Description of Photoshop tools and what they are used with. Toolbar in Photoshop

Tools in Photoshop allow you to do any work on images. There are a huge number of tools in the editor, and for a beginner, the purpose of many of them is a mystery.

Today we will try to familiarize ourselves with all the tools located on the toolbar (who would have thought...). There will be no practice in this lesson; you will have to check all the information for functionality yourself in the form of an experiment.

All tools can be divided into sections according to their purpose.

1. Section for highlighting sections or fragments;
2. Section for cropping (cropping) images;
3. Section for retouching;
4. Drawing section;
5. Vector tools (shapes and text);
6. Auxiliary tools.

The instrument stands apart "Move", let's start with it.

Moving

The main function of the tool is to drag objects around the canvas. In addition, if you hold down the key CTRL and click on an object, the layer on which it is located is activated.

Another feature "Movements"— alignment of objects (centers or edges) relative to each other, the canvas, or a selected area.

Selection

The selection section includes "Rectangular area", "Oval area", "Area (horizontal line)", "Area (vertical line)".

This also includes tools "Lasso",

and smart tools « Magic wand» And "Quick Selection".

The most precise of the selection tools is "Feather".

1. Rectangular area.
   Using this tool, rectangular selections are created. Pressed key SHIFT allows you to maintain proportions (square).

   

2. Oval area.
   Tool "Oval area" creates selections in the form of an ellipse. Key SHIFT helps to draw correct circles.

   

3. Region (horizontal line) and Region (vertical line).
   These tools draw a 1 pixel thick line across the entire canvas horizontally and vertically, respectively.




4. Lasso.
   
5. Magic wand.
   This tool is used to select a certain color in the image. It is used in particular when removing solid-colored objects or backgrounds.

   

6. Quick selection.
   "Quick Selection" in his work he is also guided by the shades of the image, but involves manual actions.

   

7. Feather.
   "Feather" creates a path consisting of anchor points. The contour can be of any shape and configuration. The tool allows you to select objects with the highest accuracy.

   

Cropping

Cropping– cropping images for specific size. Crop crops all existing layers in the document and resizes the canvas.

This section includes following tools: "Frame", “Perspective Crop”, “Cutting” and “Selecting a Fragment”.

Retouch

Retouching tools include Spot Healing Brush, Healing Brush, Patch, Red Eye.

This also includes Stamps.

Drawing

This is one of the most extensive sections. This includes “Brush”, “Pencil”, “Mix Brush”,

"Gradient", "Fill",

and erasers.

Vector tools

Vector elements in Photoshop differ from raster ones in that they can be scaled without distortion or loss of quality, since they consist of primitives (dots and lines) and fill.

The vector tools section contains Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, Line, Free Shape.

We will also place tools for creating text in the same group.

1. Rectangle.
   Using this tool, rectangles and squares are created (with the key pressed SHIFT).

   

2. Rectangle with rounded corners.
   Works exactly like the previous tool, but the rectangle gets rounded corners of the given radius.

   

   The radius is adjusted on the top panel.

   

3. Ellipse.
   Tool "Ellipse" creates ellipsoidal vector shapes. Key SHIFT allows you to draw circles.

   

4. Polygon.
   "Polygon" helps the user to draw geometric figures with a given number of angles.

   

   The number of corners is also set in the top settings panel.

   

5. Line.
   This tool allows you to draw straight lines.

   

   The thickness is set in the settings.

   

6. Any figure.
   Using a tool "Free figure" You can create shapes of any shape.

   

   Photoshop has default shape sets. In addition, the network contains a large number of custom shapes.

   

7. Text.
   Using these tools, inscriptions of horizontal or vertical orientation are created.

   

Auxiliary Tools

Auxiliary tools include “Pipette”, “Ruler”, “Comment”, “Counter”.

“Outline Selection”, “Arrow”.

"Hand".

"Scale".

We looked at the basic Photoshop tools that can be useful in your work. It should be understood that the choice of a set of tools depends on the area of ​​activity. For example, retouching tools are suitable for a photographer, and drawing tools are suitable for an artist. All sets are perfectly combined with each other.

After studying this lesson, be sure to practice using the tools to fully understand the principles of Photoshop. Learn, improve your skills and good luck in your creativity!

