ICT II Lecture on PSD Chapter 3

Lecture # ____

Basic Selection Tools

The Marquee, Lasso, Magic Wand, and Type Mask tools are the essential ingredients in your selection toolkit, and they're the ones you'll be using the most in your everyday work. The Marquee tool is the most basic of all the selection tools, and we'll cover it first.

Rectangular Marquee Tool

The Rectangular Marquee tool is the first choice listed in the Marquee pop-up menu in the Tool palette. It can select only rectangular shapes. With it, you create a rectangle by clicking and dragging across your document. The first click creates one corner, and the point at which you release the mouse button denotes the opposite corner. To start in the center and drag to an outer edge, instead of going corner to corner, press Alt after you have started to drag. If you want to create a square, just hold down the Shift key after you start to drag. You can even combine the Alt and Shift keys to create a square selection by dragging from the center to an outer edge.

If you hold down the spacebar and drag around your screen while you're making a selection with the Marquee tool (but don't release the mouse button), you'll move the selection instead of changing its shape. After you have moved the selection into the correct position, just let go of the spacebar to continue editing the selection. After you've finished making the selection, you no longer need to hold the spacebar to move it. To move a selection after it's created, select the Marquee tool and then click and drag from within the selection outline.

Elliptical Marquee Tool

The second choice under the Marquee pop-up menu is the Elliptical Marquee tool. This tool works in the same way as the rectangular version, except it creates an ellipse. And it's a little bit trickier to define its size because you have to work from the "corner" of the ellipse, which doesn't really exist. Actually, you might find it easier to choose View > Show Rulers and then drag out a few guides (you can get them by dragging from the rulers) and let the "corners" snap to them.
When you click on any of the Marquee tools, their options will automatically be available in the options bar at the top of your screen. The following list describes the options you'll find in this palette:
•Feather: Allows you to fade out the edge between selected and unselected areas. I usually leave this option turned off, because I might forget that a Feather setting had been typed in previously. This one little setting might mess up an otherwise great selection. Instead, I find it much easier to make a selection and then press Alt-Ctrl-D (or just choose Select > Feather).
•Anti-aliased: Determines whether a one-pixel-wide border on the edge of a selection will blend with the image surrounding it. This provides nice, smooth transitions, and helps prevent areas from looking jagged. I recommend that you leave this check box on at all times, unless, of course, you have a great need for jaggies (sometimes they're preferred for multimedia applications).
•Style menu: Controls the shape and size of the next selection made. When the Style pop-up menu is set to Normal, your selections are not restricted in size or shape (other than their having to be rectangles or ellipses). After changing this menu to Fixed Aspect Ratio, you'll be confronted with Width and Height settings. By changing the numbers in these areas, you can constrain the shape of the next selection to the ratio between the Width and Height settings.

Single Row and Single Column Marquee Tools

The third and fourth choices under the Marquee tool pop-up menu are the Single Row and Single Column Marquee tools. These tools are limited in that they select only a one-pixel-tall row or one-pixel-wide column.

Crop Tool

Two spaces below the Marquee tool, you'll find the Crop tool. Although the Crop tool doesn't produce a selection, it does allow you to isolate a certain area of your image. Using this tool, you can crop an image, as well as resize and rotate it at the same time.

When you click and drag over an image with the Crop tool selected, a dashed rectangle appears. When the Shield Cropped Area check box is turned on, the area outside the cropping rectangle will be covered with the color indicated in the options bar and might appear to be partially transparent, depending on the Opacity setting. You can drag any one of the hollow squares on the edge of the rectangle to change its size. Also, you can hold down the Shift key while dragging a corner to maintain the width-to-height proportions of the rectangle. Anything beyond the edge of the rectangle is discarded when the image is cropped (if you haven't turned on the Hide option).

To rotate the image, you can move your cursor just beyond one of the corner points and drag (look for an icon that looks like a curve with arrows on each end). You can also drag the crosshair in the center of the rectangle to change the point from which the rectangle will be rotated. Press Esc to cancel, or Enter (or double-click within the cropping rectangle) to complete the cropping.

When the Perspective choice in the options bar is turned on (it becomes available once you've created a cropping rectangle), you will be able to move each corner of the cropping rectangle independently. This allows you to align the four corners with lines that would be level in real life but may appear in perspective in a photograph. Once you have all four corners in place, you can press Return or Enter to crop the image and correct the perspective of the image in one step.

Crop and Straighten

Even with all of Photoshop's nifty selection, transformation and crop tools, the task of scanning in bunches of photographs has, up until now, required an annoying amount of rotation, cropping, copying, and pasting. Each photo in the scan had to be individually selected, then cropped or copied and pasted to a new document. Despite your best efforts, the photos are rarely perfectly aligned; at least a few usually cant off to one side or the other a few degrees, requiring further rotation and cropping .

Lecture # ____

Lasso Tool

The Lasso tool is the most versatile of the basic selection tools. By holding down the mouse button, you can use the Lasso to trace around the edge of an irregularly shaped object. When you release the button, the area will be selected. Be sure to create a closed shape by finishing the selection exactly where you started it; otherwise, Photoshop will complete the selection for you by adding a straight line between the beginning and end of the selection.

Sometimes you'll need to add a few straight segments in the middle of a freeform shape. You can do this by holding down Alt and then releasing the mouse button (but not the Option or Alt key). Now, each time you click your mouse, Photoshop will connect the clicks with straight lines. To go back to creating a freeform shape, just start dragging and then release the Alt key.

Polygonal Lasso Tool

You can use the Polygonal Lasso tool whenever you need to make a selection that consists mainly of straight lines. Using this tool, you just click multiple areas of the image, and Photoshop connects the dots for you. If you need to create a freeform selection, hold down Alt and drag. To finish a selection, you can either click where the selection began or double-click anywhere, which will create a straight line between where you double-clicked and where the selection started.

Magnetic Lasso Tool

Whereas the Lasso and Polygonal Lasso tools are relatively straightforward, the Magnetic Lasso tool has a bunch of neat tricks up its sleeve. This tool can be a huge timesaver in that it allows you to trace around the edge of an object without having to be overly precise. You don't have to break a sweat making all of those tiny, painstaking movements with your mouse. Instead, you can make big sloppy selections, and the Magnetic Lasso will do the fine-tuning for you (you don't even have to hold down the mouse button). What's more, if it doesn't do a great job in certain areas, you can hold down Alt to temporarily access the freeform Lasso tool. However, before using the Magnetic Lasso tool, you'll want to experiment with its settings in the options bar. If you do nothing else, pay close attention to the Edge Contrast setting.

Edge Contrast

I think this setting is the most important of the bunch. It determines how much contrast there must be between the object and the background for Photoshop to select the object. If the object you're attempting to select has well-defined edges, you should use a high setting. You can also use a large Lasso tool width. On the other hand, if the edges are not well defined, you should use a low setting and try to be very precise when dragging.

If the Magnetic Lasso tool is not behaving itself, you can temporarily switch to the freeform Lasso tool by holding down Alt as you drag (with the mouse button held down). You can also periodically click to manually add anchor points to the selection edge. If you want to use the Polygonal Lasso tool, hold down Alt and click in multiple areas of the image (instead of dragging). If you don't like the shape of the selection, you can press the Delete key to remove the last anchor point. (Pressing Delete multiple times deletes multiple points.) Once you have a satisfactory shape, finish the selection by pressing Return or Enter or by double-clicking. Remember, if you don't create a closed shape, Photoshop will finish it for you with a straight-line segment.

Magic Wand Tool

The Magic Wand tool is great for selecting solid (or almost solid) colored areas, because it selects areas based on color—or shades of gray in grayscale mode. This is helpful when you want to change the color of an area or remove a simple background.
If you hold Shift while clicking with the Magic Wand tool, each click will add to the previous selection instead of completely replacing it.

Lecture # ____

Type Tool

You can use Photoshop's Type tool to create a selection by choosing the Type Mask tool, which is hanging out with the normal Type tool in the Tool palette. When you use that tool, Photoshop will show you a preview of the selection while you are editing the text, and then it will deliver a selection when you press Enter.

Refining a Selection

Selecting complex objects in Photoshop usually requires multiple selection tools. To combine these selection tools, you'll need to either use a few controls in the options bar or learn a few keyboard commands that will allow you to add, subtract, or intersect a selection.

Adding to a Selection

To add to an existing selection, either click on the second icon on the far left of the options bar (it looks like two little boxes overlapping each other) or hold down the Shift key when you start making the new selection. You must press the key before you start the selection; you can release it as soon as you've clicked the mouse button. If you press it too late, the original selection will be lost. Let's say, for example, you would like to select multiple round objects. One way would be to use the Elliptical Marquee tool multiple times while holding down the Shift key. But you might find it easier to use the choice available in the options bar because then you don't have to remember to keep any keys held down.

Removing Part of a Selection

To remove areas from an existing selection, either click on the third icon on the far left of the options bar (it looks like one little box stacked on top of another) or Alt (Windows) when you begin making the selection. If, for example, you want to create a half circle, you could start with an Elliptical Marquee tool selection and then switch over to the Rectangular Marquee tool and drag while holding down Alt to remove half of the circle.

Clicking while holding down the Alt key is particularly helpful when you're using the Magic Wand tool to remove areas of a selection. With each click of the Magic Wand tool, you can use a different Tolerance setting.
Intersecting a Selection

To end up with only the overlapped portions of two selections, click on the fourth icon on the far left of the options bar (it looks like two squares intersecting, with the overlap area colored in), Shift-Alt while editing an existing selection. We sometimes use the Magic Wand tool to select the background of an image and then choose Select > Inverse to get the objects of the selected image. However, when there are multiple objects in the image, as there are in, I often have to restrict the selection to a specific area by dragging with the Lasso tool while holding down Shift-Alt .

The Select Menu

Select menu offers you many choices that supplement the basic selection tools. Learning these features is well worth your time because they'll help you save heaps of it in your everyday work.

Select All

Select > All selects the entire document. This can be useful when you need to trim off any part of an image that extends beyond the edge of the document.
You can crop out those areas by choosing Select > All and then Image > Crop. Also, if you need to copy an entire image, you'll need to select everything, because without a selection, the Copy command will be grayed out.

Deselect/Reselect

If you're done using a selection and would like to work on the entire image, choose Select > Deselect. When you don't have a selection, you can work on the entire image. Now, if you need to use the last active selection (and there isn't a selection on your screen), you can choose Select > Reselect. This is great when you need to use the same selection over and over again.

Inverse

As you might expect, the Inverse command selects the exact opposite of what you originally selected. If, for example, you have the background of an image selected, after choosing Select > Inverse, you'll have the subject of the image selected instead. We use this command constantly, especially with the Magic Wand tool. Sometimes it's just easier to select the areas that you don't want and then choose Select > Inverse to select what you really want to isolate.

Color Range

You can think of the Select > Color Range command as the Magic Wand tool on steroids. With Color Range, you can click multiple areas and then change the Fuzziness setting (how's that for a technical term?) to increase or reduce the range of colors that will be selected.

As you click and play with the Fuzziness control, you'll see a preview of the selection in the middle of the Color Range dialog box. Areas that appear white are the areas that will be selected. The Selection and Image radio buttons allow you to switch between the selection preview and the main image. (I never actually use these two controls because I find it easier to switch to the image view at any time by just holding down Ctrl ) You can also see a preview of the selection within the main image window by changing the Selection Preview pop-up menu to Grayscale, Black Matte, White Matte, or Quick Mask.

The Eyedropper tool on the right side of the dialog box allows you to add and subtract colors from the selection. Using the Eyedropper with the plus symbol next to it is really helpful, because it allows you to click the image multiple times. With each click, you tell Photoshop which colors you want it to search for. A low Fuzziness setting with many clicks usually produces the best results.
The selections you get from the Color Range command are not ordinary selections, in that they usually contain areas that are not completely selected. For instance, if you're trying to select the red areas in an image and there happens to be a flesh tone in the same image, the fleshy areas will most likely become partially selected. If you then adjust the image, the red will be completely adjusted, and the flesh tones will shift only a little bit.

If a selection is already present when you choose Select > Color Range, the command will analyze the colors only within the selected area. This means you can run the command multiple times to isolate smaller and smaller areas. If you want to have the Color Range command added to the current selection, be sure to hold down the Shift key when choosing Select > Color Range.

Feather

Unlike the Feather option in the selection tools, this version affects only the selection that's currently active; it has no effect on future selections. You can't reduce the amount of feathering with this command once it's applied. Therefore, if you apply it once with a setting of 10 and then try it again on the same selection using a setting of 5, it will simply increase the amount again. It's just like blurring an image—each time you blur the image, it becomes more and more blurry.
I prefer using this command instead of entering Feather settings directly into the tool's options bar (where they affect all "new" selections). If you enter these values directly, you might not remember that the setting is turned on days later, when you spend hours trying to select an intricate object. By leaving the tools set at 0, you can quickly press Alt-Ctrl-D to bring up the Feather dialog box and enter a number to feather the selection. Because this affects only the current selection, it can't mess up any future ones.

The problem with the Feather command is that there is no way to tell if a selection is feathered by just looking at the marching ants. Not only that, but most people think the marching ants indicate where the edge of a selection is, and that's simply not the case with a feathered selection.

Modify

The features in this little menu have helped get me out of many sticky situations. At first glance, it might not be obvious why you would ever use these commands, but I guarantee they'll come in very handy as you continue through the book. Here's a list of the commands found under the Select > Modify menu, as well as descriptions of what they do:
•Border: Selects a border of pixels centered on the current selection. If you use a setting of 10, the selection will be 5 pixels inside the selection and 5 pixels outside the selection. You can use this to remove pesky halos that appear when you copy an object from a light background and paste it onto a darker background.
•Smooth: Attempts to round off any sharp corners in a selection. This can be especially useful when you want to create a rounded-corner rectangle. It can also produce an interesting effect after you've used the Type Mask tool.
•Expand: Enlarges the current selection while attempting to maintain its shape . This command works well with smooth, freeform selections, but it's not my first choice for straight-edged selections because it usually slices off the corners.
•Contract: Reduces the size of the current selection while attempting to maintain its shape. The highest setting available is 16. If you need to use a higher setting, just use the command more than once.

Grow

The Select > Grow command will search for colors that are similar to an area that has already been selected. In effect, it will spread your selection in every direction—but only into areas that are similar in color. It will not jump across areas that are not similar to the ones selected. The Grow command uses the Tolerance setting that's specified in the Magic Wand options bar to determine the range of colors for which it will look.

Similar

The Select > Similar command works just like the Grow command except that it looks over the entire document for similar colors. Unlike the Grow command, the colors that Similar selects don't have to touch the previous selection. This can be very useful when you've selected one object out of a group of same-colored objects. For example, if you have a herd of gray elephants standing in front of a lush green jungle, you can select the first elephant and then use Select > Similar to get the rest of the herd (provided, of course, that they're all a similar shade of gray).

Transform Selection

After making a selection, you can scale, rotate, or distort it by choosing Select > Transform Selection. This command places handles around the image. By pulling on the handles and using a series of keyboard commands, you can distort the selection as much as you like. Let's take a look at the neat stuff you can do with Transform Selection:
•Scale: To scale a selection, pull on any of the handles. Pulling on a corner handle will change both the width and height at the same time. (Hold the Shift key to retain the proportions of the original selection.) Pulling on the side handles will change either the width of the selection or its height, but not both. This can be a great help when working with elliptical selections because it lets you pull on the edges of the selection instead of its so-called corners.
•Rotate: To rotate the image, move your cursor a little bit beyond one of the corner points; the cursor should change into an arc with arrows on each end. You can control where the pivot point of the rotation will be by moving the crosshair that appears in the center of the selection.
•Distort: To distort the shape of the selection, hold down the Ctrl key and then drag one of the corner points. Using this technique, you can pull each corner independently.
•You can also distort a selection so that it resembles the shape of a road vanishing into the distance. You do this by dragging one of the corners while holding down Shift-Alt-Ctrl.
•To move two diagonal corners at the same time, hold down Alt-Ctrlwhile dragging one of the corner handles.
•Finalize your distortions by pressing Enter (or by double-clicking inside the selection). Cancel them by pressing Esc.
You can right-click while transforming a selection to choose the type of distortion you want to perform.

