Adobe Photoshop Basics

This lesson deals primarily with color and color selection methods. Because this is a beginner's course, we are not going to go into all the intricacies of working with color and understanding color theory, but you do need to understand some basic principles. For more in-depth discussion on color theory as it relates to graphics software, please see this site's color resources.

Before you dig in to this Photoshop lesson, I strongly suggest you familiarize yourself with some terminology and basic concepts through the following links:

Color Talk
An introduction to color in print and on the Web, from Desktop Publishing Guide Jacci Howard Bear.

Graphics Fundamentals: Distinguishing Photoshop Color Modes
"Images come in many colors -- and color comes in many flavors. The RGB colors on your monitor are not the same as CMYK colors of your printer. To get the best results, you need to know which color mode to use when in Adobe Photoshop so your images look good. Here's a short course on Photoshop's color modes." This article from ElementK Journals provides overviews of Grayscale, RGB, CMYK, and Lab Color modes.

Glossary
Please review the following glossary pages for definitions of the terms used in this lesson.

• RGB
• CMYK
• Out of Gamut
• Web Safe Palette
• Hexadecimal Color

Next > The Color Picker