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....
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