How To Use Photoshop Tools
- Photoshop Tools And Their Functions
- Photoshop Tools Definition
- Photoshop Tools Explained
- Free Photoshop Tool
Adobe Photoshop is one of the most widely used image editing software’s. Graphic designers use this software for providing various image manipulation services. It is a quick summary of Photoshop’s Tools palette with a description of each tool’s functions and shortcuts. We hope it will help those who are brand new to Photoshop. Healing Brush Tool. The Healing Brush Tool picks a part of your image and blends it within the same layer with another section of your image. You can access the Healing Brush Tool by typing “J.”. Brush Tool is used to “paint” on your image. You can also access the Brush Tool by typing “B.”.
Just like an artist’s work table, the toolbar holds Photoshop tools. It is the long, narrow palette on the far left side of the work area contains the tools you’ll use to draw, paint, erase, and do tons of other things whilst working on your image. You can download a free trial of Photoshop here.
Let’s start off by taking a closer look at what’s actually in the toolbar. The tools can be broken into several distinct categories. This will help you find them when you know what kind of tool you need. The illustrations below show an overview of the toolbox, with each tool available and its shortcut key.
I strongly encourage you to start making a mental note of the shortcuts. It’s one of the best ways to speed up your workflow in Photoshop.
Selection and Crop Tools
Painting and Retouching Tools
Vector drawing and Type Tools
Navigation Tools
Color Selection
Quick Mask and Screen Mode
How to use Tools and the Toolbar in Photoshop
To select a tool, simply click on that tool in the Toolbar.
When you hover your mouse over any tool in the toolbar, a tooltip appears showing you the name of the tool and the tool’s keyboard shortcut. This is very handy when you forget what a certain tool looks like when you’re learning Photoshop.
It’s worth making a conscious effort to learn the shortcuts as it speeds up your work enormously. Some of the shortcuts are really easy to remember such as Z for the Zoom tool or E for the Eraser. So instead of clicking on the tool in the Toolbar, just press the letter on the keyboard. This will dramatically speed up your workflow as it lets you change tools without taking your hands off the keyboard.
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Photoshop Toolbar & Tools
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Hidden Tools
Wherever you see a little arrow on the bottom right of a tool in the Photoshop toolbar (or any Adobe application for that matter), it means there are other “hidden” tool choices. Hidden tools are accessed by clicking and holding on that tool. As you hold, a fly-out set of tools will appear giving you access to all of the hidden tools under that particular tool. In the example below, you can see that by clicking and holding on the Magic Wand tool, the hidden Quick selection Tool becomes available.
To quickly cycle through hidden tools, hold down the Shift key and tap the tool’s keyboard shortcut that appears in tooltips. For example, to cycle through the Brush, Pencil, Color Replacement and Mixer Brush tools, you would press B to select the first tool and then hold down Shift and press B again to move through that particular set of tools.
Moving The Toolbar
To change the Toolbar from a single column to a two-column panel, click once on the double arrow button in the top-right corner. To switch back again, simply click the double-arrow button again.
To float the Toolbar anywhere on your screen, drag it away from the left-hand screen edge. Drag it by clicking the tiny row of vertical dashes near its top. It is now a “floating” panel and you can drag it anywhere you want as you work.
To dock it back to the edge of the screen, drag the panel all the way to the edge until a blue vertical bar appears against the edge of the screen. The blue bar is an indication to let go and the panel will snap into place and is once again docked.
Picking Colors
Near the bottom of the Toolbar, you can see the Foreground and Background Color Swatches (sometimes called color chips). By default the foreground is black and the background is white. Photoshop uses the foreground color when you paint or fill an area with color. The background color is used as a second color when you create a gradient and when you erase parts of a locked Background layer amongst other things.
To change a color, click on its color swatch once to open the Color Picker. From here you can choose from millions of colors.
To swap your foreground and background colors, click the round double-headed arrow just above the foreground and background swatches or press X on the keyboard.
To set both color swatches back to their default factory setting of black and white, click the miniature swatches or press D.
The last two items on the Photoshop Toolbar are the Quick Mask mode and the Screen Mode Buttons.
The Photoshop Info Panel & Tools
Another useful panel that you can use when you’re learning about Photoshop tools is the Info panel. This gives further hints about how to use any particular tool.
Choose Window > Info if the Info panel is not already open. If you don’t see a tip at the bottom of the panel then go to the Info panel menu and choose Panel options, from there click on the checkbox for Show Tool Hints.
DOWNLOAD FOR FREE
Photoshop Tools And Their Functions
A Printable PDF Cheatsheet Of The
Photoshop Toolbar & Tools
ALL THE TOOLS, ALL THE SHORTCUTS
Sign up below to download a high-quality PDF poster showing all of the Photoshop CC tools and their shortcuts.
Photoshop Tools Definition
I hope you’ve found this Photoshop’s tutorial useful and I would be really grateful if you would share it. Thank you so much! ?
