Tools Palette 1

The move tool allows you to move a selection or entire layer by dragging it with your mouse or using your keyboard arrows keys. The move tool is located at the top right of the Photoshop Toolbox

Move tool

When the move tool is selected, click and drag anywhere in the image. By default, if an area is selected the selection will be moved, otherwise the whole layer will be moved.

Alternatively, use your arrow keys to move the selection or layer in small increments. Hold down the Shift key to move in larger increments.

Note: You can activate the move tool when another tool is selected by holding down the Ctrl key (Windows) or Command key (Mac OS).

The marquee tools are selection tools which allow you to select rectangles, ellipses and 1-pixel rows and columns.

The marquee tools are located at the top left of the Photoshop Toolbox. Click and hold your mouse over the marquee tool to see the four options:

Marquee Selection

Make a rectangular selection. Hold the shift key down to constrain the selection to a square.

Note: ImageReady also allows rounded corners in rectangles.

Rectangle Marquee

Make an elliptical selection. Hold the shift key down to constrain the selection to a circle.

Elliptical Marquee

Make a horizontal selection 1 pixel high.

Single Row Marquee

Make a vertical selection 1 pixel wide.

Single Column Marquee

The lasso selection tools (shortcut L) are provided in three variations. The lasso tool and polygonal lasso tool which allow you to draw both freehand and straight edge selections, whilst the magnetic lasso is ideal for edges set against high contrast backgrounds. To change from one lasso to another press shift+L.

Lasso Selection

These tools examine the color of the image before creating a selection.

Magic Wand Tool: This tool is great for selecting semi-flat colors that are connecting, such as a solid colored background.

Quick Selection Tool: When dealing with objects that contain many colors and tones, the Quick Selection Tool helps to grab all of those colors. As you brush overtop of the object, Photoshop will continuously sample the surrounding area, and do its best to create a seamless selection.

Quick Selection & Magic Wand Tool

The Crop and Slice tools are used to separate and eventually extract or use part of the image that is most important. Cropping takes out everything outside your cropping area. Slicing an image into multiple areas makes smaller image tiles from the main image.

Crop and Slice Tools

Crop (C): Click and drag with this tool to create an adjustable crop area of your image. Press Enter to crop the canvas to your rectangular area. Press Esc to cancel the crop. After you crop your image, part of the image is gone; make sure that if you save over the original image, you won’t need the content you have cropped out

Slice (K): Used for creating web images, the slice tool creates rectangular slices from which you can export individual graphics. Build web button interfaces in one canvas and save to sliced areas for your web page.

Slice Select (K): Select your image slices and adjust the size of the slices by moving the handles. Hold down the Shift key to select multiple slices at once.

The eyedropper tool lets you select a color to make as your new foreground or background color. If you click and hold your mouse over the eyedropper tool, you will see that you have five different options: Eye Dropper Tool, Color Sampler Tool, Ruler Tool, Note Tool, and Count Tool.

Eyedropper, Color Sampler, Ruler, Note, and the Count Tool

Eye Dropper Tool: Enables you to pick any color you want as your new foreground or background color.

Color Sampler Tool: Enables you to select four colors from any image. The info window will appear with the RGB number for each different sample you selected.

Ruler Tool: Enables you to click and drag to create a ruler on an image. The measurements will appear at the top of the screen in CS4 below the menu.

Note Tool: Enables you to click anywhere on an image to create notes.

Count Tool: Enables you to put numbers on your image starting with the number 1.

The Spot Healing Tool is used to erase imperfections from your images. When you click and hold your mouse over the Spot Healing Tool, you will see a total of four options: Spot Healing Tool, Healing Brush Tool, Patch Tool, and Red Eye tool.

Spot Healing Brush Tool, Healing Brush, Patch Tool and Red Eye Tool

Spot Healing Tool: Enables you to take away blemishes or any other imperfections from your images.

Healing Brush Tool: Enables you to fix imperfections by making them dissolve into the surrounding image.

Patch Tool: Enables you to touch up or fix a certain area of an image with pixels from another area.

Red Eye Tool: Enables you to remove any red eye from your images.

Brush ToolThe brush tool is used to 'brush' color on to the image - so I guess it is aptly named. The brush tool also has a number of options that can be set in the option bar.

Pencil ToolThe pencil tool works similar to the Brush tool, but has a hard edge. Work with the pencil tool and try the same options you did with the brush tool - note the differences. Note that you can adjust hardness on the Pencil, but it has no effect.

Brush, Pencil, and Color Replacement Tool

Color Replacement BrushThis tool allows you to replace one color with the current foreground color. For example, you have brushed one color on the image and now think that it was the wrong one. Instead of starting over, you can use the color replacement brush to correct the color. As you brush over the color, it will leave the black and white areas alone. The option bar for this this tool also allows you to change the shape of the brush, not just the size and hardness.

Clone and Pattern Stamp Tool

The Clone stamp tool is used to fix and copy an area on an image in another place.

Pattern stamp tool is used to create a patter copy on the image.

The shortcut key of these tools S

The history brush tool is used to undo the previous operations you have done to your image.

The art history brush tool helps restore the original image and adds painterly effect.

History Brush & Art History Brush Tool