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Tip of the Day | Page 40
Increasing Brush Sizes
Pretty much all applications that use a brush can be regulated using the Bracket keys. The Left Bracket ([) key decreases the brush size, while the Right Bracket (]) key increases its size. If you press-and-hold the Shift key, it increases the size by a larger amount.
Scrubbers 101
In most dialogs, you can use the scrubber (slider) to change measurements. To change the performance of the scrubber, try using these keys: Shift will make the scrubber jump very quickly to larger or smaller numbers and Option (PC: Alt) will slow down the scrubber to move one number at a time
Previewing your Type very quickly
Serif or sans serif? Oblique or Avant Garde? I am from more of a ìYeah, that looks appropriateî school of font usage. If you would like to cycle through your fonts to see what looks good, first commit the type. Once the type has been committed, click on the font name in the Character panel (Window>Character). With the font name highlighted, press the Up and Down Arrow keys to move through different fonts.
Changing Multiple Type Layers
To change the properties of a series of Type layers, Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on each of the layers that you would like to adjust.
Cycle Through All Open Documents
Press Control-Tab (on both a Mac and a PC) multiple times to cycle through all of the documents that are currently open.
Rotating your images with Shortcuts
I spent some time playing around with the orientation of images. Instead of having to go to Image>Rotate Canvas>90° CW or 90° CCW, I set up actions for them. To do this, create a blank document. Once you have the document onscreen, create an action called 90 Degrees Clockwise and assign it a keyboard shortcut. Click on Image>Rotate Canvas>90° CW and then stop the action. Do the same for 90° CCW, and be sure that you place both keyboard shortcuts next to one another. It will make working with images a bit easier.
Using the Button Mode in Actions
The best way to automate tasks in Photoshop is to create actions of common tasks. When you are working with multiple images, you don’t want to keep selecting an action and clicking on the Play Selection icon. Speed up your workflow by enabling Button mode. In the Actions panel flyout menu, you can select Button Mode, which will let you run your actions by simply clicking on the action in the panel.
Increasing the Crop tool’s Opacity
There are times that you want to see what your finished product will look like once you crop it. The best way to see that is to have a black background. To do that, once you have clicked-and-dragged out your crop border, increase the Opacity in the Options Bar to 100 percent. This will make the area to be cropped away completely black, and will allow you to see what your finished product will look like.
Cropping to a Specific Size
If you would like to crop to a specific size with the Crop tool (C), enter the dimensions and resolution you would like in the tool options up in the Options Bar. When you click-and-drag out your crop border, you will automatically constrain the crop handles to the size that you have set.
Getting back to the Default colors
To get Photoshop back to its default Foreground and Background colors of black and white, press the D key.
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Photoshop Tutorials
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.
Styles & Text
This week Corey has a tutorial using layer styles and text shapes to create energetic effects.
3D Light Beams
This effect was discovered by a 'happy accident' and uses the 3D features inside of Photoshop CS4 Extended.
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Flare Effects
Corey has a cool trick for creating a flare brush and see how one effect can lead to another.
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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.
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3D Distortions
This week Corey has a cool new trick for using 3D reflections in a rather creative way!
Premium Video Tutorials From NAPP
Photo Retouch
Scott Kelby shows you how to take an overexposed photo into a great photo using Photoshop. Want Great Photoshop & Photography Skills?
Extended Definition Processing
Scott Kelby shares a technique he's been working on, which gives your final image an HDR look using just one photo.
Join NAPP & Get a Free DVD.
Smart Object Masking Trick
Dave Cross shares a trick he discovered that will help you remove white from around your subject when using smart objects.
Want More?
Light Painting
Dave Cross takes a popular trend - light painting - and shows you how you can paint text recreating this cool trend.
You Don't Need to be a Pro to Join 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
