32 Essential Photoshop Features

And How To Use Them…In 60 Minutes

Photography is now an essential skill for public relations and communications professionals. It is no longer the sole domain of designers and advertising creatives.

While Photoshop is the standard tool for editing photos, it can be maddening to use because for the uninitiated or those who do not use it daily, it feels like you need a PhD to accomplish even the most basic tasks.

Thankfully, Nate Dodson of TutVid has produced this amazing video tutorial demonstrating how to use thirty essential Photoshop features an hour.

(Here is the accompanying post, if you’d rather read the instructions.)

Dodson actually covers thirty-two features in his tutorial (listed below). If you’d rather jump to a specific feature, drag the video slider bar to corresponding time:

  1. Color Balance – 00:55
  2. Masking – 01:48
  3. Quick Selection Tool – 02:44
  4. Quick Mask Tool – 04:03
  5. Content-Aware Fill – 05:03
  6. Clone Stamp Tool – 05:31
  7. The Patch Tool – 07:05
  8. How to use Levels – 08:07
  9. The Pen Tool – 09:12
  10. Flames Filter – 10:31
  11. The Type Tool – 15:03
  12. TypeKit Fonts – 15:41
  13. Using & Working with Guides – 17:42
  14. Smart Objects – 18:38
  15. Field Blur – 19:35
  16. How to use Curves – 21:41
  17. The Eyedropper Tool – 23:20
  18. Import Color Themes with Adobe Color – 24:58
  19. Bonus: Gradient Maps – 25:49
  20. How to Create an Action – 26:27
  21. The Crop Tool – 28:38
  22. Colorize Live Shapes – 30:36
  23. Convert Objects to 3D/Working with 3D – 31:23
  24. Custom Workspaces – 34:24
  25. The Camera RAW Filter – 35:57
  26. Exporting Images and Graphics – 37:18
  27. Bonus: Changing the UI Background Color – 38:46
  28. Color Range – 39:29
  29. Select and Mask – 40:55
  30. Liquify – 45:38
  31. The Healing Brush – 47:36
  32. The Rotate View Tool – 49:28

The TutVid YouTube channel has even more photography tutorials.

Voice-Activated Photoshop

Maybe Adobe is finally understanding user frustrations because this concept video shows Photoshop being used via voice commands on an iPad. Whether voice commands become an actual feature remains to be seen but a boy can hope.