Display The
Same Image In Two Windows
When doing detail work on an image you may
need to zoom in to take a closer look at the
pixels. But to make sure that any changes
you're making in this magnified state will
look realistic at a normal view you'll have
to zoom out for a quick look. Here's a great
tip - instead of zooming in and out you can
have the same image open in two windows at
the same time.
With an open image selected choose Window>
Arrange> New Window (the original file name
will be listed). The same image will now
appear in a new second window.
Keep one window set at 100% to see your
effects, and work in the second window -
either zoomed in or zoomed out.
Instant
Grabber Hand
Ever been frustrated by having to switch
tools to move your image around the canvas?
Here's the solution — Press the Spacebar to
temporarily activate the Hand Tool. Click to
move an image freely inside a canvas area
that is smaller than the image. Release the
Spacebar and the hand tool will revert back
to the current tool you have selected
Quick
Revert - The Undo Command
To undo your last image modification Press
Control+Z), and repeat the shortcut to undo
the undo. Toggling back and forth like this
is a good technique to review the before and
after effects of a one-step change to an
image, like dodge or burn
NOTE: Photoshop
has ONE undo level. Ctrl Z will revert /
repeat.
To go back further (more undo's) Press
Ctrl+Alt+Z to select history movements. In
this manner, you can undo back to any stage,
although difficult to hold hand around those
keys, but faster than individual selecting
history components.
The Move
Tool & The Arrow Keys
Get in the habit of calling up the Move Tool
with the keyboard shortcut, which is the
letter V. Also, once the Move Tool is active
you can use your Keyboard Arrow Keys to
nudge a layer or selection in 1 pixel
increments. To speed things up, Press Shift
along with an arrow key to nudge in 10 pixel
increments.
Important Tip:
Always stay in Move Tool Mode, safer between
steps of thoughts of creativity. Today, all
our graphic artists have developed the habit
of immediately switching tools to sit idle
in the Move Tool, less errors..
Drop Shadows
To
create lots of effects in PS, try this
technique.
1. In Illustrator, or Corel or similar,
select you vector image and put a color into
it. (eg Red)
2. If your vector file wont fill with color,
it may be that a node is not joined to make
an entire path.
3. In the drawing program, Illustrator or
Corel, Select the image and Export as .eps.
4. Then go to PS and open a new file to the
canvas size you want.
5. Go File | Place - Find your .eps file and
place into the file. Handles will allow you
move or resize or rotate the .eps file
6. Once you are happy with size or position,
click on any tool on the Tool menu, this
will prompt the file to be placed into your
doc.
From here, you can create a shadow, outline,
filter effect etc in Photoshop.
a) Double click the right side of the layer
name in the Layers Bar. This will open a new
window with lots of options. Choose Drop
Shadow, adjust the angles, click on the
color to change it and so on.
b) Another technique and better for
commercial output is to Duplicate the layer,
then lock the layer (transparency) then
press Alt-Delete to fill the pixels with
color. (Doing this method allows you to add
blends, noise, photos eg to the layer and
then turn it into a shadow with color.) This
will fill the layer except the protected
(locked) transparent pixels.
Then, unlock the layer. Go to Top Menu,
Filter, Gaussian Blur. Adjust size, opacity
etc.
7. Last step (optional) Right Click the
layer, choose 'Rasterize' Layer. This will
turn the layer into a true pixel format.
Another tip for using PS is to work in RGB
or CMYK and at last stages change your mode
to Indexed (gif). If your having trouble
with color, most probably it is you may be
in the wrong color mode. Top menu | Image |
Mode >rgb,cmyk,indexed.... |