Photoshop CS6 quick reference guide available

Can’t remember the shortcut for your favorite Photoshop tool or menu item? There’s a fantastic new tool for Photoshop CS6 users. It’s called the Photoshop CS6 Quick Reference Guide. This handy little web app allows you to search for tool and menu names. The results supply you with a short definition of the tool or menu item, its shortcut and its location. In many cases, a link to a help article or tutorial is provided so you can learn how to use that feature.

It’s easy to use. Simply enter a term in the Search field:

Depending on the search term, you may get a long list of results. You can filter those results by using the checkboxes available at the top of the results list. Simply check one or more of those boxes and click Update to filter your results and narrow your search.

This tool was created by Julia Grummel and Janelle Flores, two of Adobe’s Digital Media Interns. It is a beta version which means that it is a work in progress. But comments and suggestions are welcome. All in all, it is an extremely useful tool.

Great new place to start learning Photoshop

Are you a Photoshop beginner? If so, the new Photoshop for Beginners forum is bound to be of help. Its a place to ask questions, learn the basics about Photoshop, and find answers from patient, knowledgeable people. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Cropping an image in Illustrator

How do you crop an image in Illustrator? You don’t have to crop the image in Photoshop or Lightroom before you place it in your Illustrator file. There are a few different ways to crop in Illustrator but these two new videos give you some best practices for cropping. In one, Adobe’s Erica Larson shows how to crop with an opacity mask and in the other she shows you how to crop with a clipping mask:

• Cropping Images with Opacity Masks
• Cropping Images with Clipping Masks

New Quick Start Guide for Photoshop Touch

Adobe has created something very handy for those of you who are trying to get up and running with Photoshop Touch. Their new Photoshop Touch Quick Start Guide gives a quick overview of the UI, toolbar, selections, and layers. Its just enough to get you started quickly. It is also a very handy reference for those of us who may have forgotten how to use a certain tool or feature. Give it a try!

Adobe Carousel for iPhone, iPad, and Mac launches today!

Adobe Carousel, Adobe’s new app for the iPad, iPhone, and Mac launched today.  Imagine being able to see your entire digital photo library anytime you want on any of your digital devices. Carousel allows you to view and edit your photos on your iPhone, iPad and your Mac. It syncs any changes or edits you make automatically so the images will look the same no matter which device you are using. Here are some links to learn more about it:

• Product specs and prices
• Getting started with Carousel
• Carousel for the Mac – Mac App store
• Carousel for iOS – App store
• Carousel forum
• Carousel Help & Support

Browse all of your photos on iPhone, iPad, and your Mac

Adobe just announced a new product for anyone who loves photos called Adobe Carousel. If you have one set of photos on your iPhone, and another set on your Mac, and still another set on your iPad, now you can unite them into one “carousel” that is accessible from any of those devices. Want to learn more about it? Here are some links to videos and FAQs that will tell you all about this amazing new product.

• Watch the announcement and demo of Adobe Carousel at Photoshop World
• Learn all about the product on Photoshop.com and watch a short video that explains the idea behind Adobe Carousel
• To ask questions and learn more, go to the Adobe Carousel Community feedback page. Carousel product team members are on hand to answer questions and have a conversation with the community.

Getting started with digital imaging?

If you want to understand some of the basic concepts behind digital photography and editing digital images, you should check out these Key Concepts pages. Each one is a very quick read. I highly recommend taking a peek before you dive into learning how to use any of these programs. Here is the list of Key Concepts for Photoshop and Lightroom:

Digital image basics

• Aliasing & Anti-aliasing*
• Bounding box
• Canvas*
• Color mode or Image mode
• Compression
• Raster & Vector*
• Resolution
• Sample
• Zoom

Layers

• Adjustment layer*
• Flattening*

Photo adjustments

• Color cast
• Contrast
• Exposure
• Highlight & Shadow
• Lighten
• Saturation & Desaturation
• Sharpen

Special effects

• Blur
• Clone
• Filter*
• Gradient
• Grayscale
• Panorama*
• Sepia tone
• Vignette

Transformations

• Resample
• Skew*
• Transform
• Warp*

Here is the list of Key Concepts for Photoshop Elements 9:

Digital image basics

• Aliasing & Anti-aliasing
• Canvas
• Color mode or Image mode
• Compression
• Keywords
• Raster & Vector
• Resolution
• Sample
• Selection
• Zoom

