Rectangular/Elliptical Marquee Tool Use this to create a rectangular or elliptical selection. If you want a perfect square or rectangle, hold down the shift key as you drag out the marquee. | Eraser Tool This simply deletes the image where you paint, leaving the current background colour behind or, if you’re working on an image layer, making that part of the image layer transparent. |
Move Tool You use this to move layers around in multi-layered images, or to drag one image (from its own window) on to another to add it as a new layer. It can also be used for moving selected image areas from one place to another. | Background Eraser Tool Try this if you’re trying to trace around an object’s outline. The tool preserves the colours under the brush (the object outline) but erases dissimilar colours (the background). |
Lasso Tool With this you can draw a freehand outline (lasso) around an area in the image to select it for editing. It’s not the ideal tool, though, because you need a steady hand and you have to start again if you make an error. | Gradient Tool You can use one of Photoshop’s preset gradients or choose your own by selecting appropriate foreground and background colours. You simply drag across the image to produce a gradient along the axis of the mouse movement. |
Polygonal Lasso Tool A more useful variant of the Lasso tool. Here you click the mouse button to add straight-line segments to a selection as you go along. It’s much more accurate than the freehand lasso, though slower. | Blur Tool Used for localised blurring, though of limited benefit when applied directly to images. It can be useful, though, when you’re working with layer masks, which may have sharp edges that need softening. |
Magic Wand Tool With this you can click on any area of an image to select both it and areas of similar tone. You set the ‘tolerance’ of the tool on the Options bar. Higher tolerances mean a greater range of tones will be selected. | Sharpen Tool Use this to apply a localised sharpening effect. It’s cumulative, so you can build it up to the required degree. It can be useful after cloning operations, which can sometimes lead to slightly blurred detail. |
Crop Tool Use this to mark out the area of the image you want to keep, then double-click inside it to delete the rest. You can also type in dimensions and resolution values in the Options bar to crop the image to a specific size. | Dodge Tool The equivalent of ‘dodging’ in the old black and white darkroom, where parts of the print are held back to make them lighter than the rest. Try a low opacity setting and slowly build up the lightening effect. |
Spot Healing Brush Tool New to CS2, this is like the Healing Brush Tool in that it replaces blemishes with nearby pixels. Here, though, you don’t need to choose the source for the replacement pixels – they’re chosen automatically. | Burn Tool The opposite of dodging. Here, you’re ‘burning in’ or darkening selected areas of the image. Note, though, that with many digital cameras, highlight detail may be already be burned out and lost forever. |
Patch Tool With this you can select larger blemishes – scratches, for example – then drag the selection shape on to a nearby area that’s undamaged. Photoshop will blend the repair seamlessly. It works best on even-toned areas like skies. | Sponge Tool This has no real equivalent in the darkroom. You can set it (via the Options bar) to add or reduce saturation. In ‘desaturate’ mode it’s useful for removing colour fringing from digital camera images. |
Brush Tool This is used by artists when painting on a blank canvas in Photoshop, but photographers might also use it on layer masks to blend image layers more effectively, or for applying other subtle image repairs. | Eyedropper Tool Use this to click on any area of the image – this loads the colour you clicked on as the foreground colour. You’ll see the eyedropper in many other dialogs – in each case, it’s used for pinpointing specific colours. |
Clone Stamp Tool This is the same as the ‘Clone’ tool in other image editors. You start by setting the ‘source’ – the area of the image you want to copy – then click or drag to ‘clone’ this source area on to a different part of the image. | Hand Tool When you’re zoomed in on an image so that you can’t see all of it at once, use the Hand Tool to drag it around within the window. Alternatively, hold down the Spacebar to switch to the Hand Tool at any time. |
History Brush In Photoshop’s History palette you can create ‘Snapshots’, recording the image state at any stage. Using the History Brush, you can ‘paint’ previous image states (Snapshots) over parts of the current image | Zoom Tool With this selected, you click on the image to zoom in and alt-click to zoom out. The Options bar displays two useful buttons too – Actual Pixels and Fit Screen. |
