Articles by Web Editor - Page 26

Get Back Your Background Layer

Lost your Background layer? It happens. It’s heartbreaking, but it happens. If you suddenly find yourself staring at a Layers palette and there’s no Background layer (chances are you accidentally converted your Background layer into a regular layer), here’s how to get a Background layer again: Click on the Create a New Layer icon, then go under the Layer menu, under New, and choose Background From Layer, and Photoshop will take your new blank layer and create a solid white Background layer at the bottom of your layer stack.

March 6th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Getting Better EPS Previews

Problem: The image looked great in Photoshop, but now that you’ve converted it to CMYK, saved the file as a TIFF, and placed it into QuarkXPress, InDesign, PageMaker, etc., the image looks awful—way oversaturated and totally whacked. Reason: The preview of CMYK TIFFs just looks like that, so don’t freak out—if it looked right in Photoshop, it should print fine. Okay, what if you saved the file as an EPS, and when you place the image into your page-layout app, the color of the image looks okay, but it’s not crisp and clear, but pixelated. Reason: By default, the preview embedded within EPS images is a lame 256-color preview. Solution: When you choose Save As (from the File menu), choose Photoshop EPS in the Format pop-up menu, and click Save, the EPS Options dialog will appear. In the Preview pop-up menu, choose JPEG. That way, it sends a 24-bit, full-color preview, rather than the lame 256-color preview.

March 5th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Do You Have Enough RAM? Ask Photoshop

Not sure if you have enough RAM? Just ask Photoshop. Believe it or not, it can tell you. Here’s how: Open a document that’s indicative of the type of image you normally work on. Work on the image, doing typical stuff, for about 10 minutes. Along the bottom left-hand corner of your document window, just to the right of the current document magnification readout, is the status bar. By default, it’s set to display your document’s file size, but if you click-and-hold on the right-facing triangle to the right of it, a pop-up menu of options will appear. Choose Show, then Efficiency. If the percentage shown is 100%, you’re gold, baby! That means that Photoshop is running at peak efficiency, because 100% of the time your image manipulations are being handled in RAM. If the efficiency number shown is, say, 75%, this means that 25% of the time, Photoshop ran out of RAM and had to use free hard drive space to make up for it, which means Photoshop ran much slower 25% of the time. An efficiency of 75% is pretty much as low as you want it to go. If it shows anything less than 75%, it’s time to buy more RAM. Pronto!

March 2nd, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Unlocking The Background Layer

Can’t move the Background layer? That’s because back in Photoshop 6.0, Adobe locked the Background layer from movement. That wouldn’t be so bad, except that if you look at the top of the Layers palette, you can see that “Yup, the checkbox to lock movement is turned on,” but the frustrating part is that it’s also grayed out, so you can’t simply uncheck it to unlock it. The only way around this is to double-click on the Background, which brings up the New Layer dialog. Click OK, and your Background layer becomes Layer 0 and is unlocked. Now you can move it.

March 1st, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Let’s Do The Text Warp Again

I get more people than you can “stick a shake at” asking me about this problem. If you go to use Photoshop’s Warped Text function, you might get a warning that states, “Could not complete your request because the type layer uses a faux bold style.” A faux bold style? What in the wide world of sports is that? Actually, it’s a feature of Photoshop (that was introduced back in version 5.0) that lets you create a fake (faux) bold or italic type style for fonts that don’t really have a bold or italic type style. It’s toggled on/off in the Character palette’s flyout menu. In Photoshop 7.0, Adobe added the option in the warning dialog to “Remove attribute and continue.” All you have to do is click OK to remove the faux bold and now you can warp your text. Life is good.

February 28th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Do You Have Enough RAM? Ask Photoshop

Not sure if you have enough RAM? Just ask Photoshop. Believe it or not, it can tell you. Here’s how: Open a document that’s indicative of the type of image you normally work on. Work on the image, doing typical stuff, for about 10 minutes. Along the bottom left-hand corner of your document window, just to the right of the current document magnification readout, is the status bar. By default, it’s set to display your document’s file size, but if you click-and-hold on the right-facing triangle to the right of it, a pop-up menu of options will appear. Choose Show, then Efficiency. If the percentage shown is 100%, you’re gold, baby! That means that Photoshop is running at peak efficiency, because 100% of the time your image manipulations are being handled in RAM. If the efficiency number shown is, say, 75%, this means that 25% of the time, Photoshop ran out of RAM and had to use free hard drive space to make up for it, which means Photoshop ran much slower 25% of the time. An efficiency of 75% is pretty much as low as you want it to go. If it shows anything less than 75%, it’s time to buy more RAM. Pronto!

February 27th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Stop The Crop Snapping

Problem: When you’re trying to crop an image using the Crop tool (C), your cropping border tries to snap to the edges of your document window. This might also be happening when drawing large Marquee selections as well. Solution: Press Command-Shift-; (PC: Control-Shift-;), which is the shortcut for turning off this snapping. The only downside is it turns off all snapping (like Snap To Guides, Snap To Grid, etc.). If you just want the Crop snapping (or Marquee snapping) off, go under the View menu, under Snap To, and choose Document Bounds, and your tools will no longer try to snap to your, well, document bounds.

February 26th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

How To Use RGB Filters On Grayscale Images

If you’re working on grayscale images, you’ll find there are some Photoshop filters that won’t work (they’re grayed out, so you can’t access them). Of course, it’s always the really cool filters, such as Lens Flare and Lighting Effects, that are grayed out. But don’t be dismayed (in fact, be “mayed”) because you can still use those filters—just switch to RGB mode (it’s found under the Image menu, under Mode), apply the filters, then switch back to Grayscale mode. It won’t affect the color of your image because, well, there is no color—you’re working on a grayscale image. Switching to RGB doesn’t suddenly pour color onto your image; your grayscale image will still look grayscale in RGB. When you switch back to Grayscale mode (after applying the filters), you’ll get a warning asking, “Discard color information?” You can safely click OK, because after all, there was no color to begin with.

