Different Types of Tools and their Functions in Photoshop

Move Tool allows you to move a selection or entire layer by dragging it with your mouse or using
your keyboard arrows keys.
Adobe Photoshop also offers a number of selection tools: Quick Mask, Rectangular marquee,
Elliptical marquee, Lasso, Polygonal Lasso, Magnetic Lasso, Magic Wand. The most efficient way
to make a selection in Adobe Photoshop is to use Quick Mask mode.
Marquee Tool - at the most basic level, the tool is used to select areas of an image, which can then
be copied, cut or cropped. Specific sections of a graphic can be selected to apply a filter or effect
to a particular area. It allows you to draw rectangular and elliptical selections.
Lasso Tool it allows us draw freehand selections around objects as if we were outlining them on
paper with a pen or pencil.
Quick Selection tool using the Quick Selection tool to quickly “paint” a selection using an adjustable
round brush tip. As you drag, the selection expands outward and automatically finds and follows
defined edges in the image.
Magic Wand Tool lets you select a consistently colored area (for example, a red flower) without
having to trace its outline. You specify the selected color range, or tolerance, relative to the original
color you click.
Crop Tool allows you to select an area of an image and discard everything outside this area.
Slice Tool allows you to divide an image into smaller sections which fit together like a jigsaw (but
with straight edges).
Eye Dropper Tool is used to sample a color from an image to use this color further. Eyedropper
tool enables you to change foreground or background colors by lifting them from the image.
Healing Brush Tool allows you to fix image imperfections such as scratches, blemishes, etc. By
sampling the surrounding area or using a predefined pattern you can blend the imperfections into
the rest of the image.
Spot Healing Brush Tool is the default healing tool in Photoshop and can be used to clone areas
from an image and blend the pixels from the sampled area seamlessly with the target area. The
basic principle is that the texture from the sample area is blended with the color and luminosity
surrounding wherever you paint.
Patch Tool is one of the best tools Photoshop has to offer. It can save you a ton of time when trying
to make some adjustments to your image. You can use it to remove small or large areas from your
photo. You can also use it to duplicate parts of your photo.
The Brush Tool and the Pencil Tool work like traditional drawing tools applying color with brush
strokes. In the options bar for each of these painting tools, you can set how color is applied to an
image and choose from preset brush tips. It's located in the standard Tool Bar and its default
shortcut is the letter B.
Mixer Brush Tool this tool allows you to blend colors and vary your wetness within a single brush
stroke. The Mixer Brush tool uses two paint wells — a “reservoir” that deposits color (Adobe calls
it paint) on the canvas and a “pickup” that receives, or picks up, color from the canvas (which can
be an image or color you've applied).
Clone Stamp Tool allows you to duplicate part of an image. The process involves setting a sampling
point in the image which will be used as a reference to create a new cloned area.
Pattern Stamp Tool is a very useful tool while making designs. You can use it to give interesting
textures and backgrounds to your image. This tool allows you to create your own pattern stamps.
You can fill pattern in your image using this tool.
In Adobe Photoshop CS6, you can use the History Brush tool to apply an image area from a
different state or snapshot to your current state. A brush icon appears in the column, indicating
that Photoshop will use this state as the source for the History Brush tool.
Eraser Tool can be found in the second group of icons in the toolbox. It has three variations: Eraser,
Background Eraser and Magic Eraser. The eraser is basically a brush which erases pixels as you drag
it across the image. Pixels are erased to transparency, or the background color if the layer is locked.
One of the easiest ways to remove a background or part of a background from an image in
Photoshop is to use the Background Eraser Tool. The Background Eraser tool samples the color at
the center of the brush and deletes pixels of a similar color as you drag around your image.
In the same menu as the Erase and Background Erase tool you'll find a third eraser and this one's
called the Magic Eraser tool. Basically, you can think of it as a Magic Wand tool but instead of just
selecting similar pixels it deletes them.
