Open a new document

To open a new document, we click “File” in the menu bar and choose “New” from the drop-down menu.

This opens the dialog “New”.

At the top of the box “Name”, we give a name for our document.

We can enter the width and height, resolution, plus a number of other setting. But actually, we use Photoshop to edit pictures and use other applications such as Illustrator or Freehand to make drawings.

But Photoshop can, it has several tools to do so.

Click the OK button when you finish the settings.

 

Open a photo

In order to open a photo, click the button “File” in the menu bar and select “Open” in the drop-down menu. The hotkey for this is Ctrl + O.  This opens the dialog “Open”.

In the “Search” (1) navigate to the folder that contains the image you want to open.

Select the photo (2), and click the “Open” button (3).

Open multiple photos

To open multiple photos, select the documents holding the Shift key pressed when they are adjacent documents.
If they are not adjacent documents, hold the Ctrl key pressed.

Click the “Open” button when all photos are selected.

All photos are opened in their in their window or tab, depending on what you have set in the “Interface” under the preferences. (See Previous lesson)

 

Duplicate Photo

Before you start working on the original of the picture, it is best that you make a duplicate first. And since it does best to do so for each photo you are editing, it is wise to set a “shortcut” to this.

Click on the “Edit” button in the menu bar and choose “Shortcuts” in the drop-down menu.

In the dialog that appears, click the “Image” in the list, you scroll all the way down, and select the option “Duplicate”. In the textbox that appears, type the shortcut function or the shortcut key that you want to use for this, you click the button “Accept” and you click the “OK” button.

I want to use the F10 key on my keyboard, so I just click it and it will automatically be entered in the textbox.
You can use any key combination you want, just make sure that it is not in use for another function.

Now, when you open a picture, and click F10 key on your keyboard in this case, a dialog box will appear with the name for the duplicate photo.

When you click the OK button, it opens the duplicate of the photo and closes the original.

When you close the duplicate, you will be asked whether you want to save.

Of course your answer here is “Yes”

 

Shortcuts

In the same dialog box, you can see the settings to change all your keyboard shortcuts. Even those already set by default by Photoshop.

For example:

In order to increase or decrease the brush size, the default settings use the square brackets.

You can find this setting under the “Tools” (1).

This is good for QWERTY (Dutch/English) users.

I can only say to the QWERTY users: “keep this in the shortcut.”

You will need it many times, when you start working with Photoshop.

For those of you who do not know what a hot key is. A hotkey is a key or combination of keys on the keyboard, for which we activated a function in the program.

 

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