eSchool - Digital Photography, May 2nd, 2007
The Toolbox in Photoshop CS2 (version 9.0) for Windows is command central for almost everything you do. It contains a total of 58 basic tools, with 22 visible in the Toolbox by default. In the default work area, the Toolbox is located on the left, the menu bar and options bar at the top, and the palettes on the right.
When you move your mouse cursor over each of the tools in the Toolbox, a ToolTip appears and displays the name of the tool and its keyboard shortcut. You can view the hidden tools of a tool group by clicking the small triangle at the lower-right corner of the tool. You can also cycle through the tools in a group without expanding them by pressing Shift and the shortcut for the tool. For example, to cycle through the tools in the Lasso group, press Shift+L. Press Shift+L again to reveal the next tool in the group.
Now focus your attention on the lower portion of the Toolbox. Notice the large black and white squares. They are the color selection boxes. The upper color selection box represents the current foreground color; the lower one represents the current background color. It's helpful to know two shortcuts for these boxes:
- Press D or click the small black and white squares under the color selection boxes to change the color selection boxes back to the defaults of black and white.
- Press X or click the curved arrow above the color selection boxes to switch the foreground and background colors.
Note: If you're familiar with Adobe Illustrator, these are the same shortcuts for the Fill and Stroke color boxes. Photoshop and Illustrator use many of the same shortcuts and basic operations.
You'll notice that the same color selection boxes appear in the Color palette. The foreground color is also used with the paint and stroke functions. The background color is associated with gradient fills and with the Eraser tool. In addition, both the foreground and background colors are used by some of the special effect filters.
The next group in the Toolbox pertains to the Quick Mask mode, which enables you to easily select areas of the photo you wish to edit.
The next group of three buttons allows you to switch to different screen modes while you're working in Photoshop.
The last two icons, positioned on top of a larger button, are a quick way to launch the ImageReady application, which you use to create Web graphics.
This is just the tip of the Toolbox iceberg. You'll find a great summary chart of the Toolbox and a tool gallery in Photoshop Help. Press F1 or select Help > Photoshop Help.
