Articles by Web Editor | Page 9

Copy A Layer In The Same Location In Another Document

To make a copy of your current layer and have it appear in the exact location in a different Photoshop document, Control-click (PC: Right-click) on the layer in the Layers palette that you want to copy, and choose Duplicate Layer. When the Duplicate Layer dialog appears, choose the Destination from the Document pop-up menu, and click OK.

March 20th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Instant Opacity Change

Anytime you want to change the Opacity of the layer you’re currently working on, just switch to the Move tool (V) and press a number key on your keyboard: 4 = 40% Opacity, 5 = 50% Opacity, etc. If you want an exact percentage, such as 52%, then type 52. (Note: You have to type quickly, or you’ll get 50%, then 20%.)

March 19th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

More Control Over Blends: Advanced Blending

Using Blend Modes is a great way to get the layer you’re on to interact with the layers beneath it. The only problem is you don’t have much control over these blend modes-—they either look the way you want them to, or not. They’re pretty much an “on” or “off” tool. If you’re looking for that next level of control over how layers interact with each other, you need the advanced Blending Options. These are found by double-clicking in the empty space just to the right of the layer’s name in the Layers palette. What appears onscreen looks like the Layer Style dialog (and in fact, it is), but if you look closely, you’ll see two bars with sliders at the bottom of the dialgo giving you control over how your layered images interact. Here’s another quick tip: If you hold the Option key (PC: Alt key) before you drag one of the sliders, it will split the slider in two, which gives you smoother transitions and more usable blend effects.

March 18th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Turn Your Layer Comps Into Their Own Docs

If you’re using layer comps to compare different layouts within the same image, you can share these comps with people not on your network (or without access to your computer) by creating a separate document for each layer comp. This makes it easier to email them, and easier for your recipient to view them. Luckily, you don’t have to do this all manually; just go under the File menu, under Scripts, and choose Layer Comps To Files.

March 17th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Applying Layer Styles To Your Background Layer

How do you apply a layer style to your Background layer? You can’t. That is, unless you double-click on your Background layer. This brings up the New Layer dialog where you can rename your Background layer, and when you do, it turns into a regular layer. Now you can apply layer styles to your heart’s content. Want an even faster way? Just hold the Option key (PC: Alt key) and double-click, then you won’t get the dialog at all—it will just convert it into a new layer named Layer 0.

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

Why Dragging-And-Dropping Styles Rocks!

You probably already know that you can apply styles to an image from the Styles palette, and you may even know that rather than just clicking on them, you can drag-and-drop these styles right from the palette straight onto your current layer. But what’s the advantage of dragging-and-dropping? Isn’t it actually harder to drag-and-drop, rather than just clicking once? The advantage is that you can drag-and-drop styles to any layer, not just your currently active layer. You can also drag-and-drop effects between different open documents.

March 13th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Hide Your Other Layers In The Blink Of An Eye

To hide an individual layer, click on the Eye icon in the first column next to that layer in the Layers palette. To make the layer visible again, click on the spot where the Eye icon used to be. If you want to keep one layer visible and hide all the others, hold the Option key (PC: Alt key) and click on the Eye icon beside the layer you want to keep visible. To make the other layers visible again, repeat the process.

March 12th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Toggle Through The Blend Modes

When I’m struggling to get just the right effect by changing the layer blend modes, it’s great to be able to rotate through each mode without having to go back to the layer blend mode pop-down menu every time. To do this, simply switch to the Move tool (V), then press Shift–+ (Plus Sign). Every time you press it, it goes to the next blend mode.

March 11th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Lock All Those Layers In Just One Click

You can lock all of your linked layers at once by choosing Select Linked Layers from the Layers palette’s flyout menu, then choosing Lock Layers from the same menu. They’ll kick and scratch for a while, but they’ll eventually calm right down.