Greetings to all readers and visitors of the blog!

As you know, in the Photoshop program you can both edit photos and create your own drawings with excellent graphics, making them unique and alive. In order to master this program you need some knowledge and skills, thanks to them you can easily cope with any tasks in Photoshop.

Where are the tools in Photoshop?

First, you need to learn the basic Photoshop tools and remember what functions they perform.

So let's get started!

Eyedropper Tool

The eyedropper tool is activated by a hotkey "I"

We will need a pipette to determine the color of an object, its shade. For example, you like the color of the sky in the photo. By clicking on it with the eyedropper, we will see this color. You can do this with any thing. open place photographs or images.

"Text" (Type Tool)

The "Text" function is called by a hotkey "T"

You probably already guessed why you need it. It is needed to enter text anywhere in the image, with any font and language.

Burn Tool

The dimmer is activated by hotkey "O"

An important tool for working with photographs. Using it, you can create shadows and give relief to objects. The more you use it in one place, the darker the color.

"Clarifier" (Dodge Tool)

Called by the hotkey "O"

Brightener, antonym of dimmer. It makes the color lighter and clearer. Plays great in contrast with photographs of cloudy skies or stormy seas. Before using it, select the brush size and color tone.

"Finger" (Smudge Tool)

A simple and intuitive tool in Photoshop. With its help, we can smear paint on the image itself or on its edges like our finger and give the picture a blurry effect.

"Blur" (Blur Tool)

This tool is designed to be used manually to refine your masterpieces. With it, you can make the sharp edges of an object blurry. The longer you work on the image, the blurrier it becomes.

"Paint Bucket"

Called by the hotkey "G"

The tools in this group are used to fill a selected area with the main color or a selected pattern, as well as apply a gradient to a given surface.

Move Tool

Activated by hotkey "V"

This tool is needed to move layers, shapes, selected areas both on the surface of the canvas and for dragging from one object to another.

Rectangular Marquee and Oval Marquee tools

Activated by pressing the "M" key

The tools of this group are necessary for any object or part of it for further editing.

Lasso group tools

Activated by pressing the "L" key

“Lasso,” unlike the oval and rectangular selection tools, allows you to select an arbitrary area freehand. Most often, this tool is used for manual selection and subsequent cutting out of an object along the contour.

Magic Wand Tool

Called by pressing the hotkey "W"

Using this, you can significantly speed up the work of selecting a specific area of ​​an object. That is, this tool analyzes the entire image and selects single-color pixels.

Let's take a look at the Frame tool.

Activated by hotkey C.

Using this tool we also make pictures.

Simply put, we crop the image at the edges or cut out a fragment of a given size from a large image.

Let's take a look at the Brush group tool.

The brush is activated with the "B" key.

I plan to write a separate article about this tool in more detail. And here I will only say that Photoshop is the most functional tool and has big amount capabilities and settings.

Clone Stamp Tool

Activated by the "S" key.

Using, as with a regular stationery stamp, you can transfer a print of an image from one part of the picture to another. That is, we copy certain part We transfer the image or the whole object and insert it into another part of the picture.

Using the "E" key we activate the Eraser tool.

Just like the tools of the “brush” group, they are quite functional and have a lot of their own settings. An eraser, similar to a regular stationery eraser, is used to erase unnecessary parts of an image.

Pen group tool

Activated by the "P" key

Use the tool of this group to accurately select objects or shapes, as well as to create complex contours.

Hand Tool

Called by the “H” key and is used to move large documents in the workspace of the Photoshop program. For example, for scrolling landing page layouts.

Zoom Tool

Activated by the "Z" key.

This tool is used to zoom in or out of a document or some part of it during the editing process.

All of Photoshop's tools are located in the vertical toolbar on the left side of the screen. However, although the Toolbox has a very large number of tools (compared to just six tools in Lightroom), this is not something to be nervous about because there are many of them we never use. Plus, once you understand how the tools are organized in Photoshop, you'll find that working with them is easier than it seems at first glance. Here are the most important things to know in the panel Photoshop tools.