Lecture # ____

Quick Mask Mode

Quick Mask mode can show you what a feathered selection really looks like and can also help create basic selections. The quick-mask icon is located directly below the foreground and background colors in your Tools palette. When the left icon is turned on, you are in Standard mode, which means you create selections using the normal selection tools, and they will show up as the familiar marching ants. The right icon enables Quick Mask mode, and that's where selections will show up as a translucent color overlay.

To see how it works, first make a selection using the Marquee tool, and then turn on Quick Mask mode by clicking on the right icon under the foreground and background colors (or just type Q to do the same thing). In Quick Mask mode, the selected area should look normal and all the nonselected areas should be covered with a translucent color.

Now that you're in Quick Mask mode, you no longer need to use selection tools to modify a selection. Instead, you use standard painting tools and paint with black to take away from the selection, or white to add to it. When you're done modifying the selection, switch back to Standard mode and you'll be back to marching ants.
Now let's see what feathered selections look like in Quick Mask mode. Make another selection using the Marquee tool. Next, choose Select > Feather with a setting of 10, and then switch to Quick Mask mode and take a look. Feathered selections appear with blurry edges in Quick Mask mode. This happens because partially transparent areas (that is, ones that are more transparent than the rest of the mask) indicate areas that are partially selected (50% transparent means 50% selected).
The confusing part about this process is that when you look at the marching ants that appear after you switch back to Standard mode, they only show you where the selection is at least 50% selected. That isn't a very accurate picture of what it really looks like. But in Quick Mask mode, you can see exactly what is happening on the image's edge. So, if you want to create a feathered selection in Quick Mask mode, just choose a soft-edged brush to paint with. Or, if you already have a shape defined, choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, which will give you the same result of feathering but will show you a visual preview of the edge.

Shades of Gray

Try this out. Turn on Quick Mask mode—you don't need a selection to begin with. Type D to reset the foreground color to black, and then Alt-Backspace to fill the Quick Mask. Now paint within the Quick Mask with 20% gray (you can use the Color Picker palette to choose grays). Then turn off Quick Mask mode and paint in the selected area with bright red. Now choose Select > Deselect, lower the opacity of the painting tool to 80%, and paint with bright red. Your reds should look exactly the same. That's how Photoshop makes a selection fade out—by simply lowering the opacity of the tool you are using. This can sometimes be confusing, though, because the marching ants show up only where an image is at least 50% selected. So, try this one on for size. Turn on Quick Mask mode and paint with 49% gray, and then paint in another area with 51% gray. Then go back to Standard mode and paint across the area. Only the areas that are at least 50% gray show up as marching ants, but the other areas are still selected, even though the marching ants don't show up in those areas. Now turn on Quick Mask mode, reset the foreground color by typing D, type Alt-Backspace to fill the Quick Mask, and then paint with 55% gray. Now go back to Standard mode, and you'll get a warning message.

We really haven't done anything fancy yet, so let's try something fun. To start with, you have to remember that when you work in Quick Mask mode, Photoshop treats the selection as if it is a grayscale image that you can paint on. That means you can use any tool that is available when working on grayscale images. So select an area using the Marquee tool, turn on Quick Mask mode, choose Filter > Distort > Ripple, and mess with the settings until you've created something that looks a little kooky. Finally, go back to Standard mode and see what you've got. You can create infinite varieties of fascinating selections with this simple technique.
You can also convert a logo or sketch into a selection using Quick Mask mode. All you need to do is copy the image, turn on Quick Mask mode, choose Edit > Paste, and then choose Image > Adjustments > Invert. If the logo was in color, you might end up with shades of gray (which will look like shades of red in Quick Mask mode). In that case, you'll need to choose Image > Adjustments > Levels and pull in the upper-right and upper-left sliders until the image is pure black and pure white. Once everything looks right, turn off Quick Mask mode and you'll have your selection.
Now let's figure out how to "unfeather" a selection using Quick Mask mode. Remember, a feathered edge looks like a blurry edge in Quick Mask mode. All you have to do to remove that blurry look is to then choose Image > Adjustments > Threshold. This will give the mask a very crisp, and therefore unfeathered, edge.

Selections in Quick Mask Mode

You can even use a selection to isolate a particular area of the Quick Mask. A selection in Quick Mask mode can help you create a selection that is only feathered on one side. To accomplish this, turn on Quick Mask mode, type D to reset the foreground color, and then type Alt-Backspace to fill the Quick Mask. Next, choose the Marquee tool and select an area. Now use the Gradient tool set to Black, White (the third choice from the left in the gradient presets drop-down menu) and create a gradient within the selected area. Once you're done, switch off Quick Mask mode. Now, to see exactly how this selection will affect the image, choose Image > Adjustments > Levels and attempt to lighten that area by dragging the lower-left slider.

Color

Photoshop also allows you to switch where the color shows up. You can specify whether you want the selected or unselected areas to show up. To change this setting, double-click on the quick-mask icon and change the Color Indicates setting. Photoshop uses the term Masked Areas to describe areas that are not selected.
You can change the color that is overlaid on your image by clicking the color swatch in the Quick Mask Options dialog box. The Opacity setting determines how much you will be able to see through the Quick Mask.

ICT Lecture on Chapter 2

Lecture # ___

Basic Editing Tools

Painting

In Photoshop, you have two choices for painting: the Paintbrush (Brush) tool or the Pencil tool. The only difference between the two is that the Paintbrush always delivers a soft-edged stroke—even a seemingly hard-edged brush will produce a slightly blended edge —whereas the Pencil tool produces a truly crisp edge.
All painting tools use the current foreground color when you're painting on the image, so before you begin painting, make sure the active foreground color is the one you want.

To quickly change the Opacity setting of a painting tool, use the number keys on your keyboard (1 = 10%, 3 = 30%, 65 = 65%, and so on).
You can change the softness of the Paintbrush tool by choosing different brushes from the Brushes palette. When the Pencil tool is active, all brushes will have a hard edge.

Opacity

If you lower the Opacity setting of the Paintbrush tool, you can paint across the image without worrying about overlapping your paint strokes. As long as you don't release the mouse button, the areas that you paint over multiple times won't get a second coat of paint.

Flow

The Flow setting determines how much of the opacity you've specified will show up on your first paint stroke. When the Flow setting is set to 20%, you'll get 20% of the opacity you've specified in the options bar each time you paint across an area. Each time you pass over the same area with that setting, you'll build up another coat of 20% of the opacity you've chosen. No matter how many times you paint across an area, you will not be able to achieve an opacity higher than what's specified in the options bar, unless you release the mouse button. If you set the Flow setting to 100%, then it will effectively turn off this feature, so that you'll get the full opacity that you've requested each time you paint. The Pencil tool doesn't use the Flow setting, and therefore will deliver the desired opacity setting in a single pass.

Blending Mode

The Mode pop-up menu in the options bar is known as the Blending Mode menu. If you would like to change the basic color of an object, you can set the blending mode to Hue. If you're using a soft-edged brush, you can set the blending mode to Dissolve to force the edges of your brush to dissolve out.
To draw straight lines, Shift-click in multiple areas of your image; Photoshop will connect the dots. You can also hold down the Shift key when painting to constrain the angle to a 45-degree increment.

