This is the last in the Beginner Series Lesson #12 named "Exploring the Tool Bar". This is the last lesson for Beginners, once you have completed this lesson you are not considered to be a beginner any more in this group.

You are free to pick and choose any tutorial you wish from now on. I hope that you will continue to show us your creations. You have come a long way in 6 short weeks and if you made it this far you should be very proud of yourself. Congratulations!!!

In this lesson we are going to discuss some of the other Tools on the Toolbar. This where we find some major changes from version to version in PSP, so if the tool looks different or doesn't appear please ask if it is available for your version or what it may look like in your version. As you know I write my lessons in version 9 with changes for XI.

Our Toolbar (on the left side of the Workspace) is one of the greatest features of PSP. At a glance we options available to us to make some significant changes to our images.

    This is the way my toolbar looks, Each icon represents a different tool or series of tools. You have used several of these tools so far such as the Magic Wand, The Selection Tools, Shape Tools and others. Now we will discuss some of the other tools that are available. Hopefully you have taken a look at some of these and may even given them a try. This is encouraged with this program because you learn more by experimenting than I could ever teach.   There is nothing that can't be undone, so please give them all a try, You never know you might just discover the next hot item!

Let's get started. Find a silly image for practice here, open it now. The image you see at the top of my toolbar is the Zoom Tool (magnifying glass) (the XI icon) this makes the image larger or smaller on the workspace (remember: it doesn't resize the actual image only lets you see a larger or smaller version) Right clicking in the image reduces the size and left clicking makes the image larger. If you have a wheel mouse, scrolling the wheel will also change the size.

The Crop Tool   is a handy tool, it is like using scissors, you can remove the extra areas around an image that you don't want or need, or choose just a section of the image you want. The crop tool only crops in a rectangular shape so if you want a circle or another shape the selection tool is the better choice.

Click in the upper left corner of the section you want to crop and drag to the lower right corner, click inside the crop area and your image will now be smaller. Undo this, Go to EDIT / UNDO CROP

The Dropper Tool helps to pick colors.  In any open image you can pull out a particular color for a foreground or background color.  Left Click the tool inside the image and you will see the Foreground Color Box in the Materials Palette change. Right click and the Background Color Box changes.

The Clone Tool or lets us copy parts of an image to another image. Open a new image with a white background. Right click the clone tool inside the silly image I provided then going to our new image with white background Left click and holding the left button on the mouse, drag the brush around, see how it copies the other image? Helps you to create a new image from parts of others, you can copy from as many other images as you wish.

The Dodge Tool or   Lightens and brings out the details in areas that are in shadow. Try it on our silly image, raising the opacity setting on the Tool Options Menu will make it lighter.

The Burn Tool or Is the opposite of the Dodge Tool, it darkens areas of the image that are too light.

The Other Retouch Brushes in this section are:

Smudge - Spreads color and image details from the starting point and picks up new color and image details as it moves; the effect is similar to smearing paint.

Push - Spreads color and image details from the starting point but does not pick up any new color or image details.

Soften - Smoothes edges and reduces contrast.

Sharpen - Heightens edges and accentuates contrasts.

Emboss - Causes the foreground to appear raised from the background by suppressing color and tracing edges in black.

Lighten/Darken - Lightening increases brightness; darkening decreases brightness.

This is the same toolbar in XI. As you can see the icon have been updated but everything else is pretty much the same even if they are in a different order. The makeover tool and red eye tool have been added, and some icons have been ungrouped with others but they are the same tools.

Get to know you tools. Learn by using, you will learn more that way than I could ever teach! Don't be afraid to try something, you can always undo, or even delete the image and start again. And as always, if there is anything you are unsure of and want to ask, please don't hesitate. We are here to help, so either ask me or one of the Moderators (Janet or Bea).

You are free to try any of the other Tutorials offered for more advanced users, if there is anything in particular that you would like to learn more about please ask.

Enjoy! Play! Create! and then share with the rest of us your creations!

In this lesson you learned about: