My Photoshop Classroom

SETTING UP THE DOCUMENT

Setting up your document correctly from the start will make your job much easier as you work through  your project.  This  will require some advanced planning. For example, if your final output will be a brochure, you may need to set up your document to be horizontal and double-sided.
To create a new document, click File > New. This will open the Document Setup dialog box (Fig. 2).

Here you will be able to name your file, set up the correct page size, and orientation for your document. Options include, but are not limited to:

Page Size and Orientation
Change the page size by typing in new values for width and height. Page size represents the final size you want after bleeds or trimming other marks outside the page. In the Preset dropdown menu you can find such common sizes as letter, legal, tabloid, etc. Typing in exact values for Height and Width gives you more control over the size and orientation of your page.


Resolution
Resolution is a number of pixels on a printed area of an image. The higher the resolution, the more pixels there are on the page, the better is the quality of the image. However, high resolution increases
the size of the file. The standard recommended resolution for printed images is 150-300, for Web images it is 72.

Color Mode
Choose a color mode that will best fit your project. For example, when making a graphic for a web site, choose RGB. When making an image for print, choose CMYK.

Background Contents
Choose the background: white, color, or transparent. When you have entered all of your document settings, click OK.

Opening an image from a disk 
If the image you have is saved on a disk, select File > Open, and then navigate to the disk drive where your image is saved. Choose the image file and click Open. At this point, you may want to save your image under a different name so that you can always have the original to fall back on in case of a mistake. To save you r file, select File > Save As and type in the new name of the file in the dialogue box. Now you should be ready to go.