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Tip of the Day | Page 25

 

Black and White 101

Black and white could not get any easier. Open an image. Choose Image>Adjustments>Black and White. Instead of using all of the sliders that are in the resulting dialog, click on the different areas of the image that you want to make darker or lighter and drag—left to make them lighter, right to make them darker.

Reset a Dialog

If you are working with any dialog that has an OK and a Cancel option, you don’t always have to cancel out to get back to the original state of the effect. If you press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key when you are in a dialog, the Cancel button will turn into a Reset button. This will give you a chance to try the effect again without having to leave the dialog.

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!

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.

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.

Opening Multiple Images in Photoshop CS3

To open multiple images in Photoshop CS3, you can Shift-click a series of images in the Open dialog, and then click Open. You can also select noncontiguous images by Command-clicking.

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.

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.

Moving Camera Raw Presets

Camera Raw 4.1 has a new Presets panel. It lets you save popular or frequently used settings so you don’t have to re-create them each time (say, for a black-and-white photo). Here’s the tip: If you ever change computers, you’ll probably want to take those settings along with you. It’s not quite as easy as you’d think though. So here’s how: First go find the presets folder. On a Mac, it’s located in User:Library:Application Support: Adobe:CameraRaw:Settings. On a PC, look in C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Adobe\CameraRaw\Settings. Then copy any of the preset XMP files in there to the same folder on the computer you want to move them to. The next time you go into the Camera Raw dialog, you’ll see your new presets in the Presets panel.

Free Floating Panels

The interface in Photoshop CS3 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.

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Viewing and Basking in your Image

When I’m done working with an image, I like to sit and admire it (hey, I spent six hours working on it, I should). To do that, I hit the Tab key, then hit the F key three times. This hides all of the panels and toolbars and lets you see the image by itself surrounded by black. To get back to regular mode, press the F key and the Tab key one more time.

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