Photoshop Toolbox

Photoshop 6 brings with it many changes, including some significant revamping of the toolbox. Here’s a quick summary:

• Adobe added a row of icons to the toolbox, and the new shape tools and annotation tools quickly set up housekeeping therein.

• The crop tool left the digs that it shared with the marquee tools and took up residence on its own nearby.

• The measure tool moved in with the eyedroppers, the paintbrush shacked up with the pencil, and the line tool got kicked out on the street. Fortunately, the new shape tools welcomed it as one of their own.

• The magnetic pen, type mask, vertical type, and vertical type mask tools fled the toolbox and hid away on the Options bar. You now access the magnetic pen by selecting a check box on the Options bar when the freeform pen is active. Similarly, you bring the type mask, vertical type, and vertical type mask tools into the open by clicking Options bar icons when the type tool is selected.

• Clicking the gradient tool icon no longer displays a choice of gradient styles; you now select those styles from the Options bar. The gradient tool rented out the room formerly occupied by the gradient styles icons to the paint bucket.

Finally, when multiple tools share a single toolbox slot, you select the tool you want from a menu-style list, as shown in Figure-below, rather than a horizontal pop-out row of tool icons as in previous editions.

A tiny, right-pointing triangle in the lower-right corner of an icon indicates that more tools lurk beneath the surface. You can click the triangle and then click the name of the tool you want to use.

Or, to get the job done with one less click, just drag from the icon onto the name of the tool and then release the mouse button. You can cycle between the tools in the pop-up menu by Alt-clicking a tool icon.

Pressing the key that appears to the right of the tool names also does the trick however, depending on a tool setting that you establish in the Preferences dialog box, you may need to press Shift with the key.

Also, when you hover your cursor over a tool, Photoshop tells you the name of the tool and how to select it from the keyboard. I’ve catalogued each tool in the following lengthy list, with tool icons, pithy summaries.

No need to read the list word for word; just use it as a reference to get acquainted with the new program. The list presents the tools in the order that they appear in the toolbox.

Incidentally, unless otherwise noted, each of the following descriptions tells how to use the tool inside the image window. For example, if an item says drag, you click the tool’s icon to select the tool and then drag in the image window; you don’t drag on the tool icon itself.

Rectangular marquee: Drag with this tool to enclose a portion of the image in a rectangular marquee, which is a pattern of moving dash marks indicating the boundary of a selection. Shift-drag to add to a selection;

Alt-drag to delete from a selection. The same goes for the other marquee tools, as well as the lassos and magic wand. As an alternative to using these time-honored shortcuts, you can click mode icons on the Options bar to change the behavior of the selection tools.

Elliptical marquee: Drag with the elliptical marquee tool to enclose a portion of the window in an oval marquee.

Single-row marquee : Click with the single-row marquee to select an entire horizontal row of pixels that stretches all the way across the image. You can also drag with the tool to position the selection. You rarely need it, but when you do, here it is.

Single-column marquee: Same as the single-row marquee, except the single-column marquee selects an entire vertical column of pixels. Again, not a particularly useful tool.

Move: Drag to move a selection or layer. In fact, the move tool is the exclusive means for moving and cloning portions of an image. (You can also Ctrl-drag selections with any tools except the shape, path, and slicing tools, but only because Ctrl temporarily accesses the move tool.)

Lasso: Drag with the lasso tool to select a free-form portion of the image. You can also Alt-click with the lasso to create a straightsided selection outline.

Polygonal lasso: Click hither and yon with this tool to draw a straight-sided selection outline (just like Alt-clicking with the standard lasso). Each click sets a corner point in the selection.

Magnetic lasso: As you drag with the magnetic lasso tool, the selection outline automatically sticks to the edge of the foreground image. Bear in mind, however, that Photoshop’s idea of an edge may not jibe with yours. Like any automated tool, the magnetic lasso sometimes works wonders, other times it’s more trouble than it’s worth. The magnetic lasso automatically lays down points as you drag. If you don’t like a point and you want to get rid of it, press the Backspace or Delete key.

Magic wand: Click with the magic wand tool to select a contiguous area of similarly colored pixels. To select discontiguous areas, click in one area and then Shift-click in another. Deselect the Contiguous tool option and click once to select similar colors throughout the image.

