Adobe Photoshop CS6 The Menu Bar

Hi everyone, Michael Brown here again.0000

Welcome back to educator.com's Adobe Photoshop CS6 course.0003

We've been talking about the workspace and identifying the various features there of, and we're going to talk in this lesson about the Menu bar and all of the individual dropdown menus that appear across the top of your menu.0007

Alright, so let's get started.0023

What I've done here, is I've listed them all and we'll check them off as we go through them.0024

I also have an image open so that I can demonstrate some of the particular features, so let's first of all talk about the very first dropdown menu--the File menu.0029

Now remember, when you open up a file, that's the file menu is dealing with--your entire image, layers, everything with it, the entire file.0041

So if we hit the dropdown on that you can create a new file, very simply comes in--you can give it the width-height resolution, whatever you want, and adjust the various options on that.0052

We're going to close that one out...you can also open, which means it will go to your navigation, either on the Mac or the PC to find whatever you want, or here's Browse in Bridge; that's how you get to the editing program.0064

Minibridge will open up this little Minibridge panel down here at the bottom which, as I told you, I'm not a particular fan on.0079

In the Bridge section we'll talk about that in a little more depth--Bridge is much better.0088

Open as a smart object--what it will do is take whatever file you're trying to open and create it automatically in its base layer, like we have over here--in the layers panel, the base layer, background layer, as a smart object.0094

We're not dealing too much with smart objects in the basic and intermediate, so you're not going to really work with that too much.0109

Open recent is pretty cool, because what it does is list...I think it lists 10, and in the Preferences I think we can adjust that (let's take a quick look here how far we can go back...ah, there it was) recent file list contains--and you can add the number of files to that--in fact I'm going to actually change that to 15 on my own Preferences so when you go to File, open recent, it will list--and you can see it went back--the last 15 files you worked on.0117

This is really a nice feature, so before you go searching, you can just check here to see if the particular image you want is available, and you can adjust that again, as you saw that was Photoshop, Preferences, and I think it was File Handling--and it is, right down at the bottom of the File Handling panel in the Preferences, OK?0152

So...obviously with a file you can close it, and of course, remember I talked about one or two key shortcuts, Command or Control on a PC and the letter W will close an open window.0176

You can close all of the windows (forget the shortcut, I hate three key shortcuts) close and go to Bridge...you can close out the entire program and just go to Bridge.0190

Save is grayed out--notice you have items that are grayed out that are unavailable, and the reason save is not available on this image, because we have not made any changes to it, so the other option that's always available (and this is my favorite, we'll talk about this in another lesson on saving) the Save As panel, it's the best panel of them all; saves you a lot of trouble.0202

Check-in--don't even know what that does--save for web, very, very good panel to use--it allows you to optimize your image for putting on the web--really a good one.0227

Revert brings it back to where it starts from, placing is putting an object in, importing, not too much you're going to work with here--exporting, not too much here.0237

Automate is a good one under the File menu.0247

Here's where you access...excuse me...the batch commands which we'll be dealing with when we create actions which is a panel.0250

This allows you to perform multiple operations that you would use, the same operations in a sequence on several images; you can batch them up and do it all in one shot--you can make a pdf presentation here, a droplet is kind of like a mini app, crop and straighten photos--you really don't need that there because you've got your cropping tool right over here on the menu...let's get back out of the cropping tool.0260

So, there we are at the automate, merge to HDR effects pro--now that's a plugin from Nik, that's not Photoshop's HDR pro, that's down here at the bottom, so you have contact sheets you can create, lens correction is available from here as well as in the Filter menu.0290

Merge to HDR pro as I mentioned and photo merge, which is taking a series of images and putting them together as one, so all of that is under the automate menu.0311

Scripts, which are additional kind of apps, image processor is here, this is a new feature that's very cool--delete all empty layers.0321

If you have a layers panel like I do over here that has a bunch of layers and some of them you may not have used and get confused, this will just automatically take out those.0331