Eraser Tool

If you use the Eraser tool while you're working on a background image , it acts like one of the normal painting tools—except that it paints with the background color instead of the foreground color. It even lets you choose which type of painting tool it should mimic by allowing you to select an option from the pop-up menu in the options bar

However, when you use the Eraser tool on a nonbackground layer, it really erases the area. If you lower the Opacity setting, it makes an area appear partially transparent. Bear in mind that the same does not apply to the background image. You cannot "erase" the background.

Brush Presets Palette

When a painting or retouching tool is active, you'll see the currently active brush shown in the options bar. If you click on that preview, the Brush Presets drop-down palette will appear. All of the painting and retouching tools available in the Tools palette use the Brush Presets palette to determine their brush size. Each individual tool remembers the last brush size you used with it, and will return to that same size the next time you select the tool. In other words, the brush size you choose doesn't stay consistent when you switch among the tools.

You can change the active brush by clicking once on any brush that's available in the Brush Presets palette. (Double-clicking will choose a brush and then hide the Brush Presets palette.) Each brush has a number below it, which indicates how many pixels wide the brush is.

Use the bracket keys ([ ]) to change the diameter of your brush, or hold Shift and use the brackets to change the hardness of your brush.
For even more fun, keep an eye on the brush in the options bar and then press the < or > key on your keyboard (without holding Shift). You can use these keys to cycle through all the brushes shown in the Brush Presets palette.

Brushes Palette

If you'd rather change the characteristics of a brush, then you'll need to abandon that palette and work with the full Brushes palette by choosing Window > Brushes. In this version of the palette, you can still access the Brush Presets by clicking on the words brush presets in the upper left of the palette.
There's one thing you'll need to think about before you start experimenting with all of Photoshop's brush settings. There are two types of brushes you can work with: round brushes and sampled brushes.

Brush Tip Shape

When you click on the Brush Tip Shape in the upper left of the palette, the central portion of the palette will update to show you the settings that determine the overall look of your brush. A paint stroke is made from multiple paint daubs; that is, Photoshop fills the shape of your brush with the current foreground color, moves over a distance, and then fills that shape again. The Brush Tip Shape settings determine what the paint daubs will look like and how much space there will be between them.
• Diameter: Determines the size of the brush. You can use a setting between 1 and 2,500 pixels. The Use Sample Size button will appear anytime you're using a sampled brush that has been made larger or smaller than its original size. When you click the Use Sample Size button, Photoshop will reset the Diameter setting to the original size of the sampled brush, thereby delivering the highest quality. When you reduce the size of a sampled brush, it won't degrade the quality of the image much at all. Increasing the size of a sampled brush will cause the brush shape to have a less crisp appearance.
•Hardness: Determines how quickly the edge fades out. Default brushes are either 100% hard or 0% hard. This option is only available with round brushes.
•Roundness: Compresses a brush in one dimension. When using round brushes, changes to the Roundness setting will result in an oval-shaped brush. When working with a sampled brush, this setting will compress the brush vertically.
•Angle: Rotates oval and sampled brushes, but has no effect on round ones.
•Spacing: Determines the distance between the paint daubs that make up a brush stroke. Turning Spacing off will cause Photoshop to adjust the Spacing setting based on how fast you move the mouse while painting.

Shape Dynamics

These settings will change the shape of the brush you have chosen. In essence, they allow you to vary the same settings that you specified in the Brush Tip Shape section of the Brushes palette.

Scattering

The Scatter setting will cause Photoshop to vary the position of the paint daubs that make up a stroke. The Count setting allows you to vary how many paint daubs are applied within the spacing interval that you specified in the Brush Tip Shape area of the Brushes palette.

Texture

The texture settings allow you to vary the opacity of your brush based on a texture that you specify. The Depth Jitter setting allows Photoshop to apply the texture in varying amounts. The Texture Each Tip setting must be turned on in order to use the Depth Jitter setting. If you find that the texture isn't changing the look of your brush, then experiment with the Mode pop-up menu until you get the result you are looking for.

Dual Brush

This option allows you to create a brush stroke that's made with two brushes at once. Paint will show up only where the two brush shapes would overlap each other. This is a nice way to create sponge effects. You simply choose a normal, round brush in the Brush Tip Shape area of the Brushes palette, and then choose a textured brush in the Dual Brush area. If you find that the brushes aren't combining the way you'd like them to, then experiment with the Mode pop-up menu and Spacing setting until you get the results you desire.

Lecture # ____

Color Dynamics

These settings allow you to vary the color of your brush across the brush stroke. The Foreground/Background setting allows Photoshop to vary the brush color between the two colors being used as foreground and background colors. The Hue setting allows Photoshop to change the basic color of the brush to random colors. The higher the setting, the more it will deviate from your foreground color. The Saturation setting varies the vividness of the color that you are painting with. The Brightness setting allows Photoshop to randomly darken the color you are painting with. The Purity setting lets you change the saturation of the color you are painting with. A setting of zero makes no change; negative settings lower the saturation and positive settings increase it.

Paint Bucket Tool

Use the Paint Bucket tool to fill areas with the foreground color. Each time you click on the image, Photoshop will fill areas that contain colors similar to the one you clicked. You can specify how sensitive the tool should be by changing its Tolerance setting. Higher Tolerance settings will fill a wider range of colors.

Shape Tools

The Shape tools are great for creating simple geometric shapes. These tools are much more powerful than what you'd expect at first glance.
Before you dive into the Shape tools, you need to think about what kind of result you want to achieve, because you have three ways of using these tools, each of which will lead you to a different outcome. You'll find the trio of choices in the far left of the options bar. The first (leftmost) choice will create a special layer. It's known as a Shape layer, and it has some very special qualities:
•It will have crisp edges when printed on a PostScript printer (even if the pixels that make up the image are large enough to cause the rest of the image to appear jagged).
•You can scale it (up or down) without degrading its quality. This makes it ideal for creating button bars on web sites where the client might decide to add more text to a button, which would require a larger button.
•You can add to or take away from it using the other Shape tools.
•It can be filled with a solid color, gradient, pattern, or adjustment.

Measure Tool

The Measure tool allows you to measure the distance between two points or the angle of any area of the image, which can be helpful when you want to rotate or resize objects precisely. As you drag with the Measure tool, the options bar at the top of your screen indicates the angle (A) and length (D, for Distance) of the line you're creating. The measurement system being used is the same as whatever your rulers are set to. After creating a line, you can click directly on the line and drag it to different positions. You can also click and drag one end of the line to change the angle or distance.

To rotate a layer to a specific angle, first use the Measure tool to specify the angle you'd like to use, and then choose Edit > Transform > Rotate. Photoshop enters the angle of the line you drew into the options bar and rotates the active layer that amount.

If you want to resize an image so that it fits perfectly between two objects, you can measure the distance between them with this tool and then choose Image > Image Size to scale the image to that exact width. Or, if you have a crooked image that you'd like to straighten, drag across an area that should be horizontal or vertical with the Measure tool and then choose Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary and click OK. Photoshop will automatically enter the proper angle setting based on the measurement line that you drew.

You can also use the Measure tool to determine the angle between two straight lines. If you Alt-drag the end of the line, you can pull out a second line and move it to any angle you desire. Now the angle (A) number in both the Info palette and Options Bar displays the angle between those two lines.

Gradient Tool

To apply a gradient, simply click and drag across an image using the Gradient tool. You'll get different results depending on which type of gradient you've chosen in the options bar.

Here's an explanation of the gradient settings:
•Linear: Applies the gradient across the length of the line you make. If the line does not extend all the way across the image, Photoshop fills the rest of the image with solid colors (the colors you started and ended the gradient with).
•Radial: Creates a gradient that starts in the center of a circle and radiates to the outer edge. The point where you first click determines the center of the circle; where you let go of the mouse button determines the outer edge of the circle. All areas outside this circle will be filled with a solid color (the color that the gradient ends with).
•Angle: Sweeps around a circle like a radar screen. Your first click determines the center of the sweep, and then you drag to determine the starting angle.
•Reflected: Creates an effect similar to applying a linear gradient twice, back to back.
•Diamond: Similar to a radial gradient except that it radiates out from the center of a square.