Crop: Drag with the crop tool to enclose the portion of the image you want to retain in a rectangular boundary. Photoshop now tints areas outside the boundary to help you better see which image areas will go and which will stay when you apply the crop.

The crop boundary sports several square handles you can drag to resize the cropped area. Drag outside the boundary to rotate it; drag inside to move it. Press Enter to apply the crop or Escape to cancel.

Slice tool: The slice tool and its companion, the slice select tool, come into play when you’re creating Web graphics. You can cut images into rectangular sections known as slices so that you can apply Web effects, such as links, rollovers, and animations, to different areas of the same image. Drag with the slice tool to define the area that you want to turn into a slice.

Slice select tool: If you don’t get the boundary of your slice right the first time, click the slice with this tool and then drag one of the side or corner handles that appear. Or drag inside the boundary to relocate it. Press Ctrl when the slice tool is active to temporarily access the slice select tool, and vice versa.

Paintbrush: Drag with the paintbrush tool to paint soft lines, which aren’t as jagged as those created with the pencil, but aren’t as fluffy as those created with the airbrush.

Pencil: Drag with the pencil tool to paint jagged, hard-edged lines. It’s main purpose is to clean up individual pixels when you’re feeling fussy.

Rubber stamp: The rubber stamp tool copies one portion of the image onto another. Alt-click the part of your image you want to clone, and then drag to clone that area to another portion of the image.

Pattern stamp: The rubber stamp tool lets you paint with a pattern. Define a pattern using Edit>Define Pattern and then paint away.

History brush: Remember how you used to be able to revert an image to its saved or snapshot appearance using the rubber stamp? Well, no more. Now you have a dedicated history brush that reverts the image to any of a handful of previous states throughout the recent history of the image. To specify the state that you want to revert to, click in the first column of the History palette. It’s like an undo brush, except way, way better.

Art history brush: Like the history brush, the art history brush paints with pixels from a previous image state. But with this brush, you get a variety of brush options that create different artistic effects.

Eraser: Drag with the eraser tool to paint in the background color or erase areas in a layer to reveal the layers below. Alt-drag to switch to the Erase to History mode, which reverts the image to a previous state just as if you were using the history brush.

Background eraser: Introduced in Version 5.5, the background eraser rubs away the background from an image as you drag along the border between the background and foreground. If you don’t wield this tool carefully, though, you wind up erasing both background and foreground.

Magic eraser: Also new in Version 5.5, the magic eraser came from the same gene pool that produced the magic wand. When you click with the magic wand, Photoshop selects a range of similarly colored pixels; click with the magic eraser, and you erase instead of select. In case you nodded off a few paragraphs ago, this magic eraser works differently than the eraser that you get when you Alt-drag with the standard eraser, which sometimes goes by the nickname magic eraser when used with the Alt key.

Gradient: Drag with this tool to fill a selection with a gradual transition of colors, commonly called a gradient. In Photoshop 5, you selected different gradient tools to create different styles of gradients; now you click the single gradient icon in the toolbox and select a gradient style from the Options bar.

Paint bucket: Click with the paint bucket tool to fill a contiguous area of similarly colored pixels with the foreground color or a predefined pattern.

Blur: Drag with the blur tool to diffuse the contrast between neighboring pixels, which blurs the focus of the image. You can also Alt-drag to sharpen the image.

Sharpen: Drag with this tool to increase the contrast between pixels, which sharpens the focus. Alt-drag when this tool is active to blur the image.

Smudge: The smudge tool works just as its name implies; drag with the tool to smear colors inside the image

Dodge: Drag with the dodge tool to lighten pixels in the image. Alt-drag to darken the image.

Burn: Drag with the burn tool to darken pixels. Press Alt to temporarily access the dodge tool and lighten pixels.

Sponge: Drag with the sponge tool to decrease the amount of saturation in an image so the colors appear more drab, and eventually gray. You can also increase color saturation by changing the setting in the Sponge Options palette from Desaturate to Saturate.

Path component selection: Click anywhere inside a path to select the entire path. If you click inside a path that contains multiple subpaths, Photoshop selects the subpath under the tool cursor. Shift-click to select additional paths or subpaths. You also use this tool and the direct selection tool, described next, to select and manipulate lines and shapes drawn with the shape tools.

