Adobe Photoshop: A quick guide

As per other recent guides, we start with what it is. Photoshop is an image editor... but so much more. Originally you'd hear people say 'that's been photoshopped' and it stems from this application. You'd take a photo and edit it, unlike illustrator where you'd be more likely to create something from scratch. Nowadays they tend to cross paths more with smart objects, svg exporting and loads more.

So, where to start?

Take an image and start with the basics. You can adjust colour balance, levels, hue, saturation and much more to just make your photo look better. But you can do that on your phone nowadays so there must be more to it we hear you shout. Yes.

Just choose one...

So why not just stick to one of these apps to make everything you need? You can, and some people do as they feel at home with the interface, where tools are, how to achieve certain effects and so on. But we have found they just work nicely together depending on what your project is. If you download a stock image and want to resize, crop and optimise for the web, Photoshop is on hand. You CAN do it in illustrator but its just not quite what it was designed for.

Logo Sizing

So without any knowledge of Illustrator, it's very easy to go in to Photoshop and make a massive canvas, design a logo, and hope it will never need to go larger than its maximum pixels. See our post about how Illustrator works for that. But what if you want to create visual mock ups that have stacks of layers and are way more complex? Photoshop tends to just fit and has a different collection of tools available to achieve whatever you desire.

New vs Existing

The main difference will come with the above. If a client approaches with existing flat artwork, you'll need Photoshop in order to get started and create some further content. If you are tasked with creating from scratch then Illustrator is your go to. The advert below starts with the microchip image and the rest gets added for a fairly basic Facebook and Instagram advert. Photoshop is the tool for the job in our opinion.

You can also adjust your workspace as you see fit as with all of these tools, which is a great way to perfect the layout you like the best.

A Basic Guide

These guides are just for anyone out there that is getting started in the world of tech and design. There is so much more to explore within these tools and we'll be back with more in depth guides going forward. Don't hesitate to have a look at just some examples of our design work.