Small Patch of Rice Land

I was on my way to work one morning, when I saw this small patch of land were converted into a rice field. Another thing that caught my attention was the planters, working under the rays of the morning sun. Except for a couple of adults the rest were kids not even ten years of age.

I took the photo using my Samsung Galaxy -Y Phone.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial for Beginners

I. The Adobe Photoshop CS 3 Environment

In order for us to use Adobe Photoshop use effectively, we must learn the environment first. For this tutorial, we will be using Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Fig1. The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Window

Figure 1 shows the whole Adobe Photoshop CS3 window. In any development environment, it is important to familiarize yourself with its par.

• Menu Bar- Contains all the commands necessary to use the program
• Toolbox- displays the common tools (or commands) that you need in creating /editing your images.
• Toolbar- this one changes when you select a tool from the toolbox. It provides additional options for each tool, if any.
• Canvass- This is where you create/edit your image
• Layers - Using layers makes photoshop a very powerful tool in editing images. Soon in this tutorial we will discover the power of layers.

There are still so many parts that you will soon seen in photoshop. Some of the windows here will disappear and reapper and more windows may appear, depending on what tool you are using. I introduced only these parts so that you will not be overwhelmed by the vast number of tools available in Photoshop.

The Toolbox 

Fig. 2: The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Toolbox

As you can see there are 25 buttons in the toolbox, not to mention the sub options of those buttons that has a triangle on the lower right corner. To simplify this tutorial and not overwhelm you with all these tools. We will focus on a tool when needed. The most commonly tools that you may need to use are the Marquee, Move, Pencil/Brush, Eraser, Gradient/Fill Tool (not in any particular order). Of course the Text tool may be needed if your project needs it.

To avoid repeting the discussion of each tool , we will discuss each when we need it. First Let's create our first Photoshop Project

My Early Works on Photoshop

 I can't remember when I started using Photoshop but I had been drawing for as long as I can remember. It was about in the late 1990's I believe that I have made my first digital image. Most of the time, I've been drawing samurai's . I would first sketch my drawing on a piece of paper then scan it and do the rest of the works in Photoshop.

The Samuari I- one of my earliest works. A long haired modern day Samurai wielding two swords. One long sword and the other a shorter one. The floor actually is done with Corel Draw.

The Wizard of MU.When the game MU started to gain some popularity as a MMORPG,  I downloaded one of their wallpapers and well, placed my head on the wizard's body.










Tales of the Swordsman. I started to create a story about an IT expert who worked in Japan. There he joined an Iaido school and studied this form of Japanese swordsmanship. This frame shows two of the senior students, a husband and wife tandem. The guy is also the main character's direct supervisor and the wife happens to be the daughter of the grand master of the dojo. The background is actually a mixture of digitally created images and real photos.

This guy is supposed to be the main character of that story as he is practicing Iaido.












*Iaido is a Japanese form of swordsmanship that focuses on drawing the sword and cutting the opponent in one motion.