h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Basics of Photoshop - A11304749
Author: Cosmicdudeman-Thingite Minister of Certain Substances - U3715074

I think this may deserve to be in the edited guide. If you know the uses of other tools or the version numbers when things changed around (you will probably notice that I am unsure about that a few times, they are taken from my notice of some differences between the two versions I have used, 6.0 and 8.0) please edit it.

I definitely think it ought to go in! That 'Dobe suite drives me nuts.

Give it a run through and make sure you've got the names of all the tools spelled right, though. For example you wrote: "Marque" when I think it's "marquee".

Also, some words don't have spaces between themselves and those that follow. There a few other minor changes I'd make. If you want me to give it a thorough going over, give a yell.

I would like it and have already began to start fixing some of the typos.

After I finish my MCO homework.

Ok, starting in the beginning. Everything is suggestion, feel free to disregard or yell uncle at any point in the operation:

>>Photoshop is a wonderfully useful program if you need to make alterations to pictures.<<
- is it pictures or just photographs?

>>The problem is that it is not a very easy program to use if you no nothing about it.<<
- no should be know
- maybe if you have very little experience, no formal training, etc? Just an idea...

>>Now you can try to figure out how to work it1 or you can read this entry.<<
- comma after "it" and after the footnote.

>>although some features you can figure out like that, but it takes time that many hitchhikers don't have<<
- capitalise the first letter, put full stop after last word, just like a regular sentence.
- maybe rephrase a drop - Although it is possible to figure out some features, it takes time, something many hitchhikers don't have.

>>The rectangular marquee tool is your basic selection tool, <<
- maybe italicise the name of each selection tool in the paragraph.

>>it is, however, almost useless.<<
- why?

>>The magic wand tool is one of the more useful selection tools but is the most unpredictable. It selects an area based on colour. <<
- use a semicolon between the sentences...?

>>The lasso tool is the freeform selection tool, the polygonal lasso is similar<<
- say, similiar to the rectangular marquee, bec it probbly isn't similiar to the magic wand?

>>magnetic lasso is a precision version that clings to the edge of similar colours<<
- like a cross between the lasso marquee and the magic wand?

>>edge of similar colours.2<<
- firstly, the footnote goes inside the punctuation, "colour2."
- secondly, you may want to skip the footnote and make it in-text:
"When using the lasso selction tool, be careful to always close the..."
- Also, I don't know how necessary it is, but you may want to mention what options are available for editing a selection once it has been selected.

>>The pencil tool adds colour, one pixil at a time. <<
- pixel

>>The blur tool does exactly what it says, it blurs an image.<<
- the blur tool does exactly what it says - it blurs an image.

>>virtualy identical to the warp tool in the liquify tool.<<
-since you didn't go into these yet, you should probably just mention that you will cover them in a later section.

I'll go further later if you want, no time just now, but something strange happens to your headers further down. you might want to check the GuideML.

Nice one!
I'll be back.

Well I appreciate all this, and as far as the headers are consirned, that's intentional. I'm going to add some more information to the extraction tool section.

Are you actually going to be back? It's been five days.

Oh! Sorry. I was waiting for a yell. History paper due Monday afternoon, after that I'll continue. Sorry.

Take your time.

OK, I'm not in the mood of papers. Here goes:

first of all, still missing full-stops in your footnotes. Just run through and stick those little dots at the end of the sentences.

footnote 5:
>>if you don't know what those mean, saturating adds colour, desaturating takes away colour<<
- the "if you dont know" is unnecessary. If someone knows, they'll skip the footnote, otherwise, they wont.
-capitalise the 'i' in 'if'. And put a full-stop at the end.

>>The clone stamp tool is hard to describe, the user selects a point (using ALT+left click) to copy from. He/she then selects a point to copy to; if they hold down on the left mouse button, the point it copies from moves in relation to the copy to point (the point that it copies from and the point that it copies to are in the same place in releation to the respective points where they started from, this is the bit that's hard to describe). Useful for giving people facal hair.<<
- this is pretty complicated. I think I may understand what you mean, but that might be clearer if I had the program in front of me. In any case, it might be clarified if you hyphenated "copy to point"
ie: "copy-to point".
- Also, after the semicolon it should be if "he/she" not "if they". Also, I would skip the semicolon and put a full-stop there.
- There's bound to be someone in PR who knows what you're talking about and will be able to give guidance on that point.

>>Later versions (starting in either version 7.0 or CS/8.0 the airbrush is an option of the paintbrush. <<
- that should be "In later versions".

>>It is used to help reduce the image size without messing with the size of the pixels.<<
- is there a better way to say it than "messing with"?

>>The remain image can be moved over to another image (a classic "photoshoping" task).<<
- photoshopping, I think.

>>you can use the smart highlighting option (found on the option panel to the right) to get more precise results. <<
- italicise "smart highlighting option"?

>>You can then use the cleanup tool to remove unneccessary bits that decided to hange on and the<<
- hang, not hange.

>>It can be found in the image menu (later versions7 it is found in under the filter menu), and it brings up a window similar to the one that is brought up by the extraction tool. <<
- make that "(in later versions...)"

>>Frozen areas will not be affected by any liquification. To unfreeze (or thaw) an area, you use, well the thaw tool. <<
- you use, well, the thaw tool.

>>The warp tool works exactly like the smudge tool, except you get the advantage of having being able to freeze part of the image.<<
- ...the advantage of being able to freeze...

>>The twirl clockwise/counterclockwise tools spin smudges the selected area in the direction in<<
- spin-smudges

>>Photoshop has a layer system. <<
- Do you know? The one thing I've never understood is layers. Would you be able to breifly explain the system for the neophyte?

>>Every time you paste an image onto a document, that image gets it's own layer. <<
- its own layer. no apostrophe.

>>(you can freely move a layer without selecting the desired part). <<
- part? of what?

>>You can also give layers effects such as embossed textures and overlays (despite the fact that overlays cover the layer you can turn down the opacity to give the desired effect) under the blending options tool.<<
- loaded three lines there. First of all I think you mean that you can give individual layers their own effects, such as embossed textures...
I dont know if you should go into the overlay thing here, because it may be beyond the scope of this work. If you elaborate on layers a bit more, it will definitely be benificial.

And that's it! I never realized how simple this was. I'm going to take this entry and hit the computer with some pictures of relatives. It could use a conclusion if you can come up with one, but once you put the above corrections into effect, I would guess that it's ready to bounce into PR for some heavy-duty criticism. Good luck out there!

Thanks for the help. How do I get it into the PR?

Go to the writing workshop, click 'remove' next to your entry. Then go to your entry and hit the submit button. choose "Edited Guide Peer Review" from the drop down menu of where to send it.