How to work with history in Photoshop?

Work with the "History" palette


You can use the History palette to jump to any recent state of the image created during the current working session. Each time you apply a change to an image, the new state of that image is added to the palette.
For example, if you select, paint, and rotate part of an image, each of those states is listed separately in the palette. When you select one of the states, the image reverts to how it looked when that change was first applied. You can then work from that state.
You can also use the History palette to delete image states and, in Photoshop, to create a document from a state or snapshot.
To display the History palette, choose Window > History, or click the History palette tab.
Photoshop

Keep the following in mind when using the History palette:
• Program-wide changes, such as changes to palettes, color settings, actions, and preferences, are not reflected in the
History palette, because they are not changes to a particular image.
• By default, the History palette lists the previous 20 states. You can change the number of remembered states by
setting a preference. Older states are automatically deleted to free more memory for Photoshop. To keep a
particular state throughout your work session, make a snapshot of the state.
• Once you close and reopen the document, all states and snapshots from the last working session are cleared from
the palette.
• By default, a snapshot of the initial state of the document is displayed at the top of the palette.
• States are added to the bottom of the list. That is, the oldest state is at the top of the list, the most recent one at the
bottom.
• Each state is listed with the name of the tool or command used to change the image.
• By default, when you select a state, the states below it are dimmed. This way you can easily see which changes will
be discarded if you continue working from the selected state.
• By default, selecting a state and then changing the image eliminates all states that come after it.

• If you select a state and then change the image, eliminating the states that came after, you can use the Undo.

Getting started!

Getting started!



 File → New


Select the size of the blank document that you want to create. Pay special attention to your
choice of resolution. If you’re creating an image for the web, 72 pixels per inch will suffice.
If you’re creating a detailed art project, you want at least 300 pixels per inch, but obviously
the more the bettter.


A Few Words About Color


Computers recognized many different color formats. Some common choices include:
RGB color — lists a value between 0 and 255 for each of the Red, Green, Blue components
of a color. (0, 0, 0), the absence of color, is completely black. (255, 255, 255), the
presence of all colors, is completely white. Most Photoshop artists work in RGB.
CMYK color —lists a percentage of each of the colors (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, blacK).
CMYK can best be thought of as the “color printer cartridge colors.” Some graphics
designers choose to convert their work (after it has been done in RGB) to CMYK so
that they have a better sense of how it’s going to look after it is printed.
Grayscale —this is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a color mode that operates entirely in
black and white. Usually in order to convert an image to grayscale, you will first need
to flatten it. (More about this later)
Bitmap —Only allows for black and white dots (pixels); I wouldn’t recommend using this
in most cases
Lab color — Represents color with 3 components: (Lightness, color value from red to
green, color value from blue to yellow). This is another non-standard color channel.


Saving Your File


File → Save As . . .
The default format for Photoshop files is aptly named “Photoshop Format.” Keeping your
document in Photoshop format is a good idea if you’re planning to go back and edit it later.
However, if you want to e-mail it or put it on a website, you will want to change the format
to something more universal.




Popular Format Choices, Explained


Photoshop PDF —PDFs have gotten a bad reputation here in the Mac Lab, mostly be-cause we don’t print them. However, PDF was developed by Adobe for file-sharing
purposes, which makes it an excellent choice for e-mailing a document to someone else
(particularly someone who doesn’t have the same version of Adobe Photoshop that
you do).

TIFF —Tagged Image File Format, another format that is pretty universally readable.


File → Save For Web


Photoshop has a special Save For Web feature that allows you to choose between GIF, JPEG,
PNG and WBMP formats. It also allows you to choose between “High,” “Medium,” and
“Low” quality resolution.
Size Issues
Even the steadiest hands make small mistakes with a mouse. The best way to minimize the
visibility of these mistakes is to zoom in sufficiently far on your project so that any mistakes
that you make are not apparent once the project is restored to normal size.
Simple Photo Re-Touching
Say we want to edit Lime Cat:
Maybe we don’t like the brown spot on LimeCat’s lime. We want to find a way to fill in an
appropriate texture and color to match the rest of the lime. Using the rubber stamp tool,
we can do just that.


