Alright. Time for some photoshop tutorial. For most of design, 1
Figma is sufficient. 2
But in some scenarios we can't do without Photoshop. 3
This is one of them. 4
If you don't already have Photoshop, you can get a 7 day free trial. And if you want to buy it, it 5
costs about $10 per month, which includes Photoshop, Lightroom and all Adobe fonts, and a 20GB 6
of their cloud storage space. 7
You can download the trial from Adobe.com/downloads. Or just google Photoshop download. 8
In case you have already used up your 7-day Photoshop trial in the past. 9
Then you can try, 10
Affinity photo instead. 11
It's a very good alternative to Photoshop and most of the interface and how it all works is quite similar 12
to Photoshop. 13
I've included the link resources, it has 10-day free trial. Although, I won't be demonstrating this how 14
to do in Affinity. But since they two are very similar, you will probably figure it out how to make it 15
work inside Affinity as well. 16
Okay back to Photoshop. After you go through the installation process, 17
this will be your initial screen. Click Open and select the photo file. 18
I've included this image in the resources of this lesson, so you can work on the same photo if you want. 19
A quick lifesaver tip on Photoshop. 20
When I first started using photoshop, I would end up losing some tools and options frequently. 21
I would watch a youtube tutorial to learn something, but then I would be, not be able to find a tool that 22
they were using in the video. 23
Photoshop has a lot of shortcuts and little options, where you can easily close some tab or remove a 24
tool and so on. 25
I would end up with toolbox gone. No layers panel. And no idea on how to put them back. So I wouldn't 26
be able to follow a tutorial anymore, because the tool isn't there. 27
It's a nightmare for any beginner when you are trying to get your head around this new software and 28
learn a lot of things at the same time. 29
I would lose a lot of time figuring out how to put it back. 30
So here is a trick on how to return everything back to normal, 31
in case you mess up something. Go to this icon right here and select essentials. If that's what you already 32
have selected, 33
then click reset essentials. And this will return the workspace to the default. Just like it was out of 34
the box, 35
the very first time you installed it. 36
This will include 2 extra tabs. 37
This here is Photoshop's guide tutorial of some essential stuff. 38
I recommend going through it later, if this is your first time with Photoshop. 39
Okay, I don't need these two tabs right here, so I'm going to close them. 40
If this method doesn't still return everything back to normal, then that means you have changed something 41
in the preferences. 42
In that case, go to preferences. In windows, 43
this is under edit menu. And Select General. And click Reset Preferences On Quit. Restart Photoshop and 44
everything will go back to normal. 45
Keep in mind, any preference that you intentionally changed in the past, that will be gone too. 46
All right. 47
Back to our photo. 48
Often you find the right image of your project, but it's not quite the right size. 49
This image, for example, would make a great background photo. 50
It's clean, it's simple, it has great color contrast, but has one problem. 51
The separation between the beach and the water cuts right through the middle of the picture. 52
Neither side is wide enough to host our content. But if we could stretch one of the sides a little more, 53
then we would have a perfect arrangement. 54
Luckily, we can do that in Photoshop. Inside layers panel, 55
you'll see this lock on the layer. 56
This means, the layer is partially locked and in many ways won't be editable as you'd expect it. 57
So just click on this lock to unlock the layer. 58
Now, select this crop tool. 59
You'll have these handles around the image. Drag the side you want to create the stretch crop on. 60
This just extends the boundaries of our art board. 61
Click the checkmark 62
once done, so it commits the change. Now select this rectangular Marquee Tool. 63
In case, you see something else here, right-click on it. 64
This will open up all the other tools that are part of this group. 65
Now, drag and select the part that you want to stretch. 66
Make sure to select parts, that don't have any detail on it, something that is already blurry or uniform. 67
You can't do this with people or objects. 68
This can be done only on backgrounds, blurry parts and so on. 69
I select extra on the left side, just to make sure the entire edge is selected. Once it's selected, go to 70
Edit → Free Transform. 71
You can also press CTRL+T or CMD+T, just as it's shown right here. 72
Now, just drag the left handle and stretch the image, as much as you feel is right. 73
And then click the checkmark 74
again, this commits the change you are making to the selection. 75
If you have extra space here, select crop tool again and crop it out. 76
Now we've got an image that has a good amount of space, so we can put our content. To save that image, 77
just click file, save as and select JPEG. 78
And that's all.