Gradient Colors

You can choose from different preset color combinations by clicking on the small triangle that appears next to the gradient preview in the options bar. You can also reverse the direction of the gradient by turning on the Reverse check box in the options bar. Then, if you have a gradient that usually starts with blue and ends with red, it would instead start with red and end with blue. Some of the preset gradients will contain transparent areas. To disable transparency in a gradient, turn off the Transparency check box.

Dithered Gradients

When you print an image that contains a gradient, you'll sometimes notice banding across the gradient (also known as stair-stepping or posterization). To minimize this, be sure to turn on the Dither check box in the options bar. This will add noise to the gradient in an attempt to prevent banding. You won't be able to see the effect of the Dither check box on-screen; it just makes the gradient look better when it's printed. If you find that you still see banding when you print the gradient, you can add some additional noise by choosing Filter > Noise > Add Noise. (Use a setting of 3 or less for most images.)

Custom Gradients

The Gradient Preset drop-down menu might not always contain the exact type of gradient you need. When that's the case, click directly on the gradient preview in the options bar to create your own custom gradient. The Gradient Editor dialog box that appears has so many options that it can sometimes feel overwhelming, but if you take it one step at a time, you shouldn't run into any problems.

ICT II - Lecture 5

What Is E-Mail?

E-mail is short for electronic mail. It is digital correspondence.
E-mail gives you the ability to send and receive text messages to/from anyone with an e-mail address. You can attach other files, pictures, or programs to your message.

E-mail is more like a conversation than a formal correspondence. It is a speedy way to get a message to someone. It should be concise and to the point, as well as, well written. Do not forget to check your spelling and grammar and punctuation. E-mail is fast. It is easy. It is inexpensive.


How Does E-Mail Work?

When someone sends you a message, that message is sent to your Internet Service Provider, and stored there. When you log on and check your e-mail, the message is sent from the server to your computer.


What Is An E-Mail Address?

The Internet Service Provider assigns an e-mail address to you. Usually you can choose your user name.

The first part -of the address (before the @) is a user name. The second part, or domain name, defines the Internet provider where the mail is sent. The two parts are separated by an @ sign (pronounced "at").

The domain name is followed by an extension that indicates the type of organization to which the network belongs.

Here is an example of an address: sirfacun@yahoo.com


Parts of an E-mail

Regardless of which mail program the user uses all electronic mail messages have two main components. The first is the header of the message and the second is the body of the message or its contents.

The header consists of a number of fields that are either completed by the user or automatically by the computer. This may consist of the following

• Addressee (To:) - where the e- mail address of the recipient is typed.
• Carbon Copy (Cc:) – optional field; sender can enter the address of those whom he wants to give a copy of the e-mail.
• Blind Carbon Copy (Bcc:) - optional field; sender can enter the username of those whom he wants to give a copy, but whose addresses will not appear in the recipient’s message.
• Title of the Message (Subject:) - optional field; it is common courtesy to give every e – mail message a relevant or descriptive title.
• Sender (From:) – automatically entered by the system into any mail messages that is sent; it’s purpose is to inform the recipient of the sender’s e-mail address.
The body of the message is usually composed using an editor similar to a word processing.


How Do I Send E-Mail?

To send mail:

• Start your e-mail program.
• Click the Compose New Message option. Depending on your e-mail program, the name of this button may vary.
• In the To box, type the address of the recipient or click on a name in the address book.
• Type a short description of your e-mail on the Subject line.
• Click the message area and type your message.
• To send the message, click the Send button.


How Can I Be Sure That The Message Was Sent?

If you are not sure if you really sent a message, there is a way to find out.
Look through your icons or menu choices for the Out Box. In some mail programs, when you open that box, you will see some indication that your message has been sent.
In most mail programs the message is marked with a check mark.

There may also be a Sent Message file in your filing cabinet that you can check.
Outlook Express takes messages from the Out Box, sends them, and files a copy in the Sent Message file.


How Do I Receive E-Mail?

To check for new mail:

• Start your e-mail program.
• Check for new messages. When new mail arrives, you will hear a sound, get a message and/or see a little envelope in your system tray.
• Your mail program collects all the messages on your mail server and displays them in your In Box.
• To read a message, double-click it.


How Do I Reply To E-Mail?

To reply to an e-mail message:
• Click on the piece of mail to open it.
• Click on the Reply button. This will automatically copy the original message and address it back to the sender.
• Type your message.
• Click the Send button.


How Do I Forward E-Mail?

To forward e-mail:
• Click the Forward button.
• In the To Box, type the address of that person.
• Click the Send button.

ICT II - Lecture 4

Lecture 4

What is a search engine?

Basically, a search engine is a software program that searches for sites based on the words that you designate as search terms. Search engines look through their own databases of information in order to find what it is that you are looking for.


How Do Search Engines Work?

1. The searcher types a query into a search engine.
2. Search engine software quickly sorts through literally millions of pages in its database to find matches to this query.
3. The search engine's results are ranked in order of relevancy.


How to Search the Internet Effectively

Internet search sites can search enormous databases of Web pages, using titles, keywords or text. You can maximize the potential of search engines by learning how they work, and how to use them quickly and effectively.
The challenge is to ask your question the right way, so that you don't end up overwhelmed with too many search results, underwhelmed with too few, or simply unable to locate the material that you need. As with most skills, practice makes perfect!


Getting Started

Before doing a search, it's important to define your topic as completely as possible. Write down exactly what information you're looking for, why you're looking for it, and what you're not looking for. This will help you to discover the best keywords for your search.


Use of Phrases

Your most powerful keyword combination is the phrase. Phrases are combinations of two or more words that must be found in the documents you're searching for in the EXACT order shown. You enter a phrase - such as "feta cheese" - into a search engine, within quotation marks.


Punctuation and Capitalization

Most search engines are insensitive to case: you can type your queries in uppercase, lowercase, or a mix of cases. If you use lowercase, most engines will match on both upper and lower case; so for general searches, lowercase is the safest form to use.


Boolean Basics


"Boolean" searching (named after George Boole, the 19th-century mathematician who founded the field of symbolic logic) is a powerful technique that can narrow your search to a reasonable number of results, and increase the chance of those results being useful. Boolean searches are simple to learn and tremendously effective. The three most commonly used Boolean commands (or "operators") are AND, OR and AND NOT.

AND means "I want only documents that contain both/all words." For instance, the search "London" AND "Big Ben" AND "Buckingham Palace" AND "Trafalgar Square" would return only documents that contained all four keywords or phrases. AND is the most frequently used Boolean command.

OR means "I want documents that contain either word; I don't care which." The query "London" OR "Big Ben" OR "Buckingham Palace" OR "Trafalgar Square" would return all documents that contained even one of these four keywords or phrases. Use OR to string together synonyms; be careful about mixing it with AND.

AND NOT means "I want documents that contain this word, but not if the document also contains another word." The query "London" AND "Big Ben" AND NOT "Buckingham Palace" would return documents that include London and Big Ben, but not those that also include Buckingham Palace. Remember that AND NOT only applies to the word or phrase that immediately follows it.

ICT II - Lecture 3

Lecture 3


Browser software programs – Enables you to access and view world wide web. Example; Internet Explorer, netscape, Mozilla firefox, opera, google chrome, etc.


Parts of a Web Browser

Most of the useful tools available in a web browser are located in the top section of the browser. There are four different toolbars in each web browser; The title bar; The menu bar; The navigation bar; The address bar.


The Title Bar

This displays the title of the web page you are viewing, followed by the name of the web browser you’re using. The title bar is usually in blue.


The Menu Bar

Right below the title bar is the menu bar, the menu bar has several menu buttons. Clicking on one will open up a drop- down menu selection where selected operations can be performed.


