Introduction to Photoshop CS5

Overview

Learn how to use the world's best-known photo-editing program with confidence, even if you're a beginner. You'll get detailed, step-by-step instructions from an expert and columnist for Photoshop User magazine who's twice been nominated for the Photoshop Hall of Fame. You'll also learn how to switch the backgrounds in images and how to remove wrinkles and blemishes from photos, just like professionals do in magazines.

Cost: $95. Six weeks to complete

Questions about the course? Send email to ed2go.support@cengage.com

Photoshop is the world's best-known photo-editing program—the tool that artists, photographers, designers, and hobbyists all rely on for image creation and editing. In this course, you’ll learn how to use Photoshop with skill and confidence, even if you’re a beginner. 

You’ll get detailed, step-by-step instructions from an expert and columnist for Photoshop User magazine who’s twice been nominated for the Photoshop Hall of Fame. You'll have no trouble following each step—even if you've never used a computer for graphics before. And you'll have lots of fun putting your new skills into action in this project-oriented course.

Adobe Photoshop CS5 has a host of impressive new features for photographers, and you'll get to know several of them in these lessons. You'll begin with an introduction to the Photoshop environment. Next, you'll learn how to create simple digital paintings and find out about the new brushes that let you alter a photo to achieve the look of an oil painting.  

After that, you'll edit your own photos to get rid of dust and scratches, fix the color, and correct the image exposure. You’ll also learn how to switch the backgrounds in images and how to remove wrinkles and blemishes from photos, just like professionals do in magazines.

By the time you finish this fun, hands-on course, you’ll be well on your way to expressing yourself with the most exciting graphics program ever developed.

Course Structure and Schedule

A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You will have access to all the released lessons until the course ends.

You do not have to be present when lessons are released. An interactive discussion area accompanies each lesson and automatically closes two weeks after the lesson is released.

The final exam is released the same day as the last lesson. Once the final exam has been released, you have two weeks to complete all course work, including the final exam. A 10 day extension is available if you fall behind.

 

Week One

Wednesday - Lesson 01

Your journey begins. Whether you’re an aspiring graphic artist or a weekend photographer, Photoshop can take you places you’ve never dreamed of. Even if you've never touched Photoshop before, you'll be able to open, edit, and save files before this lesson ends. You'll also find out how to download images, and you’ll learn simple commands that make an image “pop.”

Friday - Lesson 02

Did you like playing with paints as a child? In this lesson, you'll discover how enjoyable it can be to paint in Photoshop—where you don't need to clean up after yourself, and there's no odor of turpentine. You’ll find out how Photoshop “thinks” about color and how you can use the brushes inside Photoshop to make a simple landscape. You’ll even blend colors on your image as if they were made of oil paints or watercolors. This is a fun lesson!

Week Two

Wednesday - Lesson 03

Zoom, Scrubby Zoom, Airbrush, Eraser, Smudge: Do you know what these tools and commands mean in Photoshop? You will! In this lesson, you'll find out how to navigate your image so that you can edit and paint more effectively—and give your eyes a rest, too. You'll also learn how to erase, blur, smudge, and finger paint. These techniques are fun, easy ways to make dramatic changes in your images, whether you’re altering photos or creating a work of art from scratch.

Friday - Lesson 04

Have you seen ads or greeting cards where most of the image is in black and white but one part’s in color? Today you'll find out how to create that effect. You'll be amazed at how easy it is to transform images from color into black and white or even old-fashioned sepia. We'll also cover some tricks with the History Brush tool and history snapshots, so you can experiment while you're creating a hand-tinted image . . . and quickly undo whatever steps you don’t like.

Week Three

Wednesday - Lesson 05

If you wanted a friend to hand you an orange from a fruit bowl, you'd probably just point to the one you want or describe its location. Photoshop also needs directions if you want to lift something out of an image or point it out in some way. The Photoshop name for "pointing" is selections. In this lesson, you'll learn the critical skill of making selections. You'll see how easy it is to isolate portions of your image, so you can add a filter or change the colors. You'll also create vignettes, which are photos with an opaque center that falls off to a very soft edge. And if you don't like the selection you just made, you'll get help from the Refine Edge command.