Direct selection: To select and edit a segment in a selected path or shape, click it or drag over it with this tool. Press Shift while using the tool to select additional segments. Or Alt-click inside a path or shape to select and edit the whole object.

Type: Click with the type tool to add text to your image. In Photoshop 6, you enter and edit text directly in the image window no more fooling around with the Type Tool dialog box. This change is one of many to the type tool.

After selecting the type tool, you can create a type-based selection outline by switching from regular type mode to mask type mode via a button on the Options bar. You also can choose to enter either horizontal or vertical rows of type. You no longer use separate tools for different type operations.

Pen: Click and drag with the pen tool to set points in the image window. Photoshop draws an editable path outline much like a path in Illustrator that you can convert to a selection outline or stroke with color.

Freeform pen: Drag with this tool to draw freehand paths or vector masks. Photoshop automatically adds points along the path as it sees fit.

If you select the Magnetic check box on the Options bar, the freeform pen morphs into the magnetic pen introduced in Version 5.5. Deselect the check box to return to the freeform pen.

Add anchor point: To insert a point in a path, click a path segment with this tool.

Delete anchor point: Click a point to remove the point without interrupting the outline of the path. Photoshop automatically draws a new segment between the neighboring points.

Convert point: Points in a path come in different varieties, some indicating corners and others indicating smooth arcs. The convert point tool enables you to change one kind of point to another. Drag a point to convert it from a corner to an arc. Click a point to convert it from an arc to a sharp corner.

Rectangle: One of the five new vector drawing tools provided by Photoshop 6, this tool draws rectangles filled with the foreground color. Just drag to create a rectangle; Shift-drag to draw a square.

Rounded rectangle: Prefer your boxes with nice, curved corners instead of sharp, 90-degree angles? Drag or Shift-drag with the rounded rectangle tool. You can opt to create rasterized shapes and lines with the rectangle, rounded rectangle, ellipse, polygon, line, and custom shape tools.

Ellipse: You look pretty smart to me, so you probably already figured out that you drag with this tool to draw an ellipse and Shift-drag to draw a circle.

Polygon: By default, dragging with this tool creates a 5-sided polygon. Controls available on the Options bar enable you to change the number of sides or set the tool to create star shapes.

Line: Drag with the line tool to create a straight line. But before you do, travel to the Options bar to set the line thickness and specify whether you want arrowheads at the ends of the line.

Custom shape: After you draw a shape with one of the other drawing tools, you can save it as a custom shape. Thereafter, you can recreate that shape by selecting it from the Options bar and then dragging with the custom shape tool. You also can choose from a variety of predefined shapes when working with the custom shape tool.

Notes: This tool brings an annotation feature from Adobe Acrobat to Photoshop. Use the tool to create a little sticky note on which you can jot down thoughts, ideas, and other pertinent info that you want to share with other people who work with the image or that you simply want to remember the next time you open the image. After you create the note, Photoshop displays a note icon in the image window; double-click the icon to see what you had to say.

Audio annotation: If you prefer the spoken word to the written one, you can annotate your images with an audio clip, assuming that you have a microphone and sound card for your computer. As with the notes tool, an audio icon appears in the image window after you record your message. Clicking the icon plays the audio clip.

Measure: The measure tool lets you measure distances and directions inside the image window. Just drag from one point to another and note the measurement data in the Info palette or the Options bar. You can also drag the endpoints or your line to take new measurements. And by Altdragging an endpoint, you can create a sort of virtual protractor that measures angles.

Eyedropper: Click with the eyedropper tool on a color in the image window to make that color the foreground color. Alt-click a color to make that color the background color.

Color sampler: Click as many as four locations in an image to evaluate the colors of those pixels in the Info palette. After you set a point, you can move it by dragging it to a different pixel.

Hand: Drag inside the image window with the hand tool to scroll the window so you can see a different portion of the image. Doubleclick the hand tool icon to magnify or reduce the image so it fits on the screen in its entirety.

When the hand tool is active, you can click buttons on the Options bar to display the image at the actual-pixels, fit-on-screen, or print-size view sizes.

Zoom: Click with the zoom tool to magnify the image so you can see individual pixels more clearly. Alt-click to step back from the image and take in a broader view. Drag to enclose the specific portion of the image you want to magnify. And, finally, double-click the zoom tool icon inside the toolbox to restore the image to 100 percent view size.

