Skills: Selecting. Layers, Filters, Transforming, Colour gradients.

This tutorial is designed to enable students to productively explore a variety of basic photoshop functions and as a result create an image from scratch of a pool ball floating over a body of water.

It is necessary to understand a few fundamentals before we start:
Photoshop uses layers of images so that each part of an image can be continually moved and adjusted throughout the creative process. Most functions involving layers can be controlled from the layers palette which can be displayed from the top menu bar by selecting Window/Show Layers

From this same menu you will need to have selected Show Tools and Show Options. The tools will appear on a floating palette and the options will appear as a bar under the top menu in Photoshop 6 and above and as a floating palette in earlier versions.

The tools palette has a variety of tools that are often adjustable from the options menu bar. Tools that have a small arrow in the bottom right hand corner, have more options available by holding the mouse button down over the tool to display a pop-up menu.