Articles by Web Editor | Page 5

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.

August 4th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (3)

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.

August 1st, 2008 | 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.

July 31st, 2008 | 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.

July 30th, 2008 | 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.

July 29th, 2008 | 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.

July 28th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Getting Before And After Previews

If you’re applying a correction filter, such as the Unsharp Mask filter, you can get a before and after view of your image even before you click the OK button (and then press Command-Z [PC: Control-Z] to undo/redo the filter). Instead, click-and-hold on the preview box inside the Unsharp Mask filter. When you click-and-hold, you get the before preview in the window; when you release the mouse button, it shows you how the image will look with the filter applied. Pretty handy. If you need to see the full preview onscreen, you can toggle the Preview checkbox on or off. Another tip is to hold the Command or Option (PC: Control or Alt) button while in a filter dialog, and then your cursor changes into the Zoom tool. You can then zoom in or out in your preview window by clicking within it.

July 25th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

More Curve Point Quick Tips

When you’re working in Curves (Command-M [PC: Control-M]), once you’ve plotted a curve point, you can rotate over to the next point in your curve by pressing Control-Tab (PC: Right-click-Tab). To rotate back to the previous point, add the Shift key to make it Shift-Control-Tab (PC: Shift–Right-click-Tab). If you’ve got one or more points selected and want to deselect all your points, just press Command-D (PC: Control-D) to release all your points.

July 24th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Once You’re In CMYK Mode, Stay There

You’ve read some techniques in this chapter that require you to be in either RGB mode or Lab Color mode; however, if for any reason your image is already in CMYK mode, do not (I repeat, do not) convert to RGB or Lab mode for any reason. Once you’ve converted to CMYK mode, the data loss from the conversion has already occurred, and switching back to RGB mode won’t bring back those lost colors. What’s worse is, if you switch from CMYK to RGB (or Lab), when you convert back to CMYK mode, you’ll go through another CMYK conversion and damage your image even more. The moral of this story is-once you’re in CMYK mode, stay there.

July 23rd, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

How To Read Four Areas At Once

Photoshop’s Color Sampler tool lets you sample up to four different color readings from within your image at the same time. The cool thing is, anytime you have one of Photoshop’s paint tools (Brush, Pencil, etc.), you can instantly access the Color Sampler by holding Shift-Option (PC: Shift-Alt). Click to add a color sampler and the Info palette immediately pops up to show you the reading. Each time you add a sampler, the Info palette expands to show that reading (leaving your earlier readings still visible). To delete any sampler, press Shift-Option (PC: Shift-Alt) again and just move the cursor back over the sampler and it will change into a pair of scissors. Click right on the sampler in your image to delete it. (Hint: You have to click directly on the sampler or it won’t work, and this doesn’t work for all painting tools.)

July 22nd, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

How To Sharpen Flesh Tones In CMYK

When you’re sharpening CMYK images, one of the toughest areas to sharpen are the flesh tones. Oftentimes, because of the soft nature of skin, you’ll need a lot of sharpening, which can introduce noise and color shifts, particularly in flesh tone areas. One tip that’s often used to combat this is to apply your sharpening to just the Cyan channel in the Channels palette in images where flesh tone is the focal point (such as in portraits).

July 21st, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

RGB Flesh Tones: Getting The “Red” Out

If you’re working on an RGB image and you’ve done your basic color correction but the flesh tone in your image still seems too red (a common problem), here’s a tip to fix it fast. First, select the flesh tone areas in your image (using the Lasso tool, etc.). Add a slight feather by going under the Select menu and choosing Feather. Enter a 1-pixel feather for low-res images; 3-5 pixels for high-res images. Go under the Image menu, under Adjustments, and choose Hue/Saturation. From the Edit pop-up menu, choose Reds. Now lower the Saturation slider until your skin tones look more natural and click OK.

July 17th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Apply Unsharp Mask To CMYK Images

If you’ve already converted your image to CMYK mode and you want to quickly sharpen your image without introducing color shifts or halos, go to the Channels palette (under the Window menu), click on the Black channel, and apply your Unsharp Mask there. Applying the filter just to the Black channel will enable you to apply a higher level of sharpening without damaging the image.

July 16th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Adjusting Curve Points With Precision

Once you’ve plotted a point on a curve in the Curves dialog (Command-M [PC: Control-M]), you can adjust these points by clicking-and-dragging them, but many people find it easier to plot the point by using the Up/Down Arrow keys on their keyboard. This adjusts the Output of the point in increments of 2. To adjust the Input, use the Left/Right Arrow keys. To make larger moves, hold the Shift key while using the Arrow keys and your points will move in increments of 15.

July 15th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Are You Really Seeing Your Sharpening?

When you apply sharpening to your image using the Unsharp Mask filter (under Filter, choose Sharpen), make certain that when you apply it, you’re viewing the image at 100% size. Most other views won’t give you an accurate view of how the sharpening is really affecting the image. To make sure you’re viewing at 100%, just double-click the Zoom tool in the Toolbox.

July 14th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

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