You can modify the performance of any tool but the measure tool by adjusting the settings on the Options bar. To change the unit of measurement used by the measure tool, choose Edit>Preferences>Units and Rulers and select the unit from the Rulers pop-up menu.

Or, even quicker, right-click the ruler or click the plus sign in the lower-left corner of the Info palette and select a measurement unit from the resulting pop-up menu.

Toolbox Controls

Well, that pretty much wraps it up for the Photoshop 6 tools. It was a breathtakingly dull tale, but one that had to be told. But the excitement isn’t over yet. Gather the kittens and hold onto your mittens as we explore the ten controls that grace the lower portion of the toolbox:

Foreground color: Click the foreground color icon to bring up the Color Picker dialog box. Select a color and press Enter to change the foreground color, which is used by the pencil, paintbrush, airbrush, gradient, and shape tools.

I’m not sure why, but many users make the mistake of double-clicking the foreground or background color icons when they first start using Photoshop. A single click is all that’s needed. Experienced users don’t even bother with the Color Picker they stick to the more convenient Color palette.

Background color: Click the background color icon to display the Color Picker and change the background color, which is used by the eraser and gradient tools. Photoshop also uses the background color to fill a selected area on the background layer when you press the Backspace or Delete key.

Switch colors: Click the switch colors icon to exchange the foreground and background colors.

Default colors: Click this icon to return to the default foreground and background colors black and white, respectively. At any time, you can quickly make the foreground color white by clicking the default colors icon and then clicking the switch colors icon. Or just press D (for default colors) and then X (for switch colors).

Marching ants: Click this icon to exit Photoshop’s quick mask mode and view selection outlines as animated dotted lines that look like marching ants, hence the name. (Adobe calls this the “standard” mode, but I think marching ants mode better describes how it works.)

Quick mask: Click here to enter the quick mask mode, which enables you to edit selection boundaries using painting tools. The marching ants vanish and the image appears half covered by a translucent layer of red, like a rubylith in traditional paste up.

The red layer covers the deselected or masked portions of the image. Paint with black to extend the masked areas, thereby subtracting from the selection. Paint with white to erase the mask, thereby adding to the selection. The quick mask mode is too complex a topic to sum up in a few sentences. If you can’t wait to find out what it’s all about.

Standard window: Click this icon to display the foreground image in a standard window. Every image appears in the standard window mode when you first open it.

Full screen with menu bar: If you can’t see enough of your image inside a standard window, click this icon. The title bar and scroll bars disappear, as do all background windows and the Windows taskbar, but the menu bar and palettes remain visible, as shown in Figure below.

A light gray background fills any empty area around the image. This is similar to the effect that you get when you click the maximize button in the upper-right corner of the image window. However, you probably want to avoid maximizing images; use the toolbox controls instead.

Photoshop has a habit of resizing a maximized window whenever you zoom with the commands under the View menu. If you use the toolbox controls, you don’t have that problem.

When the image doesn’t consume the entire image window, the empty portion of the window appears gray when you’re working in the standard window or full screen with menu bar modes. To change it to a different color such as black select a color and Shift-click in the gray area with the paint bucket tool.

Absolute full screen: If you still can’t see enough of your image, click the rightmost of the image window controls to see the photo set against a neutral black background. (You can’t change the color of this backdrop it’s always black.) The menu bar disappears, limiting your access to commands, but you can still access many commands using keyboard shortcuts. Only the toolbox and palettes remain visible.

If you need access to a menu command when working in the absolute full screen mode, press Shift+F to display the menu bar. Press Shift+F again to hide it.

If Photoshop’s screen elements interfere with your view of an image, you can hide all palettes including the toolbox and Options bar by pressing the Tab key. To bring the hidden palettes back into view, press Tab again.

You can hide the palettes but leave the toolbox and Options bar on screen by pressing Shift+Tab. Press Shift+Tab again to bring the palettes back. (Pressing Tab while the standard palettes are gone hides the toolbox and Options bar.) If the rulers are turned on, they remain visible at all times. Press Ctrl+R to toggle the ruler display off and on.

Here’s one more tip for good measure: Shift-click the icon for absolute full screen to switch the display mode for all open images. Then press Ctrl+Tab to cycle through the open images. This same trick works for the standard and full screen with menu bar modes.