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Adobe Photoshop is one of the most widely used image editing software’s. Graphic designers use this software for providing various image manipulation services. It is a quick summary of Photoshop’s Tools palette with a description of each tool’s functions and shortcuts. We hope it will help those who are brand new to Photoshop.
We have decided to start from the beginning for those people who just “picked up” a copy of Photoshop and have no idea what to do with it. The keyboard shortcut is written in first bracket ( ).
Rectangular Marquee Tool (M)
You can use this tool to make selections on your image, in a rectangular shape. This changes the area of an image that is affected by other tools or actions. Hold the [Shift] key while dragging your selection. It restricts the shape to a perfect square. Hold the [Alt] key while dragging sets the center of the rectangle to where your cursor started.
Move Tool (V)
![List of tools in photoshop List of tools in photoshop](https://mohit0316.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/3.jpg?w=584)
Use this tool to move things from the image. Usually it is used to move a Layer. You need to hold the [Shift] key to direct the movements to vertical/horizontal.
Polygonal Lasso Tool (L)
Lasso tool is common, but polygon lasso tool is more effective. A graphic designer can use this to draw selections in whatever shape. To unmarked the selected area, click on the beginning point or just double-click. By holding the [Ctrl] key, the cursor will be changed change and on the second click, it will close your selection.
Magic Wand Tool (W)
Image color can be changed by using magic wand tool. It will select the block of color, or transparency, based on wherever is clicked. In the Options Bar at the top, the Tolerance can be changed to make selections more/less precise.
Crop Tool (C)
The Crop Tool works similarly to the Rectangular Marquee tool. The difference is when [Enter/Return] key is pressed, it will crop image to the size of the box. Any information that was on the outside of the box will be deleted but it can be retained.
![Photoshop Photoshop](https://pe-images.s3.amazonaws.com/basics/cc/2020/interface/tools/photoshop-cc-toolbar.png)
Slice Tool (C)
This is used mostly for building websites, or splitting up one image into smaller ones.
Healing Brush Tool (J)
This is a really useful tool. Mildly advanced. This tool can be used to repair scratches on images. You choose your cursor size, then holding the [Alt] key, you select a nice/clean area of your image. Let go of the [Alt] key and paint over the bad area.
Brush Tool (B)
It paints images. Color and size of brush can be selected.
Clone Stamp Tool (S)
Photoshop Tools Explained
To cut a certain part of a photo and replace it on another layer or photo, clone stamp tool is very much helpful.
History Brush Tool (Y)
This tool works just like the Brush Tool. If you go Window>History, you can see the History Palette. The History Brush tool paints with the information from whatever History state is selected.
Eraser Tool (E)
It works like an eraser and erases. If you’re on a Layer, it will erase the information transparent. If you are on the background layer, it erases with whatever secondary color is selected.
Gradient Tool (G)
You can use this to make a gradiation of colors. Gradiation doesn’t appear to be a word, but it makes sense anyway. It creates a blending of foreground color and background color.
Blur Tool
The Blur tool is cool. It makes things blurry. Click and drag to make things blurry. The more you click and drag, the blurrier things get.
Dodge Tool (O)
It is actually used to lighten the area you which is subjected to use.
Path Selection Tool (A)
You use this tool when working with paths. Since this is all about the basics, I won’t go into details. It’s related to the Pen Tool (see below) though.
Horizontal Type Tool (T)
It makes typing. Or text. You can click a single point, and start typing right away. Or you can click and drag to make a bounding box of where your text/type goes. There’s a lot of options for the Type Tool. Just play around, it’s fairly straight-forward.
Pen Tool (P)
I mentioned this tool above. It’s for creating paths, in which you would use the Path Selection Tool to select the path. Paths can be used in a few different ways, mostly to create clipping paths, or to create selections. You use the tool by clicking to add a point. If you click and drag, it will change the shape of your path, allowing you to bend and shape the path for accurate selections and such.
Rectangle Tool (U)
By default it draws a Shape Layer in the form of a rectangle. It fills the rectangle with whatever foreground color you have selected. It’s pretty complicated.
Note Tool (I)
You can use this tool to add small little note boxes to your image. These are useful if you’re very forgetful or if you’re sharing your Photoshop file with someone else. I’m pretty sure it only works with .PSD files.
Eyedropper Tool (I)
Free Photoshop Tool
This tool works by changing your foreground color to whatever color you click on. Holding the [Alt] key will change your background color.
Hand Tool (T)
You can use the Hand Tool to navigate around the image. Just click and drag and get to this tool at any time when using any other tool by pressing and holding the [Spacebar].
Zoom Tool (Z)
It allows you to zoom into your image. Hold the [Alt] key to zoom out. Double-click on the Zoom Tool in the palette to go back to 100% view.
Our expert graphic designers have made an infographic which will help you to understand about the tools of Adobe Photoshop.