Quickly Setting Up And Starting With Photoshop

A highly versatile and popular piece of software, Adobe's Photoshop is extremely powerful in the hands of a good user.

10:38 18 July 2019

With proper use, you can remove imperfections, edit backgrounds and even create art. However, it has a fairly complicated interface that can quickly scare away beginners. This guide will teach you how to get it for free, while introducing you to the rich world of Photoshop.

Downloading and Installing Photoshop

First, you will need to install a torrent client (in this case, utorrent) through which you will be able to download and install Photoshop. When you download utorrent free and initiate the Photoshop torrent you will be presented with lots of information, including a progress bar and the remaining download time. Once the progress bar is completely filled, you successfully finished the first step and are ready to install Photoshop.

Installing it is as simple as running the .exe file and following the on-screen instructions. Keep in mind that Photoshop can take up a lot of storage space, especially once you start working with multiple images. Optimally, you should select a partition with more than 10GB of free storage space available.

Getting Familiar with the GUI

Once you open Photoshop through the desktop shortcut, you'll be greeted with a grey, fairly simple screen

 

 

To open up an image for editing, click on File/Open from the Main Menu in the upper left corner and select your image file.

When the image is opened, numerous other sections and options will appear. All have their own unique use with which you'll have to get familiar in order to efficiently use Photoshop.

1 - Referred to as the Toolbox/Tools Panel, by default it's going to appear on the left side of the interface. These are all the different tools that Photoshop offers including crop tools for cutting out certain parts of the image, Spot Healing tool commonly used for facial corrections and many others for retouching images, painting and making selections.

Small triangles on the bottom right of some tools indicate that they can be right-clicked, which will open up a submenu of other tools belonging to that group.

2 - Opposite of the Toolbox is part of Photoshop's interface where all the panels are found. These control the different parts of our images, such as colors, layers, and paths. To save space, Adobe grouped related panels together. Switching between them is as simple as clicking on the wanted tab.

As with the Toolbox, panels can be arranged in any way you like by clicking and dragging them to the wanted spot. There are many other different panels which can be toggled in the Window tab of the Main Menu bar.

The Layers panel is arguably the one you will use the most. Through it, you stack images on top of each other and blend the different changes together. Their use greatly determines how your end result will look.

3 - Options bar is directly linked and changes according to your selected tool. It can be used to modify different characteristics of tools, such as opacity, shape, size, strength etc.

 

Easy Use with Workspaces

Workspaces are simply preset of different types of panel arrangements, tool assortments, and various other interface elements. They are found in the same ribbon as the Options bar. Photoshop comes preinstalled with several workspaces that all have a unique use, such as 3D, Painting, Photography..

The default workspace is Essentials, and this is what you see when you open up an image for the first time. Photography workspace is great for working with images, while the Graphic and Web is a good choice for web designers.

You can also create your own custom workspaces. Simply arrange the interface elements how you like. Then, click on Window, then Workspace and select the option New Workspace. This will open up a dialog box where you will be able to name and save your workspace for easy access.

Summary

Once you start editing images more often, you'll notice that it's not as difficult to use as it might have seemed at first sight. With these tips, you will be able to download and set up your own copy of Photoshop in no time. Keep in mind that if you want to truly master all the possibilities that this program offers, you will have to invest a lot of time and practice.