Discover the step-by-step process of creating and customizing new files for artboards in Photoshop. This article provides a comprehensive guide to adjusting dimensions, setting up the workspace, understanding Photoshop interface, and using Zoom tool.
Key Insights
- Creating a new file in Photoshop involves setting the title and adjusting the dimensions of the artboard, choosing pixels or inches, and determining the width and height. The resolution should be set to 300 for a good resolution when images are enlarged onto a banner.
- The VDCI workspace can be set up by removing unnecessary panels like the Learn panel, adjusting the location of Libraries panel, expanding the workspace, and adding a Histogram to panel groups. The workspace is saved under the title 'VDCI' for future use.
- Effective navigation through Photoshop involves understanding the menu bar, tools bar, and the options bar. Useful tools like the Zoom tool, that allows zooming in and out by clicking or using keyboard shortcuts, are integral to file manipulation.
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In this video we'll be creating our first file for our artboard. Let's start by creating a new file.
We'll go to File, New, and here we can change the dimensions of our artboard. We're going to double-click the title and type PTC, short for Phase 10 Construction, Banner 1. Next, let's change the dimensions of our artboard. We'll select inches instead of pixels, and next we want our banner to be 3 feet wide by 6 feet high.
We can do the math—3 times 12 inches for 3 feet is 36—so we'll double-click the width and type 36. For our height, we could also do the math mentally, or we can double-click and type 12 for 12 inches times 6 for 6 feet, and when we click outside the box, we'll see that Photoshop does the math for us. In addition, let's choose artboards because artboards, unlike canvases, allow us to have elements that live outside of the artboard. Next, let's change the resolution to 300, as 300 will give us a good resolution when our images are blown up large onto a banner, and finally, we'll click Create.
The first thing we'll want to do is save our file, so we'll go to File, Save As, and we're simply going to save this as PTC_Banner_1 in our folder. Make sure that it's a Photoshop file, and we'll click Save and OK. Before we begin, let's talk a little bit about workspaces and the Photoshop interface as a refresher. If you have the VDCI workspace loaded already, your interface will look something like this.
In addition, if you don't have the VDCI interface workspace loaded, we can change this, so let's go up to the top to our Workspaces icon, and we'll all start with Essentials. We'll then go back to the Workspaces icon and click "Reset Essentials." Here, let's quickly go over what it takes to change this workspace into the VDCI workspace.
The first thing we'll do is remove the Learn panel by clicking on the lines on the top-right-hand side, and we'll simply click "Close." Next, let's move this Libraries panel over to the right of Swatches by clicking and dragging the title until we see a blue box around this other group of panels with Color and Swatches. We'll release, and now we can see that we've given ourselves a little more room for our artboard space.
Next, let's expand this a little more by hovering over the second line until we see the two arrows, and we'll simply click and drag it over. As one more step, let's add a Histogram to these panel groups here. We can do this by going to Window, and we'll simply check Histogram.
We can see that our Histogram now shows up here, so let's close this panel by clicking on the Histogram icon, and now we've set up our VDCI workspace. To save this, we'll go back up to Workspaces, and we'll click "New Workspace." We'll give it the title VDCI and click "Save."
If you already have VDCI existing, you can click "No" to keep the previous VDCI workspace, or if you prefer to replace it, you can click "Yes." We now have our workspace set up, so let's go over a quick recap of the Photoshop interface. At the top, we have our menu bar giving us different ways to interact with our file.
To the left, we have all of our tools in our Tools bar. In addition, along with these tools, we have an Options bar right below the menu bar, and this will give us options that are specific to the tools. Below this, we have our open file.
As we can see, PTC Banner 1—it’s saved as a Photoshop file—and we're currently zoomed in at 4%. Let's briefly talk about zooming. If we go to our Tools bar on the bottom, we'll see the magnifying glass signifying the Zoom tool. We can click it, and let's go over a couple of different ways we might use the Zoom tool.
The first way we can do this is zooming by simply clicking. If we go to our Options bar and make sure that we have Zoom In selected, we can zoom by clicking in. To zoom out, select Zoom Out, then click to zoom out. Other ways to zoom include using CTRL+PLUS (+) on the keyboard to zoom in, and CTRL+MINUS (−) to zoom out, or hold ALT on the keyboard and scroll in and out with your mouse.
If we go to our Options bar with the Zoom tool selected, we can choose "Fill Screen, " which will fill our entire screen with our artboard or canvas, or we can choose "Fit Screen, " and this will fit the entire artboard within our screen. Throughout this course, we'll be zooming in and out multiple times, so feel free to use whatever option is best for you during that time. Next, let's do one more thing to make sure that our workspace is set up correctly—we're simply going to reset all of our tools.
As we use them, they may take on different characteristics, so we want to make sure we're using consistent settings across all of our tools. To do this, with any tool selected, we can go to the top and to the right of the tool, right-click the arrow, select "Reset All Tools" and click "OK." We're now ready to go with our artboard and get started.
In the next video, we'll begin adding guides and elements to our artboard. See you there!