Beginning Photoshop & Graphic Design

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      • 02-A
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      • 09-A
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      • 10-A
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      • 11-A
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      • 12-A
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      • 13-A
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    • Lesson 14 >
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    • Lesson 15
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    • Fa20 Portfolio 08
    • Fa20 Portfolio 09
    • Fa20 Portfolio 10
  • Home
  • Syllabus
  • Weekly Lessons
    • Lesson 0 - Class Preparation
    • The Final Project
    • Lesson 1 >
      • 01-A
      • 01-B
      • 01-C
      • 01-D
    • Lesson 2 >
      • 02-A
      • 02-B
      • 02-C
      • 02-D
    • Lesson 3 >
      • 03-A
      • 03-B
      • 03-C
      • 03-D
    • Lesson 4 >
      • 04-A
      • 04-B
      • 04-C
      • 04-D
    • Lesson 5 >
      • 05-A
      • 05-B
      • 05-C
      • 05-D
    • Lesson 6 >
      • 06-A
      • 06-B
      • 06-C
      • 06-D
    • Lesson 7 >
      • 07-A
      • 07-B
      • 07-C
      • 07-D
    • Lesson 8 >
      • 08-A
      • 08-B
      • 08-C
      • 08-D
    • Lesson 9 >
      • 09-A
      • 09-B
      • 09-C
      • 09-D
    • Lesson 10 >
      • 10-A
      • 10-B
      • 10-C
      • 10-D
    • Lesson 11 >
      • 11-A
      • 11-B
      • 11-C
      • 11-D
    • Lesson 12 >
      • 12-A
      • 12-B
      • 12-C
      • 12-D
    • Lesson 13 >
      • 13-A
      • 13-B
      • 13-C
      • 13-D
    • Lesson 14 >
      • 14-A
      • 14-B
      • 14-C
      • 14-D
    • Lesson 15
  • Resources
    • Photoshop Tools
    • Photoshop Help
    • Color
    • Design
    • Grids
  • Student Galleries
    • Portfolio 01
    • Portfolio 02
    • Portfolio 03
  • Instructor/Contact
  • Portfolios
  • Real World Projects!
  • Fa20 Portfolio Galleries
    • Fa20 Portfolio 01
    • Fa20 Portfolio 02
    • Fa20 Portfolio 03
    • Fa20 Portfolio 04
    • Fa20 Portfolio 05
    • Fa20 Portfolio 06
    • Fa20 Portfolio 07
    • Fa20 Portfolio 08
    • Fa20 Portfolio 09
    • Fa20 Portfolio 10
Class Header Picture - Beginning Photoshop and Graphic Design
ITLS 4230 - 6230 - Instructional Graphics Production 1
QuickLINKs to Lessons   00   FP   01   02   03   04   05   06   07   08   09   10   11   12   13   14   15
Course Overview
  • Learn how to use the immensely powerful Adobe Photoshop application. No previous experience is necessary! We'll start at the very beginning. However, you should be comfortable using a computer, using menus, saving and backing up your files, etc.
  • Learn and apply basic design and graphic communication principles. 
  • Create well designed, informative graphics that are related to your own field and interests.
  • Learn to master basic "toolbox" skills of Photoshop.
  • This course is the required prerequisite for ITLS 4240/6240 - Instructional Graphics Production II - Advanced Photoshop and Graphic Design. It will provide you the necessary foundation for the advanced course..
  • You will have the opportunity to experience real world projects and assignments related to using Photoshop and applying graphic design principles.
  • Create a portfolio of work that can be shown to potential employers.​
Picture - What is Photoshop - Links to Video
Click image to learn more...

Course Goals. There are three main goals...