The Navigation Bar

The navigation toolbar allows you to access a web site by entering its URL in the address box provided. Also present on the navigation toolbar are the Back, Forward, Reload and Stop buttons
Back – brings you back to the previous page
Forward – brings you to the next web page that you already accessed
Reload – forces Mozilla to re access the web site and load the current web page.
Stop – halts the loading of a web page that is currently proceeding.
Home – brings you back to the browser’s home page, or the page that automatically shows when you open your browser.


Parts of a Web Address

The web address http://www.cnn.com has a number of different parts, it is important to understand what those parts mean.
- The http:// stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. This helps your web browser locate the web page or web site, and to display it for you to see. Most browser will automatically add this prefix, so you don’t have to worry about typing it everytime.
- The WWW stands for the World Wide Web. This means that the page you are looking for is somewhere on the World Wide Web.
- The next section is the cnn in this example, is the name of the web page or web site. It is flanked by dots, which it from other sections of the web address.
- The .com here is the domain name. This tells you where the web page is registered, and often tells you what kind of web site it is.

ICT II - Lecture 1

Lecture 1 – Internet

Understanding the internet

The word internet evolved from the terms Inter for international and Net for network. It refers to a global collection of interconnected networks – a network of networks.

The internet is accessible to anyone connected to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) with a PC, a modem and a telephone line. It represents a vast network of computers that allows information access and exchange by users from around the world.

Definition:

1. Local Area Network (LAN) – a collection of inter- connected communication and computer equipment and resources that enable sharing and distribution of information in an office building, warehouse or campus.

2. Wide Area Network (WAN) - Two or more interconnected LANS constitute a bigger network called WAN. These are geographically dispersed LANs.

3. TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol. The standard protocol wherein computers are able to communicate with one another. The Term TCP specifies protocols on how data is broken down before transmission while IP takes care of moving information to desired destinations.

4. A Client/ Server model consists of several hundreds of host (servers) accessed by millions of PCs/ users(clients) for information.

Overview of Internet Applications

The internet brings together the best qualities of communication systems. The Internet eliminates long waits for a letter to reach a friend, eases shopping, banking and other transactions electronically. It’s democratic and facilitates global exchange of ideas, transforming the world into a global village without geographic boundaries. In the workplace, wise internet use results in productivity and efficiency. Information is transmitted across management levels easily, while managerial leverage is enhanced and promoting healthy interpersonal relationship. The internet is also found it’s place in education, business, medicine, and government. More and more people get themselves connected. People no longer talk about the local market but of an even larger virtual market of global proportions.

What is the internet?

The internet is a collection of computers throughout the world which are mostly connected using telephone lines for the purpose of sharing information.


Who owns the internet?

No organization, corporation or government owns or runs the Internet. Instead, many people and organizations voluntarily participate in task force groups who meet to develop standards for the many various technical needs of running the internet.


A Brief History of the Internet

In 1969, the US Department of Defense started a project to allow researchers and military personnel to communicate with each other in an emergency. The project was called ARPAnet and it is the foundation of the Internet.
Throughout the 1970's, what would later become the Internet was developed. While mostly military personnel and scientists used it in its early days, the advent of the World Wide Web in the early 1990's changed all that.
Today, the Internet is not owned or operated by any one entity. This worldwide computer network allows people to communicate and exchange information in new ways.
According to www.commerce.net, in April of 1999, there were 92.2 million Internet users over the age of 16 in the United States and Canada. By 2005, it is predicted 75% of the total US population will be online
The Internet Explosion
As os December 2005, the internet had more than 1 billion users worldwide. This number is projected to balloon to 1.8 billion by 2010. There is no question that the number and variety of people logging on is growing daily. The “virtual community” is increasingly representative of the demographics of the “real” community, as internet access becomes more common in businesses, schools, libraries and homes.

Powerpoint Lectures SY 2010 - 2011

Starting PowerPoint

PowerPoint is a powerful application that enables you to create presentations that can be viewed on a computer. Using PowerPoint, you can print handouts or create film slides for a presentation. PowerPoint also enables you to add animation and sound to your presentations, which makes it the perfect tool for business presentations or classroom lectures.


To start PowerPoint, follow these steps:

1.Click the Start button.
2.Move your mouse pointer to all Programs. A menu of programs appears. Point at the Microsoft Office icon.
3.Move your mouse pointer to the Microsoft Office PowerPoint icon and click it. The PowerPoint application window opens.

Planning Your Presentation

The first step in any successful venture is planning, and your PowerPoint presentations are no exception. Planning consists not only of mapping out what your presentation will say, but how it will be said—the text you need, the data you want to display, and the images you need to tell your story. Planning also consists of deciding on a look, a feel, and a tone for your presentation.

To help you turn the plan in your head into a presentation onscreen consider these questions:

■ Do I know what I want to say?

This means more than what information you’ll be providing. It also refers to your “message.” If you’re giving a presentation on sales to your board of directors, it’s a much different presentation than the one you’d give to your sales reps on the same topic. Think about what the audience cares about, what will interest them most, and what their background with the topic is, and plan accordingly.

■ Do I have all the information I need?

Make sure any files, facts, figures, statistics, and terms are at your fingertips before you sit down to build your slides.

■ Do I have all the images I need?

Gather all the graphics you need to use and make sure they’re accessible while you’re working on the presentation. It’s a good idea to make sure they’re all good quality images, too—if a faded photo or a graphic with choppy edges is displayed on a wall or large monitor, the problems will be magnified.

■ Do I know where the presentation will be given?

If you aren’t sure where the presentation will take place, find out now. Why does this matter? Because your presentation should be aimed at the lowest common denominator. This means it has to be legible to the person seated farthest from the screen or monitor, and it must be audible to the person in the back of the room with the worst hearing. This is more of a challenge in a large hall than in a reasonably sized conference room. It’s also a good idea to test all your projection equipment prior to the presentation, for obvious reasons.

Exiting PowerPoint

To exit PowerPoint, perform one of the following:

•Click the PowerPoint window's Close (X) button.
•Double-click the Control Menu icon in the left corner of the title bar, or click it once to open the Control menu and then select Close.
•Open the File menu and select Exit.
•Press Alt+F4.

Starting a New Presentation

PowerPoint offers several ways to create a new presentation. Before you begin, decide which method is right for you:

•The AutoContent Wizard offers the highest degree of help. It walks you through each step of creating the new presentation. When you're finished, you have a standardized group of slides, all with a similar look and feel, for a particular situation. Each slide created includes dummy text that you can replace with your own text.

•A design template provides a professionally designed color, background, and font scheme that applies to the slides you create yourself. It does not provide sample slides.

•You can also start a new presentation based on an existing presentation. This "copies" all the slides in the existing presentation and allows you to save the new presentation under a new filename.

•You can start from scratch and create a totally blank presentation. That means that you build the presentation from the ground up and create each slide in the presentation. (Beginners might want to use the wizard or templates until they get a feel for the overall design approach used to create a cohesive slide presentation.)

Understanding PowerPoint's Different Views

PowerPoint can display your presentation in different views. Each of these views is designed for you to perform certain tasks as you create and edit a presentation.

To change views, open the View menu and choose the desired view: Normal, Slide Sorter, Slide Show, or Notes Page.
•Normal— The default, three-pane view.
•Slide Sorter— This view shows all the slides as thumbnails so that you can easily rearrange them by dragging slides to new positions in the presentation .
•Slide Show— A specialized view that enables you to preview and present your show onscreen. It enables you to test the presentation as you add slides, and it is used later when your presentation is complete.
•Notes Page— This view provides a large pane for creating notes for your speech. You can also type these notes in Normal view, but Notes Page view gives you more room and allows you to concentrate on your note text.

Moving from Slide to Slide

PowerPoint provides several ways to move from slide to slide in the presentation. The particular view you are in somewhat controls the procedure for moving to a specific slide.

