Phil Waclawski's Photoshop Homework

Review Questions Week 1

1. What are the six main sections of the Photoshop work area?
   • Menu Bar
   • Tool Options Bar
   • Tool Box
   • Status Bar
   • Palette Well
   • Palettes
2. How would you reset your Palette locations?
   • You can move your palettes around and then choose "save palette locations" under "Edit" "Preferences" "General", or you can uncheck this box and exit Photoshop, and when you restart it, it will reset them to the defaults.
3. How would new Photoshop users activate the Tool Tips command?
   • Menu Bar to "Edit" "Preferences" "General" and click the "Tool Tips" checkbox.
4. Where can you change how your cursor is displayed for different tools?
   • Menu Bar to "edit" "Preferences" "Displays & Cursors" and choose Standard/precise/brush size for painting cursors, and just standard or precise for other cursors.
5. I want to add an additional Plug-in Directory. What would I have to do to activate this?
   1. Using windows explorer or my computer, create a new folder to store your plugins
   2. Menu Bar
   3. Edit
   4. Preferences
   5. Plug-Ins & Scratch Disks
   6. Check box next to "Additional Plug-Ins Folder"
   7. Choose that folder from the dialog box that pops up
6. If you want to record a log of all the edits you perform on an image, where would you activate this function?
   • Menu Bar -> Edit -> Preferences -> General and click the "History Log" checkbox and choose the text file where you want to save it.
7. What does it mean if you are working on a large Photoshop file and see the alert, "Your scratch disk is full"? What are some of the solutions available to you?
   • You can go into Edit/Preferences the Plugins & Scratch Disks and allocate an additional hard drive or partition with free space, or degragment/optimize the hard drive you are presently using. I would also check to see if you can close a few files if you have a tendency to have multiple projects open at once. And of course, more RAM is always good.
8. What are some of the advantages of using the File Browser instead of a desktop folder?
   • The file browser has the majority of the same functions as a desktop folder, along with dozens that are designed specifically for Photoshop. These include
     • Batch Renamer
     • Favorite Folders
     • Metadata panel to edit your image information
     • search by keywords, name, type etc.
9. Describe the difference between a 'flattened' PSD file and an 'unflattened' PSD file. Why would you use one form of the file over the other?
   • Flattened PSD
     This removes or "flattens" all the layers in a PSD file. This makes it easier to import into other programs, and is a step in converting your image to a web friendly format. This can also help with printing and reducing the file size. You do lose all your layers, so if you are just working within photshop, this is probably not a good choice.
   • 'unflattened" PSD
     This is the pristine Photoshop format. All layers and other information are fully intact. For working inside of photshop, this it the best choice, as nothing is lost. It however reduces compatibility with other programs.
10. Describe two ways to create images in Photoshop.
    • File -& New and choose the size,etc.
    • File -& Import to grab images from a scanner or digital camer
    • File -& Open to open an image you've saved to disk from a scanner or digital camera
11. I want to specify that my file be saved with all layers, with annotations and as a copy. Where would I administer these commands?
    • Go to the Menu Bar, click "File" and "Save As" and all the options show up as check boxes at the bottom of the Save As window.
12. Where would you find subcommands for Menu items such as File, Edit, Image, Layer, Select, Filter, View, Window and Help?
    • You click on the word "File,Edit,Image etc" and the subcommands show up in a drop down menu list.
13. What does a small black triangle in a Menu subcommand indicate?
    • That there is a submenu with an additional list of options/commands that will show up if you rest the cursor on that choice.
14. What do three small dots after a Menu subcommand mean?
    • Trying this out, it appears that the elipsis (...) means that a dialog box/window will open up when you choose that subcommand.
15. How would you bring up the Status Bar?
    • If it isn't visible, go to the Menu Bar, click on "Window" and down near the bottom of the list of options is "Status Bar".
16. If I wanted to check the amount of RAM and scratch disk used to process my image as I work on it, where would I look?
    • The status bar, click on the black triangle and choose scratch sizes, and Document sizes to find the info you want.
17. What are some of the benefits to using the Status Bar while you work on a file?
    • You can monitor the status of your scratch pads (are you running out of disk space) and information about the file size etc. as you work.
18. What file format is most used for continuous tone images that are prepared for web use?
    • JPEG (.jpg) the Joint Photographic Exchange Group format, is the most commonly used format for web use where you want good quality real world photographs with a reasonable size. GIF is limited to 256 colors, and PNG doesn't compress as well as JPEG.
19. If you wanted to create an animated image or a transparent image for a web site, which file format would you save as?
    • For now, the .gif format is really the only one for animated images, and the most common for transparency, though as browser support improves, .png transparency will be a better choice, though .png will not offer animation.
20. What file format(s) will preserve layers in your file?
    • Just TIFF and PSD preserve the layers of your files in Photoshop.
21. What are Keyboard Shortcuts and why would you want to use these?
    • Keyboard Shortcuts are a series of keys struck as a group that trigger a task (such as ctrl + K) doing the same thing as moving the cursor up to the menu bar, clicking "Edit" sliding down and clicking "Preferences". Keyboard shortcuts, once you learn them, are MUCH faster than the mouse, and you also don't have to lose your mouse position. As a UNIX/Linux lover, I know the power of the keyboard, trust me ;)
22. If you want to create your own custom keyboard shortcuts, how would you go about doing this?
    • Go to the Menu Bar, click "Edit" then "Keyboard Shortcuts".
23. Where can I quickly find Keyboard Shortcuts for Menu Bar commands?
    • To the right of the menu bar command. They are listed right there. ;)