You most likely have some idea about toolbars. Photoshop has 71 tools (don't worry, you won't have to learn them all. In fact, photographers only use a subset of these tools). Photoshop's Toolbar is positioned vertically (as shown here, on the left) along the left edge of the screen (though if you want to move it somewhere else, you can right-click and hold down the small tab at the top of the toolbar and immediately drag the toolbar from the edge and it turns into a floating toolbar that you can place wherever you want).

Access to other Photoshop tools

The tools that are visible in the Photoshop toolbar are the ones that Adobe assumes you use most often. But if there is a small triangle in the lower right corner of a tool button, it means there are other, nested (hidden) tools underneath that tool. Click and hold down the mouse button on such a tool and a small menu will appear showing other (“nested”) tools. For example, if you click and hold down the Dodge tool, the Burn tool and the Sponge tool (for reducing saturation) appear. In the example shown here, if you click and hold down the Quick Selection tool, its cousin, the Quick Selection tool, appears. Magic Wand(Magic wand).

Shortcut keys

Most tools have one shortcut key (or shortcut) assigned to them. Some of them are the first letter of the instrument name, like L for calling Lasso tool(Lasso) or B to call the Brush tool, but there are some whose association is not so obvious; So pressing V brings up the Move tool. These single-letter shortcuts are very convenient, but the problem is that there are only 26 letters of the alphabet for 71 instruments. To solve this problem, nested tools share the same keyboard shortcut. For example, pressing the I key brings up the Eyedropper tool, but underneath there are two more kinds of eyedroppers, as well as several other tools - all nested under the Eyedropper tool, and they all share the same keyboard shortcut. To switch through all nested tools, simply add the Shift key to your keyboard shortcuts. For example, each time you press Shift+I, the next nested tool is activated, which is then displayed in a button on the toolbar.

Most Photoshop tools have options

When you click any tool, all the functions or controls for that tool appear at the top of the screen in the options bar (some of the options are shown here Magic tool Wand (Magic wand)). To reset the options to their default settings, right-click the tool icon at the left end of the options bar and select the Reset Tool option from the drop-down menu.

Main and background colors

At the bottom of the toolbar there are two large color swatches: the top one is Foreground color and the bottom one is Background color. When painting with a brush, the Foreground color swatch will show the color that will be used to paint (in our example on the left, the current Foreground color is black). The Background color swatch shows the color when using the Eraser tool (here the color is white). To change the colors, click once on the swatch, activating the Photoshop color selector. To select a color, click the narrow middle gradient bar, then select the brightness of the color by clicking in the large square on the left. To return the color swatches to their default settings (black/white), press the D key. To swap the Foreground/Background colors among themselves, press the X key.

To most clearly explain why the toolbar is needed, we will draw some analogy with everyday life. Let's imagine what you need to collect small closet for things. All the shelves and doors are disassembled, but you have a bunch of screws and self-tapping screws to install it. However, you do not have a single screwdriver or other constructive device. Naturally, you will not be able to perform any actions with your future closet. So it is in Adobe Photoshop: the image will be a representative of furniture, self-tapping screws, dowels and cogs are built-in functions of Photoshop, and the tool area (located, by the way, on the left) for working with photographs will be a screwdriver. Without it, you will in no way be able to process the photo as it should.

Getting your dashboard back is easy

Of course, the absence of such a function on the workspace does not mean that you cannot use the items in this panel. Each of them has a hotkey assigned. This means that when certain buttons are pressed, the corresponding device will open. But it is quite difficult to learn them all, and the choice of these parameters is small. After all, each toolbar item has sub-items that cannot be selected using hot keys. For example, “Eraser”, when right-clicking on it, gives the user a choice (which eraser you want to use). We hope that now you understand how important it is to place this wonderful functional shelf in your work area.

Standard layout of interface elements

How to get the toolbar back in Photoshop?

Let's assume that it has disappeared from you. It doesn’t matter how, the main thing is that she is no longer there. Don't be disappointed, because you can get them back in Photoshop in just two steps! Let’s not drag our feet, but let’s immediately begin these actions:

1. On the top menu area, select “Window”.
2. At the bottom of the window that appears, check the box next to the word “Tools”.

That's all, now the function area will once again serve you faithfully and help you process photos and other images.

You can turn the panel on and off in the Window menu.

How to remove tools?

No matter how paradoxical it may sound, you may need not how to return the panel in Photoshop, but how to remove it. This is also easy to do, especially since later you will be able to return it according to the previous two-step instructions. What to do?

