Another palette that you should be aware of is the Histogram palette. This palette shows a real-time preview of all kinds of image information and features the Levels readout from which you can choose the different color channels...

Choose the Eraser tool from the toolbar. You'll notice a letter next to it. This is the keyboard shortcut (E) which selects the tool. Duplicate the background layer of a photo by dragging it to the new layer icon on the bottom of the layers palette as shown...

Make a selection of the simplest area to select (in this case the sky) with the magic wand tool. We are soon going to cut the sky out of the background and put a new background behind the cactus...

Like many tools have the option of doing, you can try and use blend modes for applying the tool. This will determine how the tool 'reacts with' the light of the layers beneath it. Changing blending modes here causes you to add or subtract light each time that you use the gradient tool...

Welcome to a magic wand exercise/demonstration. Choose the magic Wand tool (w). Note in the options bar you can change the tolerance. What this means is the color range that it is going to select...

Now that you've got a selected area (the wall in this case); go to Image: Adjustments: Hue/Saturation. Click on the Colorize box. Now you can move the Hue sliders around to choose a value which you can preview in real-time to see your wall change color...

For this tutorial grab the lasso tool in the toolbar. Now make a general selection by dragging the lasso around your subject. Try to keep it as close as you can. You have to go all the way around the subject to meet endpoints to close off the selection...

Editor's Pick in Photoshop Tutorials, April 2005
Blending modes define how layers, fills, strokes, fades and paths blend. Here is a list of blending modes with a description and examples for each one of them.

Blending modes define how layers, fills, strokes, fades and paths blend. Here is a list of blending modes with a description and examples for each one of them.

Make text wrap around a circle.