Photoshop can seem overpowering at first glance due to the program's lack of simple tutorials and seemingly challenging interface. Cast your worries aside, because the basics of Photoshop are much easier than they might appear.
Photoshop is basically made up of four areas: the menu bar, at the top, the toolbar just below it, the toolbox on the left and the palettes on the right. The menu bar and toolbox always stay the same, as they contain the different modes and options that you can choose, but the toolbar changes depending on context.
An updated status of your image is provided by the palettes. This includes a history of all of the actions and changes you have made along with a thumbnail image of the current results.
To demonstrate the way the interface changes as you use it, try selecting the type tool from the toolbox (the one that looks like a capital T). You will see straight away that the toolbar changes entirely to allow you to set font name, font size and so on.
In the history palette, your use of the type tool will be added to your history, and a new layer will be created for your text and shown in the layers palette.
No matter the project you are working on in Photoshop, you will most likely start with either the toolbox or the menus. Everyday tools and features will be found in your toolbox, such as selecting, filling and making shapes. The menus contain the more advanced functions such as blurring, sharpening and all of the other possibilities Photoshop can provide, most of which are found under the Filter menu.
When you have selected a tool from the toolbox, you can alter its settings using the toolbar - options from the menu will generally open a dialog box. Finally, when you want to go back and alter something that you already put on the image, you can use the palettes, although they have some other uses too, notably changing colors.
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