5. TOOLBOX

 If you used other Adobe products, such as Illustrator or InDesign, you should be familiar with the toolbox in Adobe Photoshop CS5 as it shares some of the tools from these applications. If you are a new user of Adobe products, you should keep in mind that you might not need to use all of the tools. In this tutorial, only the basic tools will be discussed in depth.

Some tools in the toolbar have additional “hidden” tools. These tools have small black triangles in the right-hand corner. To view the “hidden” tools, click and hold down on any tool that has a black triangle in the corner (Figure 10).

Figure 10. “Hidden” tools

3.0 PALETTES

Below is the description of the most commonly used palettes in Adobe Photoshop CS5. Palettes used for more advanced image editing will be covered in the Adobe Photoshop CS5 Tutorial -Intermediate.

Color, Swatches, Style

The Color palette (Figure 4) displays the current foreground and background colors and RGB values for these colors. You can use the sliders to change the foreground and background colors in different color modes. You can also choose a color from the spectrum of colors displayed in the color ramp at the bottom of the palette.

Figure 4. Color palette

In the Swatches palette (Figure 5) you can choose a foreground or background color and add acustomized color to the library.

Figure 5. Swatches palette

The Styles palette (Figure 6) allows you to view, select, and apply preset layer styles. By default, a preset style replaces the current layer style. You can use the styles in the palette or add your own using the Create New Style icon.

Figure 6. Styles palette

2.0 INTERFACE LAYOUT

Figure 3. This is the layout of Adobe Photoshop interface

Menu Bar

If you look at the top of the screen you will see the Menu bar which contains all the main functions of Photoshop, such as File, Edit, Image, Layer, Select, Filter, Analysis, 3D, View, Window, and Help.

Toolbar

Most of the major tools are located in the Toolbar for easy access.

The Image

The image will appear in its own window once you open a file.

Image Name

The name of any image that you open will be at the top of the image window as shown above.

Palettes

Palettes contain functions that help you monitor and modify images. By default, palettes are stacked together in groups. These are the palettes that are usually visible: Color, Adjustments and Layers. If none of the palettes are visible, go to Window in the Menu bar and choose the palettes you need.

1.0 GETTING STARTED

1. Begin by opening Adobe Photoshop CS5.
On a PC, click Start > Programs > Adobe > Photoshop CS5, or click on the shortcut on the desktop.
On a Mac, click Macintosh HD > Applications > Adobe Photoshop CS5 > Photoshop CS5 shown in Figure 1, or click the icon in the Dock.

Figure 1. Navigation to Photoshop CS5 on a Mac

What Is Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.
Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop. The CS rebranding also resulted in Adobe offering numerous software packages containing multiple Adobe programs for a reduced price. Adobe Photoshop is released in two editions: Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Photoshop Extended, with the Extended having extra 3D image creation, motion graphics editing, and advanced image analysis features.^[3] Adobe Photoshop Extended is included in all of Adobe's Creative Suite offerings except Design Standard, which includes the Adobe Photoshop edition.
Alongside Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Extended, Adobe also publishes Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, collectively called "The Adobe Photoshop Family" by Adobe. In 2008, Adobe released Adobe Photoshop Express, a free web-based image editing tool to edit photos directly on blogs and social networking sites.
Adobe support only Windows and Mac versions of this program but with Wine, CS4 version of Photoshop can work on Linux.

Photoshop CS5
Create powerful images with the professional standard

Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop