Turn off or disable a layer mask

You can Shift-click on the Layer Mask thumbnail in the layers panel to turn off or disable the mask. You’ll see a red X appear over the mask icon in the Layers panel. The
mask is actually still there but it’s disabled. Shift-click on it again to enable it.

March 30th, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Bypass Camera Raw and go straight to Photoshop

If you’re in Bridge and you want to open a RAW photo without going through the Camera Raw dialog, just press-and-hold the Shift key and double-click on the image. It’ll bypass the Camera Raw dialog, apply the current settings to the photo, and open it in Photoshop.

March 27th, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Press-and-Hold Alt to Reset

If you ever want to get back to the original settings that your photo had when you opened it in the Camera Raw dialog, just press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key. You’ll see the Cancel button at the bottom right of the dialog change to Reset. Just click that and you’ll be taken back to the settings you had when you first opened the photo in Camera Raw.

March 26th, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Tinting a photo

Want a cool tint formula for a black and white? First, when you’re in Camera Raw, go to the HSL/Grayscale tab and turn on the Convert to Grayscale checkbox.

Then, go to the next panel to the right (Split Toning) and use this formula:

• Highlights: Hue=37, Saturation=24
• Shadows: Hue=40, Saturation=26

Go ahead and try it. It works especially well on urban still life photos.

I can’t explain it, but it just looks cool.

March 25th, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (2)

Straightening Based on a Vertical surface

Camera Raw has a Straighten tool to straighten your photos. What a lot of people don’t know is that if you don’t have a perfectly horizontal surface, such as a horizon line, to straighten your photos with, you can click-and-drag along any vertical surface. See, horizontal surfaces aren’t always perfectly horizontal because of perspective. However, a vertical surface is always vertical, so it’s a good guideline to go by.

March 24th, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Opening a JPEG in Raw

Starting with Camera Raw 4.1, you can now open and process JPEG photos in the Adobe Camera Raw dialog. If you’re in Bridge, select a JPEG photo that you want to edit. Then go to the File menu and choose Open in Camera Raw. You can also just press Command-R (PC: Ctrl-R) instead of going through the menu.

March 23rd, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Sharpening with Alt/Option key

Camera Raw 4.1 introduced some killer new sharpening sliders that let you get a lot more sharpening work done before you ever even get into Photoshop. One cool trick when using the sliders is to press-and-hold the Alt (PC: Option) key when you drag them. This lets you see a grayscale image preview of that specific sharpening setting.

March 20th, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Before and After in Camera Raw

As you work on a photo in Camera Raw, you’re undoubtedly going to want to see what it looks like in comparison to the original. Well, Camera Raw doesn’t really have a side-by-side preview, but here’s the next best thing: When you’re in Camera Raw, there’s a Preview checkbox at the top right of the image preview. You can turn it on to see your changes or turn it off to see the before view of your photo. However, that’s kind of lame. Instead, just hit the letter P to toggle the preview on and off.

March 19th, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Turn Layers into Separate Documents

If you’ve created a multi-layered document and you’d like to create separate documents from those layers, there’s an automated way to do this. From the File menu, choose Scripts>Export Layers to Files. A dialog will appear offering you many options, including which format you want to use, file naming, etc.

March 18th, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Applying a Layer Style to a Layer Group

You can apply a layer style to a layer group. Simply convert the layer group to a Smart Object by clicking on the group, then choosing Convert to Smart Object from the Layers panel’s flyout menu, and all of the layer styles will be available to you.

March 17th, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)