Photoshop Tutorial : A visual overview of the toolbox

Just like an artist’s work table, the toolbox - the long, narrow palette on the far left side of the work area in Photoshop - contains the tools you'll use to draw, paint, erase, and do a myriad of other things whilst working on your image. There are several distinct categories of tools in Photoshop's toolbox:

• Selection tools

• Painting and editing tools

• Vector drawing and Text tools

• Foreground and background colour selection boxes

• Viewing tools

When you let your mouse hover over any tool in the toolbox, you will see a tooltip which lets you know the name of the tool and the tool's keyboard shortcut. It's worth making a concious effort to learn the shortcuts as it speeds up your work enormously. Some of the shortcuts are really easy to remember such as Z for the Zoom tool or E for the Eraser.

Whenever you see a little arrow on the bottom right of a tool in Photoshop (or any Adobe application for that matter), it means there are other “hidden” tool choices. Hidden tools are accessed by clicking and holding on any tool that contains a small black triangle, located in the lower-right corner of the tool. It can sometimes be hard to find that one tool you're looking for because it's hidden under a fly-out menu icon.

The illustrations below show an overview of the toolbox, with each tool available and its shortcut key

Selection Tools


Retouching Tools

Painting Tools

Vector drawing and Text Tools



Annotation, Measuring and Navigation Tools

Colour Tools

Other Tools