  • Learn and apply fundamental graphic design principles and generalizations
    • learn principles of contrast, repetition, alignment and grids, proximity, typography, color theory, focal points, and more!
  • Develop specific skills and competencies in Photoshop, Bridge, and Camera Raw
    • Use Adobe Bridge to effectively organize and find images, and open them in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop
    • Use the workflow panels in Adobe Camera Raw to adjust and correct images
    • Understand the Photoshop interface, and use brushes to draw, erase, and color black & white images
    • Understand and use photoshop masks effectively to select and hide or show an adjustment
    • Be able to use the type tool to create text and manipulate it.
    • Be able to transform selections in Photoshop
    • Save Photoshop creations in various common graphic formats such as JPG, PNG, TIFF, etc.
    • Understand and use the various ways to make selections in Photoshop
    • Understand and use Photoshop's adjustment layers and menu adjustments
    • Understand and use Photoshop's content aware technology
    • Understand and use Photoshop's vector tools
    • Understand and use Photoshop's blending modes
    • Understand and use Photoshop's filters
    • Understand and use Photoshop's preset panels (layer effects and styles, swatches, gradients, brushes, patterns, etc.)
  • Develop your creative capacity as you design instructional graphics and products
    • You will have voice and choice in how you create your assigned graphic design projects ​
    • ​You will have creative opportunities to work on real world design projects
Here are some visual examples of the types of things you will learn how to do!
Picture - Watch Ad
Learn graphic design principles and put them into practice
Picture - Photo to Watercolor transformation
Learn to use filters and brushes to create art from photos.
Picture - Camera Raw Screenshot
Learn how to bring out the best in your photos!
Picture - Psychology Department Flyer
Learn how to use blending modes and layer effects!
Picture - Business Card Design
Do real world projects for clients!
Picture - Wrapping text around a cup
Learn how to manipulate objects such as text in Photoshop!
Picture - Newsletter layout
Learn principles for great typography and layout!
Picture - Font pairing layout
Learn how to blend images you've created in Photoshop into well-designed text layouts.
Required Software
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud (Currently CC2021)
You need to have access to Photoshop CC to take this course.   Utah State University students have free access to download the Adobe Creative Cloud. Click this link to apply with your A-number and USU password. If you're using this course as an open education resource, a monthly subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud is available at $19.99 per month for the entire design suite or $9.99 per month for the Creative Cloud Photography plan (Photoshop, Lightroom, and Adobe Spark, which also includes Bridge). The lessons and tutorials on this site have been prepared using Photoshop Creative Cloud.  

​Course Materials
All lessons, tutorials, resources, and reading materials are accessible through this site. Grades, scoring rubrics, readings, exercise files, messages, assignments, announcements, etc., for Utah State University students in the course will be handled through Canvas @ Utah State University.

Digital Storage Backup
Keeping a backup of your files somewhere other than your computer is a good habit to get into. It is recommended that you keep a copy of your files on an external drive, flash drive, and/or online file storage "clouds" such as Google Drive or Dropbox.com. Both provide free storage as well as higher quantities of storage space available to purchase.  USU students who have set up an aggiemail.usu.edu account have unlimited storage provided through Google Drive.  USU also offers students 50GB of free storage through Box.USU.edu.  Just log in with your A-Number and strong password. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to back up your work. Hard drives and flash drives fail.
Picture - The Non-Designers Design Book
Required Book for this course...

The Non-Designers Design Book by Robin Williams (4th Edition)
A tried and true, easy-to-read guide to design terms and techniques from a "level 0" perspective. If your attitude is "I can't even draw a stick figure, how can I possibly design" then this is the book for you. This author's philosophy, introduced in the first few pages of the book, is that learning design can be simplified to 3 main steps: 
  1. Learn the principles (contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity)
  2. Recognize when you're not using them
  3. Apply the principles
​You can get this inexpensive, but awesome book in the USU Campus Store, or online at Amazon.com, Barns & Noble, Google Books, Find More Books, and many other sites. Be sure to buy the 4th edition.
About This Class
This course was developed specifically for a 15 week college semester and is currently being conducted as a blended face-to-face & online course for Utah State University students. I have made the course an open education resource (OER), so anyone may freely access this course online and learn from it. If you have questions, feel free to contact me, the course author and instructor.

Nathan Smith
nathan.smith@usu.edu
Subject: Beginning Photoshop and Graphic Design
Creative Commons License
Beginning Photoshop & Graphic Design by Nathan Smith is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
QuickLINKs to Lessons   00   FP   01   02   03   04   05   06   07   08   09   10   11   12   13   14   15

Page last updated ​February 26, 2021
Picture - Updated for year 2020
See what our students learned to do in this course! Here are a few projects from previous students... (click any thumbnail to begin the gallery show)
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