Basic Photoshop Tools Tutorial (In progress)

Alright, I like my tutorials to mostly be text based because I am a text based person. If you guys want I can make one with some more images. However, this is about the basic tools of Photoshop and how to use them, so if you just opened Photoshop for the first time and are confused: read this

I am going to outline the tools that you see and what they do, I will be using CS2 for this tutorial so if you have another program you may have to look a bit to find what I'm talking about, but CS1 is pretty similar and CS3 is basically the same. So I doubt you'll have too much trouble adapting this for other programs, unless you were like me and had a huge headache just looking at all the stuff you can do.

This is what you should see when you open Photoshop. (I have added the numbers and such to make things a bit easier)

Now, you should see numbers 1-5. I am going to overview 1-5, then go deeper onto what each individual tool does.

1: The sidebar
This is the sidebar where you access many of the tools you will use in Photoshop. If you want to make a shape, add text, cover something up or crop, you're going to go here. You're going to use this a lot so pay attention.

I am going to use an imaginary lettering system, if this get confusing please tell me and I'll make a screenshot. 'a' is the button on the top left, then I go one over to the right for 'b' and then down and to the left for 'c' on the sidebar. For the others I'm just using a logical left to right patter and it should be sorta obvious what I'm talking about.

1a: The first tool of the sidebar
The first tool is the marquee tool. Basically, what it does it takes something and selects it. So if I have an image of Bruce Lee and want to delete a square part of him I will take the Square Marquee tool, select what I want to delete and hit delete. You can also use this to move or to select an area where you just want to erase, but leave the rest.

TO ACCESS OTHER TOOLS THAN WHAT YOU SEE ON THE SIDEBAR: On the icons in the sidebar, there will be a small black triangle in the bottom right of the icon. You cannot see this icon if you have selected it so select something else if you want to see the black triangle on the Marquee tool, don't worry it won't mess up your work if you just select it. Right clicking any of the icons with black squares opens up a drop down menu of other tools similar to the tool you are using. (The Marquee tool has a circle, a square and two lines- horizontal and vertical)

1b: Move a layer tool
This is the tool you want to move a layer. Say you have your image of Bruce Lee, but you add text BRUCE LEE THE INVINCIBLE, and you want it to be in the corner. You'd select the move a layer tool and select that layer (More on layers/adding text later) and drag it down to the corner.

1c: The Lasso tools.
The Lasso tools are tools you will use regularly if you are going to become a sig maker, or use Photoshop at all. If you've found the Crop tool but want to do more than an average square crop, this is how you would do so. The three tools on the drop down menu are the Lasso tool, the Polygonal Lasso tool and the Magnetic Lasso tool. Depending on what you want to you and thee way you like to crop/select things you may want a different lasso.
~The Regular Lasso you will probably use the least. It is a freeform select tool, so you select it and the selection is based totally around your hand and what you select yourself. It has the least computer control. (So I hate it)
~The Polygonal Lasso is what I like to use, it starts with a point, then you click somewhere else and it makes a line to that point. So you just trace the outline somnewhat well with the Polygonal Lasso and you'll get yourself a pretty nice cut/selection.
~The Magnetic Lasso has the most control resting on the computers shoulders. It will cling to lines in addition to what the Polygonal Lasso does. It can mess you up a bit but if you want the best cut and don't mind redoing the crop because the computer messed up, use this.

NOTE: To delete the selection or move it somewhere else, you can either copy what you have selected (ctrl+c) OR delete what you selected (del).

1d: The Magic Wand
This took takes an area, or a color, and selects an area similar to it. I don't use it much but you can edit how much freedom it has for selection and stuff, up by the menus (Under file, edit etc).

NOTE: Generally you don't want to use it for cropping. It's a common mistake.

If you guys want me to continue with this I will. But if there's no demand I'm just going to stop here. I want this to be perfect in the end so I want to catch formatting errors/improvements EARLY. The the underline center thing good or bad? etc