The success of Photoshop within professional designer circles easily makes it the industry standard for digital imaging. The idea that Photoshop is, in essence, a brand name that has crossed grammatical barriers to become a noun and a verb makes it a true cultural phenomenon. If you are an amateur photographers please don't let all this hype get in your way of learning the program. Photoshop is a powerful tool for anyone who simply wants to make their personal photo collection look better.

Opening Photos With Photoshop Now that you're getting comfortable with what's on the screen, it's time to learn how to get your photo in there so you can start editing! If your photos are in digital format already (i.e. taken with a digital camera), consult the camera's documentation to learn how to transfer them to your computer. If you have photo prints, you can still edit them with Photoshop! Use a scanner to move the photos onto your desktop. Once the photos are on your computer, group them in a folder. To make it easy, call the folder something simple like "Original Photos." Then copy the folder's contents into a new folder. You may want to call this "Edited Photos." Making this duplicate set of photos to work with means that if you make a mistake at any point in the editing process, you'll always have an original copy of your photo to go back to. Now start Photoshop by double-clicking on the program. Go to the File menu and select that you want to open an image. Navigate to your "Edited Photos" folder (or to whatever you called it) and choose a photo. Now you're ready to begin!

Adjust Levels in Your Photos Before you begin editing it's always a good idea to check a photo's levels. When photos are backlit, lit poorly, or overexposed, the colors tend to not look quite right. At times this is obvious, however at other times it's hard to tell, so you always want to check your photo's levels. Doing this first will help you make the colors in your photos look their best. To change the levels in your picture click on Edit in the menu bar. Move your mouse to Adjustments > in the drop-down menu and leave the cursor there for a second. In the sub-menu that pops up, choose on Auto Levels.

Save your work by hitting Apple + S in Mac OS X or CTRL + S in Windows. Alternatively, you can press Shift + Apple + L on a Mac or CTRL + L on a PC to use the Auto Levels function. You should notice a change in the appearance of your photo. If you don't see a noticeable difference, it's okay. It just means your photo looked good right from the start.

Reduce Red Eye in Your Photos We all know the bane of red eye in photos. This culprit has ruined more photos than goofy grimaces, poorly timed blinks, and crying babies combined. Getting rid of red eye is easy with these instructions. With your image open in Photoshop, make sure your Layers Palette is visible. Usually the Layers Palette is visible by default in the lower right hand corner when you open Photoshop. If you do not see the window, just click Windows in the menu bar, scroll to Layers, and make sure Layers has a check mark next to it. If it doesn't, click it once and the Layers palette will appear. In the Layers palette, go to the adjustment layer button. This button is at the bottom of the window. It contains a half-black, half-white circle and displays a yellow box that says "Create new fill or adjustment layer" when you move your mouse over it. Click the adjustment layer button. Select Channel Mixer from the menu that comes up. A box called Channel Mixer will open. Set the Red slider to 0%, and the Blue and Green sliders to 50%. Click OK. Now the people in the photos look like bluish-gray-skinned ghouls. Don't worry, they're supposed to! They'll soon look like their regular selves again. Using the toolbarAt the bottom of the toolbar (the long thin palette on the left), set the foreground color to black. In the toolbar, select the brush tool. If the red eyes are hard to see on your monitor because they're too small, go to the toolbar and select the zoom tool. Zoom in on the eyes in the photo by clicking on them. Select the brush tool again when you're done. Go back to the Layers palette. There should be a Background layer and a layer called Channel Mixer 1. Make sure the layer Channel Mixer 1 is selected by clicking it once. Paint the parts of the eyes that looked red before item #4. They should turn red again. In the menu bar click on Image. Move your mouse over Adjustments in the drop down menu just like last time. Click Invert in the menu that comes up on the right. We fixed the red eye! Save your work by hitting Apple + S in Mac OS X or CTRL + S in Windows. If you see a red ring around the newly-fixed eyes, we can fix that too. First make sure the Channel Mixer 1 layer is selected (click it once). In the main toolbar, make sure the foreground color is set to white. You will have to change it, since it was set to black a second ago. Select the paintbrush tool from the toolbar, and carefully paint the red ring. You should see it change to the correct eye color as you paint. In the menu bar click Layer. Click on Flatten Image at the bottom of the menu. Save your work by hitting Apple + S in Mac OS X or CTRL + S in Windows.