key to hide palettes)
drawing and painting tools
selecting color foreground and background
getting more brushes and brush options
selection tools, pixels and resolution
marquee and lasso tools
(shift key to constrain aspect ratio)
(option key to draw from center outward)
(option-Delete to fill a selection with 100% of the foreground color)
anti-aliased selections
the magic wand and tolerance setting
the zoom tool (zoom in=spacebar-Command) (zoom out=spacebar-Command-option)
auto scrolling (spacebar)
layers and transparent pixels
setting preferences and restoring defaults for all preferences

Lesson 2
making and modifying selections (shift=add) (Command=subtract)
saving and loading selections
fun with filters
the rubber stamp and cloning (option-click to set the origin)
cropping
gradients and patterns
merging active layers
creating type and drop shadows
selecting and moving within layers
moving layers together
saving a flattened image version for final output

Lesson 3
complex selections (similar, grow and inverse)
intersecting selections
adjusting brightness and contrast
sampling and colorizing
bordering a selection
Review questions and practice

Lesson 4
creating paths with the pen tool
modifying lines and points on a path (z=selection tool)
corner points vs. smooth points, using anchors to control smooth points
custom colors, RGB vs. CMYK, process color vs. spot color
filling and stroking paths and subpaths
selecting a color range
working with masks and channels
copying selections between files
scaling, rotating, and flipping within images, layers and selections
using the info palette and command palette
preserving transparency of pixels and using layer modes

Lesson 5
making a composite image from many files
creating a texture
adjusting hue, saturation and lightness
adding canvas to an image
using paths to make selections
working with floating selections
feathering and defringing selections
resizing an image vs. resampling an image

Lesson 6
rasterizing postscript files
photo retouching and color variations
creating graphics fof the web

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