March 10th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Avoiding The Layer Menu

Once you’ve applied a layer style to a layer, if you need to access some related commands that are in the Layer menu, you don’t need to go up to the menu bar and go digging through the submenus. Instead, Control-click (PC: Right-click) on the little “ƒ” icon that appears to the right of your layer’s name in the Layers palette. A contextual menu will appear with most of the Layer Style menu commands right at your fingertips—without the searching and digging through menus.

March 7th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Missing Your Background Layer? Here’s The Fix

If you’re opening new documents and they don’t have a Background layer, there’s a reason (of course there’s a reason, everything has a reason; we just happen to know what it is). The reason is that you’ve selected the Transparent option in the New document dialog. That seems like a reasonable thing to do; everybody wants transparency, right? However, what it tells Photoshop is “Don’t worry about creating a Background layer.” To get Background layers again, the next time you’re in the New dialog, under Background Contents, make sure you choose White, and from then on, you’ll have Background layers in your documents.

March 5th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Opening Layered Files Without All The Layers

If you have a large multilayered file, you know it can take a while to open, and that’s fine—it’s part of working with large files. But sometimes you’re not going to actually work on the file, and you just want to open it, take a quick look at it, and then close it (maybe you just want to see if it’s the version of the file you’re looking for). So why waste time opening a huge multilayered file if you just want to take a quick look? Well, you don’t have to—just go under the File menu, choose Open, and navigate to the layered file, but before you click the Open button, hold Option-Shift (PC: Alt-Shift). By holding those two keys down before you choose Open, it opens a flattened version of your layered file. Pretty darn slick.

March 4th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (2)

Opening Layered Files Without All The Layers

March 3rd, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Turning Your Layers Into Separate Documents

If you have a multilayered document and want to turn each layer into its own separate document, just go under the File menu, under Scripts, and choose Export Layers To Files.

February 29th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Jump To Any Layer Just By Clicking In Your Image

You can jump to any layer in your document without going to the Layers palette. Press V to switch to the Move tool. Now, press-and-hold the Command key (PC: Control key), and click on an object in your image that you want, and you’ll instantly jump to that object’s layer.

February 28th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

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Photoshop Tutorials

Design Effects
Corey shows how to use the luminosity of an image to create a cool design effect and spice up your simple photos.
Stylized Comic Book Effect
Using this effect, you can transform anyone into a comic book character with a halftone, saturated look.
Text Shape Layers
Converting text into shapes allows you to distort the text as you like while retaining straight, clean edges.
Borders Under a Minute
Create really cool borders in under a minute to use on virtually any one of your photos or even video for that matter.

Halftone Smudge Brush

Here is an unusual way of using the Smudge tool to generate interesting halftone streaks.
Scale Effects

Now this is something that still seems to stump people in Photoshop when it come to Layer Styles.
Energize That Photo

Learn how to add excitement and energy to your photo in just a few simple steps.
Design Elements from Photos

Here is a cool way to use parts of you photos as abstract design elements.

Acrobat 9 PDF Security
In this tutorial, learn about applying and removing security options in Acrobat 9
Creating CSS Columns in Dreamweaver
In this video tutorial, RC talks about creating columns and headers using Dreamweaver. createObject('swf','/design/players/swfplayer.swf?video=videos/rc_create_css_columns.flv&pre=videos/pread.flv&post=videos/postad.flv','width','500','height','415','scale','exactfit','quality','high','allowScriptAccess','sameDomain','bgcolor','#ffffff'); This video requires Adobe Flash Player.
Premiere Pro CS4 Nest Command
In this video, Franklin McMahon uses Premiere Pro CS4 to create a nested sequence and then overlay it over a backdrop.
Roundtrip Logo From Illustrator to Photoshop
Dave Cross creates some grungy text using graphics with a texture image.

Imageready’s Supercharged Eyedropper

In previous versions of Photoshop, you could only use the Eyedropper tool to sample a color from other open images in Photoshop, but for some reason, ImageReady had a supercharged Eyedropper. If you clicked the mouse button within your image and held it down, you could leave your image window and sample colors from, well… just about anything—including your computer desktop or any other open application. Freaky! Fortunately, Adobe finally added this same power to Photoshop’s Eyedropper tool.