1. Go to “Window” from the top main menu Adobe Photoshop.
2. Uncheck the "Tools" box.
3. If this method is not to your liking, then you can left-click the existing toolbar from the edge of the screen to any position, and then click on the cross that appears in the upper right corner of the toolbar to edit.

The Toolbar is typically the most heavily used panel. This panel appears on the left side of the screen when you launch Photoshop. At any time while working with the program, a tool is selected. To make it easier to work with the palette, I have compiled a list of basic tools in Russian and English languages. You can also read in detail about how each tool works and how they are formed into groups.

List of instruments in Russian and English
There is often a need for fast translation toolbar terms into Russian. Here I have brought together Russian and English names toolbar commands. There is also a hotkey with which you can activate the tool.

The small black triangle in the lower right corner of the tool icon indicates the presence of a tool submenu. If you hover your cursor over a tool, a tooltip will appear with the name of the tool and its function key on the keyboard.

All the tools on the tool palette can be logically grouped into five large groups. These are the groups “Selecting”, “Cropping”, “Retouching”, “Coloring”, “Drawing and Text”. Let's look at each group in more detail. This is a set of tools for the CS3 version of Photoshop.

1. Group of tools “Selection” (Selection tools)
This group contains tools for selecting areas of various shapes, moving the selected area, and quickly and accurately selecting areas of irregular shape.

The Marquee tool group is used to select rectangular, oval, one-row, and one-column areas.

The Move tool moves selections, layers, and guides.

The Lasso tool group is used to create freehand, polygonal (straight-edged) and magnetic (snap) selection areas.

The Quick Selection tool lets you quickly “paint” onto a selection using an adjustable round brush tip.

The Magic Wand tool selects areas that are colored similarly.

2. Crop and slice tools group
Here you will find tools for cropping images and creating fragments.

The Crop tool crops images.

The Slice tool creates slices.

The Slice Select tool selects slices.

3. Group of tools “Retouching” (Retouching tools)
Using these tools, you can remove defects in the image, erase and restore the image, adjust sharpness and blur, hue and saturation.

The Spot Healing Brush tool removes spots and objects.

The Healing Brush tool removes imperfections in an image by painting over them with swatches or patterns.

The Patch tool repairs defects in a selected area of ​​an image using a pattern or pattern.

The Red Eye tool removes red highlights caused by flash photography.

The Clone Stamp tool is used to draw from a sample image.

The Pattern Stamp tool lets you draw using part of an image as a pattern.

The Eraser tool erases pixels and restores parts of the image to the state it was in when it was last saved. You can read more about the Eraser tool in the post ““.

The Background Eraser tool erases areas of the image until they are transparent by dragging.

The Magic Eraser tool erases solidly colored areas of an image to transparency with one click.

The Blur tool softens the hard edges of an image.

The Sharpen tool sharpens the soft edges of an image.

The Smudge tool smudges the data in an image.

The Dodge tool brightens areas of the image.

The Burn tool makes areas of the image darker.

The Sponge tool changes the color saturation of an area.

4. Painting tools group
All kinds of tools for coloring, replacing colors, and stylizing images are collected here.

The Brush tool applies brush strokes. You can read more about the “Brush” tool in the post ““.

The Pencil tool draws lines with sharp edges.

The Color Replacement tool replaces the selected color with another.

The History Brush tool paints a copy of the selected state or snapshot in the current image window.

The Art History brush tool paints stylized strokes that simulate different art styles, using the selected state or snapshot.

The Gradient tools create straight, radial, cone, mirror, and diamond transitions between colors.

The Paint Bucket tool fills similarly colored areas with the foreground color.

5. Group of tools “Drawing” and “Text” (Drawing and type tools)
This group contains tools for selecting a path, printing text, and creating arbitrary shapes.

The Path selection tool selects shapes or segments by displaying anchor points, direction lines, and direction points.

The Type tool creates text on an image. You can read more about tools for working with text in the post ““.

The Type mask tool creates selection areas in the form of text.

The Pen tool group allows you to draw paths with smooth edges.

The Shape tool group and the Line tool draw shapes and lines on a regular or shape layer.

The Custom Shape tool creates custom shapes selected from a list of custom shapes.