THE BARTLETT SCHOOL OF PLANNING

Graphic Skills Lab

Handout series

Adobe Photoshop
BSP GRAPHIC SKILLS LAB | Handouts Series

Graphic Skills Lab

The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL
Coordinators
Valentina Giordano
Dimitrios Panayotopoulos-Tsiros

Development assistant
Irene Manzini Ceinar

Advisors
Dr Juliana Martins, Director of Education, Bartlett School of Planning
Dr Jess Ferm, Director for Undergraduate Programmes
Dr Ben Clifford, Director for Postgraduate Programmes
Dr Pablo Sendra, Programme Director for MSc Urban Design and City Planning
Dr Michael Short, Programme Director for MPlan City Planning
Prof Matthew Carmona, Professor of Planning and Urban Design
BUPS – Bartlett Urban Planning Society (Established in 2012, the Bartlett Urban Planning Society
(BUPS) is a student-run organisation, subsumed under the Bartlett School of Planning (BSP).
BUPS represents, reinforces and protects the interests of planning students while inspiring the
community-at-large of our role in the Built Environment.)
 Handouts Series | BSP GRAPHIC SKILLS LAB

CONTENTS
1. Introduction 4

2. Adding texture/objects to your map 4

3. Overlay a texture to your file 5

4. Scale an item 6

5. Duplicate an item 6
6. Combining layers 6
7. Adjust transparency 6
8. Adjust the colour 7
9. Remove the background
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10. Export and combine your file
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BSP GRAPHIC SKILLS LAB | Handouts Series

1. Introduction 2. Adding textures and

objects to your map
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor
and design programme used in urban design
1. Find textures that you want to use online
and planning to (i) create and modify raster
and save the images to a folder or to your
graphics, such as collages, photos, and any
desktop.
pixel-based work; (ii) Add textures, effects etc.
to maps/diagrams created using Illustrator, • You will most likely want to use
SketchUp etc. “png” files to add to your map. As
stated earlier, the background will be
The key skills of Adobe Photoshop (PS) are:
transparent instead of white.
• Selection tools
• For example to find grass: type “grass
• Using layers / Blending /Opacity /Masks texture” into Google images. Ensure
• Importing images and other external that the files you find are high quality.
sources In the Google Images search, ensure
that you go to Tools > File size > Large
• Brushes
• For trees you can use PNG files so that
• Linking back-and-forth between Ps - Ai - Id the background is removed. Search
“tree png”. Ensure file size is Large
The next steps will add various features to your 2. Open these new images in Photoshop and
map such as trees and grass using The steps copy them into the map file. To copy: Select
can also be followed to create a photoshop the Rectangular Marquee Tool on the left
collage. sidebar. Drag the rectangle over your image
to select. Go to edit > copy (or command
First, to open a file with Photoshop, you can or
“c”)
drag and drop the file on the Photoshop (PS)
icon, or right click on the file and open in PS 3. Along the top bar, select your map file. To
paste the image into this file, go to edit >
paste (or command “v”)
• Each new object that is in the Photoshop
file will be a new layer. This is different
than Illustrator, where you can have
multiple objects on the same layer.

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 Handouts Series | BSP GRAPHIC SKILLS LAB

3. Overlay a texture to
pat of your map
This is if you want to overlay a texture to a 2. Now click on the new layer that your grass
certain area of the map, such as adding grass texture is on. The selected area will still
to the green layer. appear on this layer.
1. You will first select the area that you want 3. Select the Inverse to get rid of the excess
to add the grass to. texture. Click Select > Inverse (shortcut
• A. To do this, select the appropriate command “i”)
layer that the green is on in the layers 4. Hit Delete on your keyboard. Now your new
panel. texture should appear where the green on
• B. Next select the Magic wand tool the map was previously.
from the left sidebar (4th option down). 5. To deselect the area go to Select > deselect
This tool enables you to select all of (shortcut command “d”)p file will be a new
one color at a time. layer. This is different than Illustrator,
• C. At the top bar, make sure that where you can have multiple objects on the
“Contiguous” is checked. This will same layer.
ensure that all of the green is selected
at once, so you don’t have to select
each green patch individually.
• D. Then click the green on your map.

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BSP GRAPHIC SKILLS LAB | Handouts Series

4. Scale your item

You can transform each layer individually, for 4. Paste the object: edit > paste (shortcut
example you can have many trees that are command “v”
different sizes. 5. Move the object to the new location
1. Ensure that the correct layer is selected 6. Alternatively, you can duplicate a layer by
from the layers panel before you transform. right clicking on the layer name in the layer
2. To change the size of your object, click on panel, and select Duplicate layer
the object, go to Edit > Transform > Scale
(shortcut command “t”). Then drag the
corners to the appropriate scale. Hold shift 6. Combining layers
to lock the proportions of the item you are If you find there are too many layers to keep
transforming. track of, you can combine them into one layer.
• There are other ways transform the For example, you can put all your trees on one
image, such as warp or perspective. layer.
These work similarly, just drag the 1. On the layers panel, select the layers that
corners of the item and you will notice you want to combine holding the shift key.
the transformation.
2. Once they are all selected, right click (or
control click) and select Merge Layers.
3. Double click on the name to rename the
layer.

7. Adjust transparency
1. Select the appropriate layer
2. 2. In the layers panel at the top right, click
opacity and drag the slide bar

5. Duplicate your item

1. Select the name of the object on the layers
panel.
2. Select the object using the rectangular
marquee tool on the left
3. Copy the object: edit > copy (shortcut
command “c”

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 Handouts Series | BSP GRAPHIC SKILLS LAB

8. Adjust the colour of

a layer
There are many ways to adjust the colour 3. Click where you want the outline of the
of a layer. For example you can saturate or person to begin, and drag the mouse
desaturate the layer, you can add a colour around the whole person.
filter, or you can adjust the brightness. These • If you make a mistake as you are going
can all be found under adjustments. around, hit “ Delete ” and it will back up
1. Click Image > Adjustments > select to a previous point without having to
appropriate adjustment start over.
• You can add or subtract from the
9. Removing the back- selection holding “shift” to add, or
“option” to remove as you make
ground of an image another selection

This is if you have an image, but you only want

a portion of it for your graphic. For example, if 10. Export and combine
you find a person that you want in your collage,
but you need to remove the surroundings in
with Illustrator
the photo. It is typically easiest to keep the layers combined
1. Save the image that you want to use and in Illustrator because of its editability. These
open it in Photoshop. steps will show you how to export the layers
you need and open them back up into your
2. On the left, hold down the third button,
Illustrator map file.
Lasso Tool, and select the “magnetic lasso”
tool from the dropdown menu. This tool 1. First, turn off all of the layers that are
will cling to changes in colour in the photo. duplicated in the Illustrator file. This is
most likely everything except the grass and
trees. To do this, find the layers panel, and
unclick the eye to the left of the name of
the layer.
2. Save your file.
3. Open your Illustrator map. Create a new
layer with the appropriate name. To place
your new layer, go to File > place > select
the new file. When the file is place, ensure
that it is scaled to the rest of the drawing.
4. If you need to make changes to the
Photoshop layer, simply make the changes
in Photoshop and save. The Illustrator layer
will automatically update with the changes.
If it doesn’t by chance, go to Window >
Links, select the appropriate link, and then
click “update link.”
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THE BARTLETT
SCHOOL OF PLANNING