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Tip of the Day | Page 13

 

KICK IT UP A NOTCH WITH SMART FILTER MASKING

You can selectively show or hide any of the filters that you have applied to a Smart Object by painting on the mask for the Smart Filter (just click on the Smart Filter’s thumbnail, select the Brush tool, and paint with black). This takes your creativity to a completely different level.

May 25th, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

GET ON THE GRID, PT 2

Conversely, if you read the previous tip and found the functionality to be extremely annoying don’t sweat it – you’re not alone. That’s why Adobe gave us the ability to turn off the pixel grid. Just click the View menu and go under Show. Click on Pixel Grid to turn it off. If you ever want it back on just go to the same place to enable it again.

May 24th, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

GET ON THE GRID

If you zoom in to 600% or above in CS5, Photoshop automatically shows you a small grid around your pixels called the pixel grid. It assumes that since you’re zooming in so far you want to work at the pixel level. This makes it easier to visualize your changes at a very detailed level if need be.

May 23rd, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (3)

DOCUMENT YOUR HAPPY ACCIDENTS

Sometimes our best creations happen by pure experimentation and accident. Sitting in front of a Photoshop file, you are 40 History States in, and then it happens—magic! You really want to be able to get back to that moment. To do so, make sure that you turn on the History Log checkbox in the General Preferences (Photoshop>Preferences>General [PC: Edit>Preferences>General]). You can save the information as metadata, as a separate text file, or both!

May 20th, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

SAMPLE COLOR FROM ANYWHERE

You can use the Eyedropper tool to pick colors from any area of your screen. First, press the letter I to select the Eyedropper tool, then click-and-hold inside your document, and drag outside the document window onto the object you’d like to sample. Release your mouse button and the sampled color appears as your new Foreground color.

May 19th, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

FILE>OPEN RECENT

Under Photoshop>Preferences (PC: Edit>Preferences), you have an option called File Handling. In the Recent File List Contains field, you can specify how many files you would like it to remember.

May 18th, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

SAVING A WORKSPACE WITH MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

If you go to Window>Workspace>Keyboard Shortcuts & Menus, you have the option of expanding each of the menus and showing or hiding whichever command you would like. This would let you make a specific menu set for your workspace. Once you have customized your menu, you can save it as part of the workspace by choosing Window>Workspace>Save Workspace.

May 17th, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (3)

SAVING YOUR WORKSPACE

Once you’ve set up your workspace exactly the way you want it, you may want to save it for later use. If you choose Window>Workspace>Save Workspace, you can enter a name for your current layout. Saving the workspace can also save your current keyboard shortcuts and current menus.

May 16th, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

FREE FLOATING PANELS

The interface in Photoshop CS5 focuses on using panels for grouping all of the features that you need. If you prefer a floating panel layout, just click on the panel’s tab and drag it outside of the Panel area. This will make it a floating panel.

May 13th, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

BRISTLE BRUSH PREVIEW

The new bristle brush feature gives you the ability to add real bristle brush effects right in Photoshop. It even responds to the tilt of the Wacom pen. To see the angle of the brush there is a convenient preview window that comes on when you select a bristle brush. It can also be turned on or off inside the Brush Options panel by clicking the icon at the bottom. You can also click inside the preview window to change the angle of view from a side view to a top view.

May 12th, 2011 | | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

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Photoshop Tutorials

  • Flare Effects

    Corey has a cool trick for creating a flare brush and see how one effect can lead to another.

  • Hollywood Touch-Ups

    See how you can add some subtle touches to give that green screen studio shot the Hollywood treatment.

  • 3D Christmas Ornaments

    Corey shows how to create reflective holiday ornaments using 3D in Photoshop.

  • 3D Distortions

    This week Corey has a cool new trick for using 3D reflections in a rather creative way!

Premium Video Tutorials From NAPP


 

Create A Composite Layer

If you have a multilayer composition and you
want to apply an effect to all the layers at once, don’t flatten the layers–use a composite layer instead. Hide the layers you want excluded, and press Shift-Command-Option-E (PC: Shift-Ctrl-Alt-E). A new layer will be created at the top containing a merged copy of all the visible layers.

Another option is to create a new layer at the top of the stack and make it active. Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) each layer you want to include to make those layers active, as well. Press Option-Command-E (PC: Alt-Ctrl-E).
by Colin Smith

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