Layers

• Adjustment layer
• Background
• Composite
• Flattening
• Layer
• Transparency & Opacity

Photo adjustments

• Color cast
• Contrast
• Exposure
• Highlight & Shadow
• Lighten
• Saturation & Desaturation
• Sharpen

Special effects

• Blur
• Clone
• Filter
• Gradient
• Grayscale
• Panorama
• Sepia tone
• Vignette

Transformations

• Bounding box
• Crop
• Resample
• Resize
• Rotate
• Scale
• Skew
• Transform
• Warp

Learning Photoshop.com for iPhone, Android, or WinMobile phones

Are you trying to learn how to use Photoshop.com on your mobile device? There are some handy videos and Help resources to get you up to speed quickly. For regularly updated information, check out:

• Photoshop.com Help & Support page
• Photoshop.com forums

FAQ’s for each mobile platform can be found here:

• Photoshop.com iPhone and iPod Touch FAQ
• Photoshop.com Android FAQ
• Photoshop.com WinMobile FAQ

Want video tutorials? Check out Learn Photoshop.com on Adobe TV–it has loads of Photoshop.com videos.

Digital imaging key concepts and terms

Are you just starting out with digital imaging? If you’re a beginner with digital photo-editing, you’ll need to understand some basic concepts. This isn’t always as easy as it should be. What if the beginner tutorial contains words or ideas that you haven’t learned yet? Are you wondering things like:

• What is a “color cast”?
• What’s the difference between “resize” and “resample”?
• What does “sepia tone” mean?

If you want to learn about some of these basic ideas, Adobe is testing a new idea: Illustrated Key Concepts. Each page contains a definition of the basic concept, an illustration of the concept, related terms, and a list of related tools in Photoshop Elements. Once you’ve learned what a sepia tone image is, you can click on the tool name and learn how to create a sepia tone image using Photoshop Elements.

The pages also contain lots of other “related terms” to help people find the right page. Sometimes you may not know the correct term for something. These related terms are meant to help searchers get close. So, for example, if you wanted to find info on creating sepia toned images but you searched for “antique” photos, you could land on Sepia Tone page anyway.

Check out the Key Concepts Index page to see the full list with links and comments. If you find this helpful or have suggestions, leave us a comment. Here are the Key Concepts:

Digital image basics

• Aliasing & Anti-aliasing
• Canvas
• Color mode or Image mode
• Compression
• Keywords
• Raster & Vector
• Resolution
• Sample
• Selection
• Zoom

Layers

• Adjustment layer
• Background
• Composite
• Flattening
• Layer
• Transparency & Opacity

Photo adjustments

• Color cast
• Contrast
• Exposure
• Highlight & Shadow
• Lighten
• Saturation & Desaturation
• Sharpen

Special effects

• Blur
• Clone
• Filter
• Gradient
• Grayscale
• Panorama
• Sepia tone
• Vignette

Transformations

• Bounding box
• Crop
• Resample
• Resize
• Rotate
• Scale
• Skew
• Transform
• Warp

Getting started videos for Photoshop Elements 7

Are you just learning to use Photoshop Elements 7? This set of videos should help you get started.

• What is Photoshop Elements?
• Getting photos from files and folders
• Getting photos from a digital camera

• Touring the Organizer interface
• Viewing photos
• Selecting photos
• Rotating photos
• Hiding and deleting photos
• Moving files

• Using the Guided Edit mode
• Touring the Full Edit interface
• Using tools
• Saving files
• Manual selection tools
• Automatic selection tools
• Using the new Smart Brush tool
• Converting color to black-and-white
• Creating text
• Editing text

• Making a photo book
• Making a photo collage
• Creating a slide show
• Making a panorama

• Using email and Photo Mail
• Printing your photos
• Signing up for Photoshop.com
• Viewing and sharing your photos online
• Backing up and synchronizing albums online
• Finding ongoing inspiration from Adobe.com

These Getting Started videos were created by Lynda.com. Adobe is offering this set of videos for free to help users get oriented to the software. For the complete set of videos, see the full title, “Photoshop Elements for Windows Essential Training” by Jan Kabili.

In addition to the Getting Started videos, Adobe is also offering a set of intermediate tutorials and videos to further your learning. I highly recommend working your way through the Getting Started videos before you tackle the “Learn More” set of tutorials.