In the Normal view, you can move from slide to slide using these techniques:

•Click the Outline tab on the far left of the window. To go to a particular slide in the outline, click the slide icon next to the slide number .
•Press the Page Up or Page Down keys to move to the previous or next slide, respectively.
•Click the Previous Slide or Next Slide button just below the vertical scrollbar, or drag the scroll box inside the vertical scrollbar until the desired slide number is displayed.
•Click the Slides tab on the far left of the PowerPoint window. This enables you to move from slide to slide in the Normal view by selecting a particular slide's thumbnail. When you click the thumbnail, the slide appears in the Slide pane.

Editing Text in the Slide Pane

The text on your slides resides within boxes (all objects appear on a slide in their own boxes for easy manipulation). To edit text on a slide, click the text box to select it and then click where you want the insertion point moved, or select the text you want to replace

Applying a Different Design Template


You can apply a different template to your presentation at any time, no matter how you originally created the presentation. To change the design template, follow these steps:

1.Select Format, Slide Design to open the Slide Design task pane. Then, if necessary, click the Design Templates icon at the top of the task pane. This provides a listing of PowerPoint's many design templates.
2.Click the template that you want to use in the list. The template is immediately applied to the slide in the Slide pane.
3.When you have decided on a particular template (you can click on any number of templates to see how they affect your slides), save the presentation (click the Save button on the toolbar).

Using Color Schemes

Design templates enable you to change the overall design and color scheme applied to the slides in the presentation (or selected slides in the presentation, as discussed in the previous section). If you like the overall design of the slides in the presentation but would like to explore some other color options, you can select a different color scheme for the particular template that you are using.
The number of color schemes available for a particular design template depends on the template itself. Some templates provide only three or four color schemes, whereas other templates provide more. As with design templates, you can assign a new color scheme to all the slides in the presentation or to selected slides.

To change the color scheme for the presentation or selected slides, follow these steps:

1.In the Normal or Slide Sorter view (use the Slide Sorter view if you want to change the color scheme for selected slides), open the task pane by selecting View, Task Pane (if the task pane is already open, skip to the next step).
2.Select the task pane's drop-down arrow and then select Slide Design-Color Schemes. This switches to the Color Schemes section of the Slide Design task pane. The color schemes available for the design template that you are using appear in the Apply a Color Scheme section .
3.(Optional) If you are in the Slide Sorter view and want to assign a new color scheme only to selected slides, select those slides (click the first slide and then hold down Ctrl and click additional slides).
4.To assign the new color scheme to all the slides in the presentation, click a scheme in the Slide Design task pane. If you are assigning the color scheme only to selected slides, point at the color scheme and click its drop-down arrow. Select Apply to Selected Slides.

Changing the Background Fill

You can also fine-tune the color scheme that you add to a slide or slides by changing the background fill. This works best in cases where the design template and color scheme that you selected don't provide a background color for the slide or slides. You must be careful, however, because you don't want to pick a background color that obscures the text and graphics that you place on the slide or slides.

To change the background fill on a slide or slides, follow these steps:

1.Switch to the Slide Sorter view (select View, Slide Sorter).
2.(Optional) If you are going to change the background fill for selected slides, select those slides in the Slide Sorter window.
3.Select the Format menu and then select Background. The Background dialog box appears.
4.Click the drop-down arrow at the bottom of the dialog box and choose a fill color from the color palette that appears.
5.To assign the fill color to all the slides in the presentation, click Apply to All. To assign the fill color to selected slides (if you selected slides in step 2), click Apply.


Inserting Slides into a Presentation

You can insert slides into your presentation. You can insert blank slides or you can insert slides from other presentations.

Inserting a New, Blank Slide

You can insert a slide into a presentation at any time and at any position in the presentation. To insert a new slide, follow these steps:

1.On the Outline or Slides pane, select the slide that appears just before the place where you want to insert the new slide (you can also insert a new slide in the Slide Sorter view, if you want).
2.Choose the Insert menu and then New Slide, or click the New Slide button on the PowerPoint toolbar. A new blank slide appears in the PowerPoint window, along with the Slide Layout task pane.
3.In the Slide Layout task pane, select the slide layout that you want to use for the new slide. Several text slide layouts and layouts for slides that contain graphics are provided.
4.Follow the directions indicated on the slide in the Slide pane to add text or other objects. For text boxes, you click an area to select it and then type in your text. For other object placeholders, you double-click the placeholder.

Cloning a Slide To create an exact replica of an existing slide (in any view), select the slide you want to duplicate. Click Insert and then select Duplicate Slide. The new slide is inserted after the original slide. You can then choose a different layout for the slide if you want.

Deleting Slides

You can delete a slide from any view. To delete a slide, perform the following steps:

1.Select the slide you want to delete. You can delete multiple slides by selecting more than one slide (on the Outline or Slides pane or in the Slide Sorter view).
2.Choose the Edit menu, and then choose Delete Slide. The slide is removed from the presentation.

Use the Delete Key You can quickly delete slides by selecting the slide or slides and then pressing the Delete key on the keyboard.

If you deleted a slide by mistake, you can get it back. Select Edit, Undo, or press Ctrl+Z. This works only if you do it immediately. You cannot undo the change if you exit PowerPoint and restart the application.

Rearranging Slides in Slide Sorter View

Slide Sorter view shows thumbnails of the slides in your presentation. This enables you to view many if not all slides in the presentation at one time. Slide Sorter view provides the ideal environment for arranging slides in the appropriate order for your presentation. To rearrange slides in Slide Sorter view, perform the following steps:

1.If necessary, switch to Slide Sorter view by selecting View and then choosing Slide Sorter.
2.Place the mouse pointer on the slide you want to move.
3.Hold down the left mouse button and drag the slide to a new position in the presentation. The mouse pointer becomes a small slide box.
4.To position the slide, place the mouse before or after another slide in the presentation. A vertical line appears before or after the slide .
5.Release the mouse button. PowerPoint places the slide into its new position and shifts the surrounding slides to make room for the inserted slide.

Creating a Text Box

If you want to add additional text to a slide that will not be contained in one of the text boxes already on the slide, you must create a new text box.

Text Box - A text box acts as a receptacle for the text. Text boxes often contain bulleted lists, notes, and labels

To create a text box, perform the following steps:


1.If necessary, switch to the Normal view (select View, Normal). Use the Slides or Outline tab on the left of the workspace to select the slide that you want to work on. The slide appears in the Slide pane.
2.Click the Text Box button on the Drawing toolbar (if the Drawing toolbar isn't visible, right-click any toolbar and select Drawing).
3.Click the slide where you want the text box to appear. A small text box appears. (It will expand as you type in it.)
4.Type the text that you want to appear in the text box. Press Enter to start a new paragraph. Don't worry if the text box becomes too wide; you can resize it after you are done typing.
5.When you are finished, click anywhere outside the text box to see how the text appears on the finished slide.
You can also add a text box via the Insert menu. Select Insert, then Textbox. Then use the mouse to "draw" the text box on the slide. Using this command set to create a textbox actually allows you to create the width of the text box before you enter the text.

Sizing and Moving Text Boxes

You can size any of the text boxes on a slide. You can also move them on the slide. To size a text box follow these steps:

1.Select the text box.
2.Place the mouse on any of the sizing handles that appear on the box (they will be small round circles).
3.When you place the mouse on the sizing handle a sizing tool appears. Click and drag the sizing handle to change the size of the box. To retain the height-width ratio of the text box, use a sizing handle on any of the text box corners and drag on the diagonal. To move a text box, place the mouse pointer on any of the box borders. The mouse pointer becomes a move tool. Drag the box to any location on the slide.

Deleting a Text Box

You can delete text boxes from your slides. Select the text box (so that handles appear around it and no insertion point appears inside it), and then press the Delete key.

Formatting Text with the Formatting Toolbar

The Formatting toolbar provides several buttons that enable you to change font attributes for the text on your slides. It makes it easy for you to quickly bold selected text or to change the color of text in a text box.

