Newbie to Photoshop

Hi all!

Recently we had some photographs we wanted to edit for our annual conference. I was asked to sort it out. After a bit I found we had Photoshop on the system.

I have never used Photoshop, but eventually got the hang of shrinking images, saving them as different formats. Seeing this, my boss got over enthusiastic. I had shrunk down a map showing the location of the conference hotel. My boss thought it would be a brilliant idea to put markers on the map indicating where the other hotel and locations were. Then add a list on the map showing what each marker represented (1: Hotel A, 2: Hotel B, 3 Conference Hall, etc.

This is where I ran into trouble. Mostly by guesswork I managed to hack a white square area in one corner then use the type tool to type over it. . I then hacked little squares out of the map picture and typed numbers indicating the places into the squares.

The results were patchy. when my boss wanted the numbers enlarged and the map key white text on black, I pretty much collapsed in a heap.
Can anyone tell me how I could have a) done these things and b) done them better?

Cheers
David

Hi all!

Recently we had some photographs we wanted to edit for our annual conference. I was asked to sort it out. After a bit I found we had Photoshop on the system.

I have never used Photoshop, but eventually got the hang of shrinking images, saving them as different formats. Seeing this, my boss got over enthusiastic. I had shrunk down a map showing the location of the conference hotel. My boss thought it would be a brilliant idea to put markers on the map indicating where the other hotel and locations were. Then add a list on the map showing what each marker represented (1: Hotel A, 2: Hotel B, 3 Conference Hall, etc.

This is where I ran into trouble. Mostly by guesswork I managed to hack a white square area in one corner then use the type tool to type over it. . I then hacked little squares out of the map picture and typed numbers indicating the places into the squares.

The results were patchy. when my boss wanted the numbers enlarged and the map key white text on black, I pretty much collapsed in a heap.
Can anyone tell me how I could have a) done these things and b) done them better?

Cheers
David

You would have been better off using layers. Make a new blank layer for

first white square, copy the layer and move it for the next white square, then put the text for each location on new layers. Save as a psd file and then you can alter it as you please without changing the map on the bottom layer.
If you haven’t used layers before, go to Help in Photoshop (or press F1 ) and search for layers.

—
Geoff Jackson, Nottingham, UK.

www.gjphoto.f9.co.uk
(Remove the obvious to reply)

Can anyone tell me how I could have a) done these things and b) done them better?

In article , Dave The Brain
wrote:

Can anyone tell me how I could have a) done these things and b) done them better?

If you’ve got a presentation package, such as Microsoft Powerpoint, Corel Presentations or Harvard Graphics, just import the edited map. You can then put the labels on without problem or difficulty.

Why struggle with a program that makes you do somersaults to achieve something that simple?

—

Roger

"Geoff Jackson" wrote in message

Hi all!

Recently we had some photographs we wanted to edit for our annual conference. I was asked to sort it out. After a bit I found we had Photoshop on the system.

I have never used Photoshop, but eventually got the hang of shrinking images, saving them as different formats. Seeing this, my boss got over enthusiastic. I had shrunk down a map showing the location of the conference hotel. My boss thought it would be a brilliant idea to put markers on the map indicating where the other hotel and locations were. Then add a list on the map showing what each marker represented (1: Hotel A, 2: Hotel B, 3 Conference Hall, etc.

This is where I ran into trouble. Mostly by guesswork I managed to hack a white square area in one corner then use the type tool to type over it. . I then hacked little squares out of the map picture and typed numbers indicating the places into the squares.

The results were patchy. when my boss wanted the numbers enlarged and the map key white text on black, I pretty much collapsed in a heap.
Can anyone tell me how I could have a) done these things and b) done them better?

Cheers
David

You would have been better off using layers. Make a new blank layer for

the

first white square, copy the layer and move it for the next white square, then put the text for each location on new layers. Save as a psd file and then you can alter it as you please without changing the map on the bottom layer.
If you haven’t used layers before, go to Help in Photoshop (or press F1 ) and search for layers.

—
Geoff Jackson, Nottingham, UK.

www.gjphoto.f9.co.uk
(Remove the obvious to reply)

Geoff offers sound advice. Be sure to save your work as a PSD file for future editing, but if the image is for use on the Web, you will have to save as a GIF, JPG or PNG. To do this, go to FILE > SAVE FOR WEB. Here you can make adjustments for quality versus file size. Prudent naming conventions for the Web would be use all small case letters and underscores between words, like hotel_map.jpg.

Peadge 🙂

In article , Dave The Brain
wrote:

Can anyone tell me how I could have a) done these things and b) done them better?

If you’ve got a presentation package, such as Microsoft Powerpoint, Corel Presentations or Harvard Graphics, just import the edited map. You can then put the labels on without problem or difficulty.

Why struggle with a program that makes you do somersaults to achieve something that simple?

erm – make sure you have the copyright owners permission to tweak maps.
Some map corporations are really a bit touchy about their stuff being used in certain ways

A

"Roger Whitehead" wrote in message

In article , Dave The Brain
wrote:

Can anyone tell me how I could have a) done these things and b) done them better?

If you’ve got a presentation package, such as Microsoft Powerpoint, Corel Presentations or Harvard Graphics, just import the edited map. You can then put the labels on without problem or difficulty.

Why struggle with a program that makes you do somersaults to achieve something that simple?

—

Roger

On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 08:25:58 GMT, Roger Whitehead
wrote:

In article , Dave The Brain
wrote:

Can anyone tell me how I could have a) done these things and b) done them better?

If you’ve got a presentation package, such as Microsoft Powerpoint, Corel Presentations or Harvard Graphics, just import the edited map. You can then put the labels on without problem or difficulty.

Why struggle with a program that makes you do somersaults to achieve something that simple?

The others at work were talking about Powerpoint and we must have Powerpoint because I have opened Powerpoint attachments on email.
I guess I will struggle with either program as I am only really familiar with standard Office stuff.

Cheers
Dave