I'm just going to hit the high points of the Adobe lessons, if you want more basic information on selecting and moving, work through the lessons on your own.
Round 1: Selecting and Moving
Begin with image veggies.psd.
Instructions are
in Lesson01.pdf
Selecting
To select a circle, like the blueberry, use the elliptical marquee tool. The marquee
is the first tool on the left. There is a tiny arrow in the bottom right corner, which means there
are other tools buried under it. If you click and hold on it, you will see a popup of all the choices.
Choose the round one. Make a circle around the berry by clicking and dragging with the mouse button
held down. If you hold the space bar down while holding down the mouse button you can move your
selection area without changing its shape. Release the space bar and the selection area changes
shape and size when you drag. Hold down the shift key and drag to add round areas to your selection
(there will be a small plus sign next to the pointer).
Hold down the option key to remove round areas from your selection (there will be a small minus sign
next to the pointer). These techniques work with all the selection tools.
To select from a center point, click the ellipse tool at the middle of the berry, and hold down the Option key while you drag.
Moving
To move your selection, you can pick the move tool (top right), click inside the selection,
and drag it to where you want. To duplicate the selection and move it simultaneously, hold down the
Option key while using the move tool. The arrow will look like it has a white shadow. To force
the move tool to only move straight up and down or side to side, hold down the shift key while
moving. To move the selection without using the move tool, use the marquee tool to make a
round selection, then hold the Command (apple) key - the pointer will show a pair of scissors. Drag
to new location. To move a selection one or 10 pixels at a time, pick the move tool, then use the arrow
keys to move the selection one pixel. Hold down the shift key and use the arrows to move
10 pixels at time.
Selecting with the Magic Wand and Lasso tools.
The magic wand tool (second down on the right) selects based on colors. Double click the tool
to see the Options palette and set the tolerance. The default is 32 - 32 similar light tones and
32 similar dark tones will be selected. Click the pear - not enough is selected, so increase the
tolerance to 50 and try again. Since it is still not all selected, shift click the missing parts
to add them.
There are three lasso tools - the first one is for freehand selections and is kind of hard to use. Try selecting the bow macaroni with it. You have to make a complete 'circle' with the end connecting to the beginning. The second lasso is for straight line selections. Click to start the selection, follow a line, click, etc. until you get all the way around. A little circle will appear next to the pointer when you are at a point where the selection can be completed. The third lasso is magnetic, it is the coolest! It will try to follow an outline all by itself. Click to begin the selection and move around the macaroni piece. If it gets out of place, press delete once to remove the latest section, then click on an edge to place an anchor.
Round 2: Cropping & Rotating, Levels, Color Replacement, Sponge (saturation), Dodge, Clone
Begin with image boat.psd.
Instructions are
in Lesson03.pdf
Cropping & Rotating
Select the Crop tool (far right tool in the Marquees). Drag it to about the size of the boat. Go
outside the selection, go to corner, and rotate the selection to the proper position and drag it around
to set the size properly. You can hit the Caps lock key to make the pointer turn to a crosshair.
When the selection is right, hit enter and the image will crop and straighten up.
Levels
Go to Image/Adjust/Levels. The graph is clumped up in the middle, indicating that there are no
really dark or light colors. Drag the triangles in towards the edges of the histogram to
increase the contrast.
Color Replacement
To change the color on the orange tarp to match the other tarps, select the square marquee tool and draw a box around it.
Choose Image/Adjust/Replace Color. Set the fuzziness to 40 and click the Selection radio button.
Click the eyedropper tool on the tarp to select it. Click the eyedropper + tool and
click on the tarp to add other shades of orange. In the Transform area, drag Hue to 149, Saturation to -17 and Lightness to -39.
Click OK.
Saturation (sponge)
Make colors brighter using this tool. It is under the Dodge tool (6 down on the right). Click the Options tab and select Saturate.
Select a large feathered brush. Drag the sponge on the red and white tarp to increase the
colors' saturation.
Dodge The dodge tool is like the photographic technique of holding back light during an exposure to lighten an area of an image. Select the dodge tool (looks like a lollipop). Choose Highlights in the Tool Options and set Exposure to 50%. Pick a medium feathered brush. Drag the tool on the gondola's hull to increase highlights.
Clone/Rubber Stamp Tool
Select the Rubber Stamp tool (4 down on the left). To get rid of the small boat in the water,
option click an area of water to select what to clone. Now drag the rubber stamp over the boat.
Watch the crosshairs that show over the area you selected, it will move as you do so don't go
out of the water area with the crosshairs or you will end up cloning the wrong thing.
Round 3: Selecting, Creating and Using Layers and Layer Effects, Transforming, History Panel, Layer Effects
Begin with image plaincloverleaf.psd
There is no pdf file for this section.
This image was hand drawn in PhotoShop using the Paintbrush tool. I drew the outline of the leaf and the veins, then filled the inside with a lighter shade of green. Then I used the Film Grain filter and Gaussian Blur to get it smooth looking. I wanted some more depth to the veins, so I selected each one individually using the magic wand. If it does not select enough when you click on a vein, double-click the Magic Wand tool to get its properties window. Change the tolerance until you get a decent vein selection. Or you can Shift-Click to add colors. Copy, Layer/New/Layer via Copy. Use Layer/Effects/Bevel and Emboss to get some depth to the vein. Change the depth of the embossing to small number. Do the same with the other veins. Flatten the images when finished to have one single layer.
(See image embossedcloverleaf.psd)
Select leaf using the Magic Wand on background. Invert selection. (Select/Inverse) Copy. (It is important to copy just the leaf, as we are going to use it several times as different layers and don't want to use the background). File/New - PS will want to make a new canvas the same size as whatever is on the clipboard. Change the size to 7x7 inches. Paste the leaf into the new canvas.
Select the leaf. Copy, Layer/New/Layer via Copy. Repeat 2 more times.
Turn off visibility of all but back layer. (Click eye in Layers panel - if the layers panel panel is not visible, look for it under the Window menu). Make that layer the active layer by clicking on its name in the Layers panel (paintbrush icon will appear). Edit/ Free Transform. Use the 'bull's eye' to move center of transformation and rotate layer. Move layer into place. Hit Enter when you are finished to make the changes. Leaves don't normally all look the same, so use some more Editing tools to make each one unique. Edit/Transform/Skew, Edit/Transform/Distort, Edit/Transform/Perspective will all be useful for this.
If you do not like an effect you have applied, you can use apple-Z to undo the last action. But you can also go back many actions by using the History panel. It records your actions and they can be dragged into the tiny trashcan to undo them. (Go under Window/Show History).
Turn on visibility of the next layer, make that layer the active layer by clicking on its name in the layer panel (paintbrush will appear) and repeat above until all 4 leaf layers are in place and properly distorted.
Now to add depth to the leaves - make the first leaf layer active. Go to Layers/Effects/Drop Shadow. Play with the settings til you like it. Do the same with the other layers.
When you are finished, flatten the image (Layers/Flatten Image).