Digital Photography Community

Photoshop Tutorial - Basics - The Edit Menu

This is the second tutorial in our series of tutorials on the Menus in Photoshop.  It is very basic reading and a general introduction to the tools and options found in the Edit menu.

Edit Menu

Again, this menu is one that you will find on most programs, and you find the common elements as well (Cut, Copy, Paste, Undo, etc.). But there are of course some other ones that I want to point out:

• Step Forward - This feature is not useful or available until you first step backward. This is probably because the programmers of Photoshop have yet to find out a way of divining what you will do next until you do it. Anyway, this feature returns you (forward) to edits you have down to the image after you have stepped backward by using the next feature. It can be thought of as the "Redo" feature.


• Step Backward - This is like"Undo" on many programs. In Photoshop the Undo feature will only go back one step. If you hit Undo the second time using the keyboard shortcut (ctrl-z) it wll in fact Redo the edit. So the Undo just takes you back and forth with your last edit. Step Backward/ Forward will allow you to go much farther back and then forward again. It does have a limit, however, Photoshop will only remember the last 20 edits. That sounds like a lot, but if you are for example retouching and using the stamp tool to make many minute changes, then it adds up fast. Another word of caution, if you step backward to a certain point, then you do a new edit to the image, you lose everything you just stepped backward from. You can’t go "forward" anymore because you are now on a new "road."


• Fade... - Fade is a powerful tool that will allow you to tone-down whatever edit you just did. It also allows you to change how it is applied in terms of the blending mode, but that is a pretty advanced use. For our purposes, it allows you to pull back on the last edit by using a percentage scale. For example, if you just sharpened the image, but decided that you sharpened it way too much, use the Fade option and see what happens when you pull down that edit to 55% of what it was.


• Fill... - This option is used when you have made a selection. It fills the selection with a color or pattern at whatever density you choose.


• Stroke... - This is also used with selections. You are stroking the inside, outside, or middle of a selection with a color at a certain thickness and density.


• Free Transform - If you are using layers and you want to move, resize, rotate, etc. a layer, then this does it all! Hold down the shift key when resizing if you don’t want to distort the image.


• Transform - More transformation options, many of which are only available if (again) you are going to transform a layer and not the background. Most of the time when you open a file, the image is the background. It is like it is mounted to the wall, you can’t move it around, rotate it, etc. If you make it a layer (see the section on the Layer Menu) then you have "pulled it off the wall" and can freely transform it.


• Color Settings... - (For Mac OS X users you’d find this in the "Photoshop" menu along with the Preferences Menu) Color settings is an advanced menu option and is closely associated with color management.


• Assign/Convert to Profile... - Again, these are color management menus that will help you when you are printing. You can use color profiles to ensure the printing device (or other display media) is in sync with what you want color-wise.


• Keyboard Shortcuts/ Menus... - These menu options allows you to edit and manipulate shortcuts and to decide which menu options to show. You can hide the ones you don’t use.


• Preferences - This is a useful menu that we will jump into at times. It is always good to explore this menu in programs. Other programs have the same type of menu and they call it "Options...,’ but in anycase the Preferences Menu is always one you should familiarize yourself with.