February 23rd, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Get Print Resolution From Your Digital Camera Images

Problem: You imported an image from your digital camera and although the physical dimensions of the image are rather large, the resolution shows up as only 72 ppi. How can you get enough resolution to print this image? Solution: Go under the Image menu and choose Image Size. Turn off Resample Image, then in the Resolution field, type the resolution you need for the specific device you’ll be printing to. When you do this, Photoshop will automatically input the Height and Width that would result from using that resolution (the image size will definitely be smaller—the higher the resolution needed, the smaller the physical dimensions of your image). All you have to do is click OK and Photoshop will do the math, creating an image in the new smaller size, with the new higher resolution. The good news is that by doing it this way, there’s absolutely no loss of quality to the file whatsoever.

February 22nd, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

The Reappearing/Disappearing Brush Tip

This one gets more people because it’s a feature that acts like a bug. Has this ever happened to you? You’re working in Photoshop, you’re using the Brush tool (B), and everything seems fine. But a little later in your session, you get the Brush tool again, and it no longer displays the size of the currently selected brush tip. Instead, it displays a little crosshair cursor. So you go to the Preferences menu and choose Display & Cursors, and sure enough, you’ve got Normal Brush Tip chosen as your preference, but for some strange reason, it’s not showing your brush size; it’s showing that stupid crosshair. Here’s the problem: Check your Caps Lock key. It’s turned on, and turning it on changes your Brush cursor from displaying brush size to displaying the crosshair. This is actually a feature to be used when you need to see the precise center of your brush. The problem is it’s assigned to the Caps Lock key, so every time you turn on Caps Lock when you’re working with type, you just temporarily switched your Brush cursor (or any cursor for that matter). Does Adobe need to find a better key for this feature/bug? You betcha! Will it happen? Not as far as I know.

February 21st, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (5)

Putting Your Lens Flare On The Spot

This tip lets you precisely position the center of the Lens Flare filter by using the Info palette and a little-known feature of the Lens Flare dialog. First, open the Info palette (found under the Window menu), then put your cursor over the precise spot in your image where you’d like the center of your lens flare to appear. Look in the Info palette, under the X and Y coordinates, and write down those two coordinates (I knew one day I’d find a use for the X and Y coordinate readings). Then go under the Filter menu, under Render, and choose Lens Flare. There’s a fairly large preview window in the center of the dialog. Hold the Option key (PC: Alt key), click once on the preview window, and it brings up the Precise Flare Center dialog. Enter those X and Y coordinates you wrote down earlier (you did write them down, right?), click OK, and your lens flare is precisely positioned.

February 20th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Locking A PDF Presentation

If you’re using Photoshop to create a PDF Presentation slide show (under the Automate submenu in the File menu) so you can email it to your clients for proofing, one of your concerns may be that your client will just print your photos out to a photo-quality printer, leaving you out in the cold (so to speak). But you can pull the plug on their printing aspirations. When saving your PDF Presentation, under Output Options, choose Presentation, then hit Save. It’ll ask you to name your PDF presentation (you’re not done yet), so name it and click Save. Then, a PDF options dialog will appear. Under Security (in the options along the left side), turn on the checkbox for Use a Password to Restrict Printing, Editing and Other Tasks under Permissions. Enter (and memorize) a password. Then, make sure Printing Allowed and Changes Allowed are set to None. Click Save PDF and it’ll ask for your password one more time. Now, when you email the PDF Presentation, printing will be grayed out, and even if they have the full version of Acrobat, they won’t be able to copy-and-paste your photos into something else for printing.

February 19th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Speeding Up Batch Actions

If you’re running a Batch action on a folder full of images, one of the things that can really slow the process down is the fact that the History palette keeps creating History States (undos) for each image. To keep your Batch actions running at full speed, there are two things you can do: In the History palette’s flyout menu, under History Options, turn off the checkbox for Automatically Create First Snapshot. Secondly, go under the Photoshop menu, under Preferences, and choose General (in Windows, Preferences can be found under the Edit menu). In the History States field, lower the number from 20 (the default) to 2 and click OK, then your Batch will run like a greased pig. Don’t forget to increase your History States or change your History Options back after you’re done batching or you’ll be down to two undos.

February 16th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Stroking Half A Path - Half A Path????

This is a mind-blowing advanced tip (not because it’s hard—it’s simple—but if you use the Pen tool [P], warning—your mind is about to spontaneously combust). Here’s the scoop: If you’re an advanced user, you already know that you can draw a path and then apply a stroke along that path (using the paint tool of your choice) by choosing Stroke Path from the Paths palette’s flyout menu. But dig this: If you draw your path, but only want to stroke a portion of that path, all you have to do is make a selection (using the any selection tool) of the part of the path you want stroked. Then when you choose Stroke Path, it will only stroke the area of your path that is contained within your selection. Boom! That was the sound of our heads exploding.

February 15th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Measure Twice, Look Once

If you need to measure more than one side of an object (for example, if you’re measuring a box, and you need the height and width), you can measure both at the same time. First, open the Info palette under the Window menu (so you can see the measurements that the Measure tool generates), then get the Measure tool (Shift-I until it comes up) and click-and-drag it along the first edge. Release the mouse when you reach the end of the edge. Then hold the Option key (PC: Alt key), click on the end of the first line, and continue on in a different direction. You’ll notice that another measurement line appears. Now, look in the Info palette and you’ll see your two measurements listed under D1 and D2.

February 14th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)