Paint Bucket Tool is grouped with the Gradient tool in the toolbar. If you can't find the Paint Bucket
tool, click and hold the Gradient tool to access it. Specify whether to fill the selection with the
foreground color or with a pattern. Specify a blending mode and opacity for the paint.
Blur Tool is used to paint a blur effect. Each stroke made using the Blur Tool will lower the contrast
between affected pixels, making them appear blurred.
Sharpen Tool in Photoshop Elements, it increases the contrast among adjacent pixels to give the
illusion that things are sharper. Sharpen can quickly give way to overly grainy and noisy images if
you're not cautious.
Smudge Tool in Photoshop can be used to create a lens blur effect and to blend certain aspects of
a picture. Smudge tool can be used for smoothing. This tool performs more of a warping effect,
something like the Warp tool in the Liquify dialog box.
Dodge Tool and the Burn Tool lighten or darken areas of the image. These tools are based on a
traditional darkroom technique for regulating exposure on specific areas of a print. Photographers
hold back light to lighten an area on the print (dodging) or increase the exposure to darken areas
on a print (burning).
Sponge Tool is an amazing but not a well-known tool that is incredibly useful. It allows you to
choose a brush to desaturate or saturate a certain area on a picture.
Photoshop provides multiple Pen tools to suit your use cases and creative style:
The Curvature Pen tool lets you intuitively draw curves and straight segments.
The standard Pen tool lets you draw straight segments and curves with great precision.
The Freeform Pen tool lets you draw paths as if you were drawing with pencil on a piece
of paper.
The Magnetic Pen options let you draw a path that snaps to the edges of the defined areas
in your image.
Pen Tool is all about drawing "paths". To make selections with the Pen Tool, we simply convert the
path or paths we've drawn into selections. It always begins, though, with a path. The first anchor
point appears, and the Pen tool pointer changes to an arrowhead. (In Photoshop, the pointer
changes only after you've started dragging.) Drag to set the slope of the curve segment you're
creating, and then release the mouse button.
Freeform Pen Tool lets you draw as if you were drawing with a pencil on paper. Anchor points are
added automatically as you draw. You do not determine where the points are positioned, but you
can adjust them once the path is complete.
Horizontal Type Tool and Vertical Type Tool.
The Type Tool allows direct on-image text editing. The only difference between the horizontal and
vertical type tools is that the horizontal type tool adds text horizontally and the vertical type tool
adds text vertically.
Path Selection Tool is a simple and handy tool that allows you to move around your path selections.
A path selection is something you created either with the Pen Tool or the Shape Tool that can
allow you to create new layers or masks that allow for fully controllable selections.
Direct Selection Tool selects and moves existing path's / vector shape mask's segments / anchor
points.
Shape Tools allow you to add graphic shapes in the form of a filled layer with a vector mask, a solid
fill, or as a path outline. Using the shape tools, you can draw rectangular, rounded rectangular,
elliptical, polygon, line or custom shapes.
Hand Tool allows you to move your image around its window by dragging. This tool is great when
navigating while zoomed in.
Zoom Tool is very versatile and allows you to zoom in and out of an image in many different ways.
You can even have different views of the same document open at once, with different zoom levels!
Canvas or Drawing Canvas is the area in which you will create and/or modify images. By default,
Photoshop gives you a drawing canvas to work with.
In Photoshop, Layers are used to work on individual parts of an image while not affecting other
parts. You might say that layers are like transparency papers stacked on top of one another which
can be repositioned and separately drawn on without disturbing each other.
Bounding Box is a rectangular border around an image, shape, or text that you can drag to move,
transform, rotate, or scale.
Free Transform allows you to rotate, scale (resize), reflect (mirror image), shear (slant), or distort
an object. In addition, you can apply perspective and distortion to an object.
Photoshop is a graphics program used to design and edit graphics for both Windows and
Macintosh platforms. Photoshop can be used to add special effects to an image, correct color and
image flaws, and even remove parts of an image from a background.