Flatten layer effects; that allows those--that there are no effects here, flattened masks, and a lot of things to do with the file in the layers panel are here--layer comps.0341

Layer comps...we'll talk about those at a later time but what they are, are different versions of a layered file that are saved up...very cool--you can make them as files, pdfs and web photo galleries.0352

Export layers to files...and that's about all you'll do with that.0367

This is the File menu--in other words, it's everything you would do to an entire file.0372

The Edit menu...you are undo, which is back and forth Command+Z or Control+Z on a PC, allows you to go forward and backward one step--in other words, if you've made a correction on an image, you can go backwards by going Command or Control+Z to see where you came from, and then you can do Command or Control+Z again and it goes forward, so you're toggling back and forth so you can see the effect; very good idea.0378

Cut and copy--copy you'll use a lot, obviously you're going to copy something.0409

Paste, which in this case is nothing to paste, and again the two one.0413

Paste special is very cool because it allows you to paste things into selected areas, clear, check spelling here, this is in other words editing your file.0417

Find and replace text filling, in other words, if I wanted to take this layer and fill it with a color that's where you fill.0428

Stroking is making a border around the edge, content where a scale, we'll talk about as we go along--it's really cool, I won't even deal with that.0434

Puppet Warp...think of a spider with its legs out and you can move the legs anywhere you want to, very cool.0443

Free transform and transform--these are your transformational tools that will allow you to stretch, as you can see scale rotates cube, distort perspective, the various things you can do to a layer inside an image.0449

Auto-align layers and auto-blend--these are for graphics work, which we're not going to deal with here, and most of the rest of it you can adjust your color settings right over here, as well as up color profile or convert from one profile to another.0464

The keyboard shortcuts are all listed here in the menus as well.0481

So the things here--this is what you're going to do, the File deals with the basics things you do with the file, the Edit menu you're going to edit an image, so let's go back.0485

We've gone over the File menu...and we've gone over the Edit menu (why am I gray here, I should be in black, good enough anyway).0494

Alright, so let's talk about the Image menu.0507

Image...this is the modes available for your images.0509

You are predominantly going to work with either grayscale--and probably even not with grayscale because, if you want to convert an image to black and white, you don't do it here, there's another way to do it--we'll talk about that before.0515

Predominantly, RGB or CMYK is what we're going to be dealing with.0527

CMYK if you're going out to print, RGB color is 99% of our work, so it's going to be RGB...8 16 or 32 bits in this particular course, we're going be dealing 99% of the time at 8 bits per channel.0533

Adjustments--here are your exposure and color adjustments, and a few other things that are available...down at the bottom, HDR toning, shadows and highlights, and a couple of other things that we're not going to talk about, but predominantly it's up in here; exposure and color, plus shadows and highlights.0548

Your auto-exposure color controls are right here, and here's where you adjust your image size, canvas size (which is adding area to an image) all the rotation features for your image are right under here, duplicating an image right here, calculations, which has to do with combining and creating new selections from others--we'll deal with that a lot--and that's about it, so this is where the image is where you apply your effects to the image.0569

File deals with the files overall, Edit deals mostly with layers, Image--this is where you do your corrections, Layers, as you see over here, this is the Layers panel, and we have various layers in this particular image right here.0600

Everything to do with layers; creating new ones, duplicating them, deleting them, producing styles, renaming it, all of the things--and we'll talk about this at length, everything that you would do with a layer is very conveniently under the Layer menu.0615

Type...what do you think we're going to have to do with the Type menu?0631

Could it be text and type; everything to do with type is under here, some of the various things you would do--let me switch to a type layer, and they'll highlight up.0635

You can see that when something's grayed out it's not available in that situation--if I was off here on a non-type layer, notice almost everything is grayed out, but if I switch to a type layer the options are back in here.0647