To use the different Formatting toolbar font tools, follow these steps:

1.To change the look of existing text, select the text, or select a particular text box to change the look of all the text within that box.
2.To change fonts, open the Font drop-down list and click the desired font.
3.To change font size, open the Font Size drop-down list, click the desired size or type a size directly into the box, and then press Enter.
To increase or decrease the text size to the next size up or down, click the Increase Font Size or Decrease Font Size buttons on the Formatting toolbar.
4.To add a style or effect to the text (bold, italic, underline, and/or shadow), click the appropriate button.

Adding a WordArt Object

PowerPoint comes with an add-on program called WordArt that can help you create graphical text effects. You can create text wrapped in a circle and text that has 3D effects and other special alignment options. To insert a WordArt object onto a slide, perform the following steps:

1.In the Slide view, display the slide on which you want to place the WordArt object.
2.Click the Insert menu, point at Picture, and then select WordArt (or select the WordArt button on the Drawing toolbar). The WordArt Gallery dialog box appears, showing many samples of WordArt types.
3.Click the sample that best represents the WordArt type you want and click OK. The Edit WordArt Text dialog box appears .
4.Choose a font and size from the respective drop-down lists.
5.Type the text you want to use into the Text box.
6.Click OK. PowerPoint creates the WordArt text on your slide

Inserting an Image from the Task Pane

To insert a piece of the clip art using the task pane, follow these steps:

1.Select the slide on which you want to place the image so that it appears in the Slide pane.
2.Select Insert, point at Picture, and then select Clip Art. The Clip Art task pane appears.
3.Type keywords into the Search Text box in the task pane that will be used to find your clip art images.
4.Click the Search button. Images that match your search criteria appear in the task pane as thumbnails.
5.In the Results list, locate the image that you want to place on the slide. Then click the image, and the clip art is placed on the slide

Inserting a Clip from a File


If you have an image stored on your computer that you would like to place on a slide, you can insert the picture directly from the file. This means that you don't have to use the Clip Art task pane to search for and then insert the image.

To place a graphical image on a slide directly from a file, follow these steps:

1.Select the slide on which the image will be placed.
2.Select the Insert menu, point at Picture, and then select From File. The Insert Picture dialog box appears.
3.Select the picture you want to use. You can view all the picture files in a particular location as thumbnails. Select the Views button, and then select Thumbnails on the menu that appears.
4.Click Insert to place the image on the slide.

Working with Layers of Objects

As you place objects onscreen, they might start to overlap, creating layers of objects where the lower layers are often difficult or impossible to select. To move objects in layers, perform the following steps:

1.Click the object you want to move up or down in the stack. If the Drawing toolbar is not available in the PowerPoint window, right-click on any toolbar and select Drawing from the menu that appears.
2.Click the Draw button on the Drawing toolbar to open the Draw menu, and select Order.
3.Select one of the following options:
oBring to Front— Brings the object to the top of the stack.
oSend to Back— Sends the object to the bottom of the stack.
oBring Forward— Brings the object up one layer.
oSend Backward— Sends the object back one layer.

Grouping and Ungrouping Objects

If you want to treat two or more objects as a group, perform the following steps:

1.Select the objects you want to group. Remember, to select more than one object, hold down the Shift or Ctrl key as you click each one.
2.Click the Draw button on the Drawing toolbar to open the Draw menu, and then select Group.
3.To ungroup the objects, select any object in the group and select Draw, and then choose Ungroup.

Rotating an Object

When you select an object on a slide, a handle with a green end on it appears at the top center of the object. This is the rotation handle, and it can be used to rotate any object on a slide. The rotation handle enables you to revolve an object around a center point.

To rotate an object, do the following:

1.Click the object you want to rotate.
2.Place the mouse pointer on the object's Rotation handle (the green dot) until the Rotation icon appears.
3.Hold down the mouse button and drag the Rotation handle until the object is in the position you want.
4.Release the mouse button.

Resizing Objects

You will find that objects such as pictures and clip art are not always inserted onto a slide in the correct size. You can resize the object by performing these steps:

1.Select the object to resize. Selection handles appear.
2.Drag one of the following handles (the squares that surround the object) until the object is the desired size:
oDrag a corner handle to change both the height and width of an object. PowerPoint retains the object's height-to-width ratio.
oDrag a side, top, or bottom handle to change the height or width alone.
oTo keep the original center of the object stationary while sizing, hold down the Ctrl key while dragging a sizing handle.
3.Release the mouse button when you have completed resizing the object.

Cropping a Picture

In addition to resizing a picture, you can crop it; that is, you can trim a side or a corner off the picture to remove an element from the picture or cut off some whitespace. This enables you to clean up the picture within the object box.

To crop a picture, perform the following steps:

1.Click the picture you want to crop.
2.To crop the picture, you need the Picture toolbar. Right-click any toolbar currently showing in the PowerPoint window and select Picture. The Picture toolbar appears.
3.Click the Crop button on the Picture toolbar. Cropping handles appear around the picture
4.Move the mouse pointer over one of the cropping handles. The mouse pointer becomes the same shape as the cropping handle. (Use a corner handle to crop two sides at once. Use a side, top, or bottom handle to crop only one side.)
5.Hold down the mouse button and drag the pointer until the crop lines are where you want them.
6.Release the mouse button. PowerPoint crops the image.
7.After cropping that image, move or resize the picture as needed.

Viewing an Onscreen Slide Show

Before you show your presentation to an audience, you should run through it several times on your own computer, checking that all the slides are in the right order and that the timings and transitions between the slides work correctly.

You can preview a slide show at any time; follow these steps:

1.Open the presentation you want to view.
2.Choose the Slide Show menu and choose View Show. The first slide in the presentation appears full screen. A series of icons appear at the bottom left of the presentation screen. There is a previous slide arrow, a pen icon, a menu icon, and a next slide arrow. We will discuss the pen and menu icons later in the lesson.
3.To display the next or the previous slide, do one of the following:
oTo display the next slide, click the left mouse button, press the Page Down key, or press the right-arrow or down-arrow key. You can also click the right-pointing arrow that appears at the bottom left of the slide.
oTo display the previous slide, click the right mouse button, press the Page Up key, or press the left-arrow or up-arrow key. You can also click the left-pointing arrow that appears at the bottom left of the slide.
4.When you have finished running the slide show, press the Esc key.

Adding Transitions

A transition is how PowerPoint gets from one slide to the next during an onscreen slide show. Slide transition are special effects that you could add between slides. When you view a whole presentation, it advances one slide after the other. The transition draws the next slide on the screen with a special effect.
The easiest way to apply special effects is to:

To apply transition effect to your slide, Click the slide. On the slide show menu, choose slide transition, the slide transition dialog box opens. From this dialog box, you can have a preview of the effect and adjust the speed before each transition. You can also select the amount of time you want the slide to remain to your screen from this dialog box. As a default, the dialog box selects the On mouse click, this means that the slide will advance to the next one as you click your mouse or press an arrow key on your keyboard.

Animating slide content

Animating slide content means assigning effects on bulleted items or graphic object on your slide. The transition effect that we have done before makes the bulleted items appear all at once. We can make bulleted list appear sequentially during a slide show by assigning animation to them. This process is called slide building in PowerPoint.
To Build your slide, first select with bulleted items then beside the slide transition effect drop-down list, choose an animation from the text preset animation drop-down list. You can control the slide building process more by using the Custom Animation dialog box.

To apply animation, click on the Slide Show Menu, then choose Custom Animation. Then follow the instructions below:

1.Click on the object from the slide objects without animation selections.
2.Choose the animate option box.
3.It will now be moved in the animation order list box. Click on the object where you want to apply the text.
4.Click on the effects tab to choose an effect.

After establishing the animation order of your slide objects, you can now choose the animation effect. Still at the Custom Animation dialog box, click on the Effects tab. The Animation order list also appears on this tab and the slide preview. To apply object animation:

1.Choose an object to apply the effect.
2.Choose the animation and sound effect from this selection.
3.You can even choose an after effect from this list box. Choose from a variety of colors.
4.Choose if the animation should be by letter, word or all at once.
5.Take a preview of your animation design.
6.To finally apply the finishing touches.