Friday - Lesson 06

Photoshop has some great selection tools, but until now, all of them have had trouble selecting exactly what you had in mind. You can see the flower, so why can't Photoshop? Today you'll learn to use the Lasso, Magic Wand, and Quick Selection tools as you practice putting two images together.

Week Four

Wednesday - Lesson 07

You can paint in Photoshop—even if the only thing you can do with paint in ”real life” is spill it! Photoshop lets you create fabulous brushes from images and customize them in many ways. You can modify the new bristle brushes to help you turn photos into art . . . or to create your own work of art just by using brushstrokes.

Friday - Lesson 08

Gradients are fountains of color. One of the current trends in photography is to colorize areas of a photo with a gradient. You can spend hundreds of dollars buying gradient-colored stock photos—or just use what you learn in this lesson to create them yourself! Even portraits can be much more exciting with a gradient added to them.

Week Five

Wednesday - Lesson 09

Whether you want to add type to a scrapbooking layout, make large type for display, or learn a little bit about Photoshop's Layer Styles, you'll enjoy this lesson. You'll try your hand at making type that warps, wiggles, and follows a path. Then you'll see what you can do to text on your own.

Friday - Lesson 10

Today you'll learn how to size your images for printing or for the Web. You'll find out how to scan an image so that it's large enough for your needs, but not too large, and how to crop images that have more than you really want to see.

Week Six

Wednesday - Lesson 11

In this lesson, we'll focus on the three R's of photo manipulation: restoring, retouching, and rearranging. You'll be amazed by what you can do—and you'll understand why the phrase "pictures can't lie" is no longer true! You'll also discover how to use the amazing Clone Stamp panel and the preview feature on the Clone Stamp brush cursor. Plus you’ll learn the difference between tire tracking and powder-puff stamping.

Friday - Lesson 12

Are some of your images overexposed, underexposed, or tinged an ugly yellow? In this lesson, learn how to correct exposures and colors to make them more attractive and truer to life. Photoshop can't work miracles all the time, but if you have an image that's a bit too dark or a bit too light, you can fix it up so that it looks perfect.

Computer Requirements

Adobe Photoshop CS5, Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended, or any version of Adobe Creative Suite CS5 that includes the Adobe Photoshop CS5 or Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended software (for either Windows or Mac); software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins; Windows 7, Windows XP, or Windows Vista; Mac OS X; Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads  by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader). You must be able to download files in Zip format from the Internet and have a basic knowledge of how to use your computer.

Instructor Information

Sherry London is a noted Photoshop and Illustrator expert, an artist, a writer, and a teacher. Her fiber art has been featured in magazines and exhibitions. Her published works include Photoshop CS2 Gone Wild, Photoshop Magic, Photoshop Effects Magic, Photoshop In Depth, Photoshop Textures Magic, and Illustrator f/x and Design. She wrote the Tips and Tricks column for Photoshop User magazine for many years and is a two-time nominee to the Photoshop Hall of Fame. She has taught for the prestigious Thunder Lizard Photoshop Conference and the Professional Photographers of America seminars, as well as for Drexel University, Moore College of Art, and Gloucester County College. Sherry holds a Master's Degree in Information Systems and has taken doctoral-level courses in curriculum design. She is also a two-time nominee for the Photoshop Hall of Fame.

Registration Information 

Register Online by adding your course to cart through our secure server. Or fill out this form and fax or mail it to Extended Learning. You will be receiving email with your online course access information within five working days. Please check your spam or junk folder in case the confirmation email was misplaced there. Call 1-800-253-2762, or email WVUEnrich@mail.wvu.edu if you have any questions. Major credit cards are accepted.

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