You won't work a lot with this, there's not a lot that we use it for, most of the type work is done under the panels for type which are the character panel and the paragraph panel--we'll talk about that in just a moment.0663

The Select menu--everything with selections.0681

Filters...could it be everything to do with filters is under the Filter menu--all of your filters available are listed under here plus the cool ones--Vanishing Point, Liquify, Oil Painting, Lens Correction, Adaptive Wide Angle which is brand new, and the Filter Gallery, all under here and I also have some plugins from Nik on this one--Silver effects and the Vaser are two incredible pieces of plugins.0684

So we've got the Type menu; everything about type, Select; everything about selections, Filter; all of your filter contacts are under here.0713

The View menu has to do with graphics, so we're not going to deal a lot with graphic design in this program, but here's where you do your proof setup for working with CMYK to see what it's going to look like, you've been working on it in RGB and you want to output it to a printing press, this is where you make the checks on that and your proof colors.0724

Zoom...we don't really need that in here, I know they have it under the View menu--that's because you're working on a graphic layout but of course we've discussed the zoom tool.0746

Print size, screen mode, as we also know, is down here at the bottom and the shortcut letter F, so it's not really a lot over there.0757

I'm going to view rulers, which is also Command or Control+R, and there are the dimensional ruler for your image--if you notice this corner here is at zero, and down here it's a little, so the image is a little more than 4 inches high.0766

Under the View menu, you can go down and show--this is a grid, remember I had you set up your grid with .25 and 4 separations--this is very good for aligning objects precisely, and also guides, which are objects to precision--remember where one is, you just grab in the corner here, drag it over and there's a guide for the right side--grab one from the top, drag it down and there it is.0783

If I go View, Show, Guides, they will disappear--View, Show, Grid, it will disappear, that's where you get those, and that pretty much sums that one up--oh, one other thing I wanted to show you, because this thing's a nuisance sometimes.0813

This is a pixel grid, and by default, it is checked, so we're going to check it back on--let's go to this other image, and as I zoom up, once I reach a certain magnification...it should pop in--I guess I turned it off in the Preferences?0831

It should show that...I'm wondering why it didn't--View, Show, oh, I didn't hit it right, there it is.0852

Once you get past 500%, it shows you the actual pixels, and I don't find this useful at all.0863

I want to see the edges of my pixels, that's what I'm up there for, so if I go to View, Show, and go to pixel grid and just get rid of it, now as you see when we zoom up, we can actually see the edges of the pixels and see how crisp and clean and how they blend, so I find that important to remember: View, Show, get rid of that pixel grid.0872

The rest of it, pretty much, so that's graphics under the View menu.0894

The Window menu is all of your panels, your ways of arranging--we talked about that in the workspace, how to arrange your images, and saving custom workspaces and having pre-set workspaces.0898

I will talk about all of these panels in a separate lesson on purely panels, so let's go back and see where we are here.0912

We went over the View menu, we went over the panels briefly, and then we come to the last one, which is Help.0921

Online, this is very useful and very important, because even I reach points--sometimes I don't know a specific thing, if I'm teaching and I need to define it properly, here's the Photoshop Help, and you can use this for any of the Adobe products, in this case I have it set up here for Photoshop--just type in whatever your question is and all of the search options will--in fact here...Photoshop Help (I can't even spell, H, E, L, P) click Enter, and there you have all--and you click on that, and here's all of the information.0930

Basically, a textbook on all of them--there's Bridge help, Light Room, all of the things that you need, you can find in the Help menu if you get lost.0971

So that covers the Help, so there we go, really a quick recap.0981

Everything with full files under the File menu, editing layers under the Edit menu, making your image adjustments; exposure and color primarily under the Image menu, everything about layers on Layer, everything about type on the Type menu, selections--everything about selections, all of your filters under the Filter menu, the View menu has to do with graphic design, and the Window menu, all of your panels and Photoshop Help.0986

So that sums up the lesson for the menu bar in Photoshop CS6.1014