Computer Skills World: December 2016

Saturday, 31 December 2016

Photoshop Skills

Photoshop is a raster graphics design and editor software. It is an handy tool for graphics designing and photography.

Getting Started With Photoshop

The best way to quickly build your Photoshop skills is to first study the software environment or interface. This will enable you to get yourself familiar with its tools and other components of the software.

Photoshop Tools

Photoshop has some great tools that you will enjoy using once you get to know their functions.

The various Photoshop tools are described below:

Marquee Tool

This Photoshop tool can be used to make selections that are single row, single column, rectangular or elliptical and the selected can then be edited without affecting the rest of the image.

Lasso Tool

This tool is the freehand version of the marquee tool. It is used to make a custom selection by drawing the selection by freehand.

Shape Tools

Photoshop have different tyoes of shape tools such as polygons, rectangles, rounded rectangles, and ellipses.

Measuring and Navigation Tools

Photoshop tools that fall in this category are: Eyedropper tool, Handtool, and Zoom tool.
The eyedropper tool is use to select a color from an area of an image and samples it for future use.
The zoom tool is use to enlarge the part of an image to have a closer view.
The hand tool is use to pan an image by moving it in any direction.

Pen Tool

This tool creates precise paths that
can be manipulated using anchor points.

Eraser Tool

This Photoshop tool is used to erase content on an active layer.

Moving Tool

This Photoshop tool can be used to highlight a part of an image and manually relocate the selected piece to anywhere on the canvas. It can also be used to drag the entirety of a layer.

Cropping Tool

This Photoshop tool can be used to select a particular area of an image to save that selected portion and discard the portions outside the selection.

Magic Wand Tool

This Photoshop tool selects areas of an image based on pixels of similar values. A single click will select all neighboring pixels of similar value within a pre-set tolerance level.

Clone Stamp Tool

Photoshop Clone Stamp tool is use for duplicating objects or removing a defect in an image. It is use to colour one part of an image over another part of the same image. This same is true for any document or layer.

Selection Tools

Photoshop selection tools are used to select all or part of an image to perform retouching operations on it or copy the image.

Slicing Tool

Photoshop slice tool is used to divide an image into different sections. It is very useful in website design and development where the separate parts of a sliced image can be used as pieces of a web page by applying HTML and CSS to them.

Photoshop File Format

The default file format of Photoshop is PSD (PhotoShop Document). Others are JPG and GIF.

What You can Do with Photoshop

You can use Photoshop in retouching or editing an image (Photography) or in create custom images (Graphics design).

If you want to quickly build your Photoshop skills, you can check out my Photoshop book which is available in Amazon.

Photoshop Fundamental: The
How of Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is good graphic software that you can easily learn and use most especially if you already have a basic knowledge of computer. With Photoshop, you can design graphics, edit pictures, create animation, and do paint work. You can then output your work as a .PSD, JPEG, PDF,or GIF and many other formats.

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Thursday, 15 December 2016

How To Use Microsoft Word to Format Your Manuscript as an eBook

Some indie authors who are techy use Sigi or Calibre softwares to format their manuscrips for publishing as an eBook which requires the knowledge of HTML and CSS. But many still prefer using Microsoft Word to format their manuscript for publishing as an eBook and then save it as a .doc document or .docx document. If you are the type that prefer this second option, then this Will surely interest you.

As an indie author, properly formatting and editing your manuscript should be your highest priority. To do this rightly, the following guides will be of great help to you in professionally formatting your manuscript to acceptable standard of major eBook publishing and distribution platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct, Smashwords and Google books.

eBook Formatting Tips

Once your book is well written and properly formatted, you will surely get good feedback from readers in the form of sales and positive reviews.

Save the manuscript in Microsoft word as a .doc document (Save As 1997-2003).

Properly edit and proof read, as well as removing all tab and spacebar spaces. To do this, ON the Show/Hide MS word feature to guide you.

Create and use custom styles to format the front and end matter of your book.

You can directly apply Bold, Italics, and Underline where necessary.

Create the working Table Of Content using the Bookmarking method which converts well in both Smashwords and Amazon KDP Direct unlike inserting table of content through Reference menu which is not acceptable in Smashwords.

Simulate the eBook with your smart phone device to have a feel of it. If you are convinced it is great, congrats.

Spread the news of your book being live on your published platforms.

Start implementing your planned promotional strategies.

Good luck. You now know the basic tips to get your manuscript professionally formatted using Microsoft Word.
The next thing is to apply this eBook formatting knowledge in formatting your next book.
If you recently published à title, then it is time to start work on your next book too.

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You can check out this my new book on how to hack through eBook publishing and marketing skills which is live on Amazon.