Using the Rubber Stamp Tool


To use the rubber stamp tool, first select a “brush” size that looks appropriate for the error
that you’re correcting. The rubber stamp is a cloning tool, and you don’t want your cloning
area to be too large.
Next, select the area that you wish to clone by holding down the option key while you click
the mouse over that area.
Now, “dab” the mouse in short strokes over the area that you wanted to cover up (ie. The
brown spot on the lime)


 Cutting Out an Image


Suppose that we want to (precisely) cut out a picture of Homer Simpson.

Using the magnetic lasso, trace (approximately) the border of the image. You’ll notice that
this is difficult to do in a precise manner (even if you are viewing the image at 400% its
actual size). We will use the mask feature to make our selection more precise.
Click on the button that looks like a grey box with a white circle inside of it on the tool bar.
This will enable you to enter the mask mode.
Once you are in the mask mode, you will notice that the area that doesn’t show up in red
is the area that you have selected (the red highlighted part is the “throwaway area”). By
using the eraser and the paintbrush tools, you can add or subtract from this red area with
amazing precision.
Once the selected (white) area on your image is to your liking, exit from the mask mode.
Edit → Copy will copy your image and allow you to paste it into a new document.
Tip: In Photoshop, it is always a good idea to paste an image onto a different layer from its
background. This will make it easier to move your image around the canvas.



Overlaying Two Images

New Layer

Go to the layer tool bar at the right of the screen and click on the arrow in the upper right

hand corner.

The default opacity level is set to 100%. You can always change this later if you want your

layer to allow some of the background to show through.

Note that the “color” does not affect the color of the content of your new layer, it just creates

a tag of that color on the toolbar to help you organize your layers or flag layers that still

need work.

What was “bad” about the preceding image?

You will notice that Homer Simpson still doesn’t quite fit with the background. There’s

a blurry edge that goes all the way around Homer that seems to separate him from the

University of Chicago campus.

The image on the left looks much more natural than the image on the right, namely because

we used the rubber stamp tool to clone the background over the white border in the “Homer”

layer (layer 1).

One useful layering trick is to take a photograph, place it on one layer, and then create new
layers on top of it to trace different parts of the photograph.
Once you’re finished with tracing the photograph, you can “hide” this layer by clicking on
the eyeball icon on the Layer toolbar.

Tool box of photoshop CS5

Photoshop for Beginners

              Adobe Photoshop is one of the most powerful software applications for image editing, touch up, color correction, and painting and drawing. You can use it to work with images that have been digitized on flatbed or film/slide scanners, or to create original artwork. The image files you create in Photoshop can be printed to paper or optimized for use in multimedia presentations, web pages, or animation/video projects. 

So,Lets start with Work Area!

 Work Area

  Toolbox

• Contains selection tools, painting and editing tools, foreground and backgroun color         selection boxes, and viewing tools 

• To select, simply click on the icon on the toolbox (the name of each tool will appear by   positioning the pointer over the icon) 

• A small triangle at the bottom corner of the icon indicates the presence of additional hidden tools 

Palettes

• Control behavior of its tools 
• Windows menu displays a list of available palettes 
• When selected, the palette will appear as a floating window on the opened workspace 
• To activate a palette click on its tab

Color

• Displays the color values for the currently selected foreground and background colors



Swatches

•Displays a generic set of colors, but the true value of the Swatches palette is in its ability to load customs  watch collections Layers
•Displays all the layers in an image 


History 

•Records and displays individual changes made to an image and allows for changes to be undone.

Selections
Learning how to select areas of an image is of primary importance when working with Photoshop since you must first select what you want to edit. Selections allow you to isolate areas in your image and apply different effects or filters without affecting the rest of the image.