How to Create a New File

If you want to use Photoshop to create a new image, you'll need to create a new file. This will create a blank canvas that you can add anything to. First, run Photoshop CS3. Inside Photoshop CS3, open the File menu and choose New.

Inside the menus, you may sometimes see a hotkey on the right of a menu item. A hotkey lets you access the command using a keyboard shortcut. For example, beside New is Ctrl+N. When you press Ctrl+N on your keyboard, it'll activate the New command just like choosing the File> New menu. Once you become more familiar with Photoshop CS3, you'll find these hotkeys useful tool for speeding up your workflow.

Once you've clicked new, a window will appear with many settings.

New File Settings

Preset

Choose a preset from the preset drop down menu. Select the preset that corresponds with your output size. For example, if you want to create a new image that will be printed on a 4x6 inch photo, you would select Photo. Or, if you would like to enter your own setting, you can select Custom.

Width and height

Lets pretend we're creating a banner that will be used on the Internet. The standard size for a web banner is 468x60 pixels so you would enter in 468 pixels as the width and 60 pixels ad the height. Note that whenever you modify any settings, the preset will change to Custom automatically.

Resolution

After we set the width and height, we need to set the resolution. We won't get into too much details in this first lesson but you'll need to remember two settings:

72 pixels/inch

Standard resolution for images that will be displayed on a standard computer monitor (i.e. image for web use)

300 pixels/inch

Color mode

There are five color mode settings you can choose from but there are two that you'll probably ever only use:

RGB Color

For images to be displayed on the Internet or RGB devices such as a monitor, cell phone, or iPod.

CMYK Color

For images that will be printed. This mode simulates the color used by printers (Cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) and usually displays duller color than RGB mode. This is caused by the subtractive color effect of printers where the color gets darker as more ink is added.

In addition to choosing RGB or CMYK color mode, you'll have to choose the bit depth of the image. Most of the time, you'll be using 8 bit color. This setting generally means how much tonal value and color it can display. For example, if you created an image of a gradient that fades from black to white, it will appear smoother in 16 bit compared to 8 bit.

However, that is not to say that you should always use the highest bit depth. That is because you don't always need it. For example, if you're creating an image for viewing on a computer monitor, you will not notice a difference between 8 bit and 16 bit due to the limited amount of values the computer monitor can display. If you are printing the image on a high quality printer, you may take advantage of 16 bit color to display more color.

When you use the 16 bit or 32 bit mode, many of Photoshop CS3's functions may become inactive because they are only compatible with 8 bit mode.

Background contents

The background contents setting let you choose what the background color for your image. There are three settings for you to choose from:

White

Uses white as the background color.

Background Color

Uses the background color already set as your background color. This has to be set before you choose File> New. To change this setting, click cancel to exit out of the New window. Look for the color pallet that looks like the image below and click on the bottom white square. A window will appear where you can select the color you wish to use as your background color. Once you're done you can choose File> New again and select Background Color as your setting and it'll create a new file with the background color you have just selected.

Transparent

Does not use a background color. Suitable if you will be creating images with transparent backgrounds such as GIF or PNG files.