Welcome to Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is, without question, the leading image-editing program in the world. Photoshop has even become somewhat of a cultural icon. It’s not uncommon to hear Photoshop used as a verb, and you’ll even see references to Photoshop in the daily comics and cartoon strips. And now you’re part of this whole gigantic phenomenon called Photoshop.

Whether you’re new to Photoshop, upgrading from Photoshop CS2 or earlier, or transitioning from Elements to the full version of Photoshop CS3 or Photoshop CS3 Extended, you’re in for some treats. Photoshop CS3 has some intriguing new capabilities that enable you to do more, and more easily, than ever. Before we take you on this journey through the intricacies of Photoshop, we want to introduce you to Photoshop in a more general way. In this tutorial, we tell you what Photoshop is designed to do, what it can do (although not as capably as job-specific software), and what you can get it to do if you try really, really hard. I also review some basic computer operation concepts and point out a couple of places where Photoshop is a little different than most other programs. At the end of the chapter, we have a few tips for you on installing Photoshop to ensure that it runs properly.

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