3. Basic Photoshop Tools

Photoshop has so many tools and features, it's daunting to even describe them. It often makes better sense to skip the overview and instead give tutorials on how to create specific images and effects, using a handful of tools and ignoring the rest (there will be lessons like that here, in future).

But, it is useful to explain at least a few of the basic tools in your toolbar (on the left):

The Move Tool: This tool allows you to move your image (or different layers of it) around on the canvas. Every image in Photoshop sits on a "canvas" - a digital rectangle with a specific amount of pixels. The Move Tool is a good default tool to select in Photoshop, because, when selected, you can move around your cursor without worrying about changing the image by accident.

The Box Marquee: This is a selection tool (one of many) that allows you to select one part of your image to edit, without affecting the rest of it. When you draw a box marquee around part of an image, you can even move it with the Move Tool, without creating a separate layer. The Box Marquee is another good default tool to select, because, like the Move Tool, you can move your cursor around without damaging the image.

The Crop Tool: This allows you to draw a box around part of your image and, when you press ENTER, deleting everything around it. You can set an aspect ratio in the little boxes above, or crop it to a custom size and proportion. This is not a good tool to select when you don't specifically want it.

The Paintbrush Tool: This allows you to paint various colors on the canvas. Photoshop is actually better suited to digital painting than it is to photography. These days, most photographers prefer using Adobe Lightroom. The Paintbrush Tool has lots of great settings and custom brushes, and a color picker that allows you to control the value, saturation, and hue of each color.

The Eyedropper: This tool allows you to find and pick the exact color of one pixel in your image, which you can then use with your paintbrush, or other tools.

The Paintbucket: This allows you to fill areas of color, kind of like a stained glass window. It works within boundaries, filling areas with a similar color.

The Text Tool: This allows you to write text on your image. It always creates a separate text layer. You can control the font and the size. Some fonts allow options for bold and italic text, while some don't. If you want to create a JPG you will eventually have to flatten your image, but it's a good idea to save your project as a PSD file with all the layers intact so you can go back and edit your work later, if you need to make changes.

The Line Tool: This allows you to make straight lines of various thicknesses and colors.

The Zoom Tool: This allows you to zoom in and out of your image.