Tip of the Day | Page 54

Where’s The 3D Transform Filter?

You can kill a lot of otherwise productive time searching for the 3D Transform filter that’s been in Photoshop for years. That’s because—it ain’t there. It no longer installs when you install Photoshop, but Adobe thought that somebody, somewhere, might want to use it for something, so even though it doesn’t install, you can find it in the Goodies folder on the Photoshop CS Resources and Extras disc. Just drag it into Photoshop’s Filters folder inside the Plug-Ins folder to get it back in your Filter menu (under Render).

July 26th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (2)

Make That Options Bar Float – Float???

You may not realize it, but the Options Bar, which seems permanently docked to the top of your work area, can actually be redocked to the bottom of your screen, or you can make it into a floating palette. To make it float, just click on the little tab on the far left side of the bar, drag it away, and voilà, it floats. To dock it at the bottom of your screen, drag the tab down to the bottom left-hand side of your screen and it snaps into place. You can even hide the Options Bar altogether by choosing Options from the Window menu. You can always get it back by double-clicking on any tool.

July 25th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Nudging 10 Pixels At A Time

As you know, as long as you have the Move tool (V) selected, you can move (or nudge) your current layer using the Up/Down/Left/Right Arrow keys on your keyboard. For every press of an Arrow, it nudges your layer 1 pixel in that direction. However, if you hold the Shift key and use the Arrow keys, it nudges the object 10 pixels at a time.

July 24th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Dangerous Intersection?

You’ve already learned that if you’re using a selection tool (Lasso, Rectangular Marquee, etc.) and you need to add an additional area to your currently selected area, you can hold the Shift key, then any selection you draw with one of those tools will be added. But what if you have a selection and instead you want to create a new selection that will intersect with your existing selection to create an entirely new selection (Whew! That sounds complicated just explaining it)? Here’s how: Draw your first selection, then up in the Options Bar you’ll find four icons for various selection options. The fourth icon is Intersect with Selection. Click on it, then draw another selection that overlaps your existing selection and all will become clear (grasshopper).

July 23rd, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Brushes Palette: That’s Not A Header, It’s A Button

If you look in the expanded Brushes palette (docked in the Palette Well by default), there’s a list of controls on the left side of the dialog. At the top it shows Brush Presets, and you might figure that you can click on that and get some options, but the one that catches just about everyone off guard is just below that. It’s the header for Brush Tip Shape. It appears to be a header for a list of brush tip options below it, but in reality, it’s a button (I know, it doesn’t look like a button, but it is). Click right on the words “Brush Tip Shape” and the Brush Tip Shape options are revealed in the main panel on the right.

July 20th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

The Smaller Toolbox Trick

Is that Toolbox taking up too much space, but you don’t want to close it, because a few seconds later, sure enough, you’ll need a tool? Then just double-click on the very top of your Toolbox and it will tuck up out of the way, leaving just that little tab showing. Need it back fast, just double-click the little tab again and it comes right back.

July 19th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Getting Your Warnings Back (Resetting All Dialogs)

One thing I love about Photoshop is that a number of warning dialogs have a magical checkbox that says “Don’t show this dialog again” (or something along those lines). However, if you later decide you want these warning dialogs put back into play (this is especially helpful if you’re training someone new on your computer), you can have them become active again. Just go under the Photoshop menu (PC: Edit menu), under Preferences, and choose General. In the General section of the Preferences dialog, click on the button at the bottom of the dialog named Reset All Warning Dialogs.

July 18th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Escape From The Crop Tool (Or Die!)

Sometimes when you’re using the Crop tool (C), you change your mind and decide not to crop. If this happens to you, do you have to crop and then press the undo shortcut? Nah, press the Escape key to cancel your crop and remove the cropping border. You can also click on the circle with a slash icon (the international symbol for “NO”) on the far right of the Options Bar to cancel a crop. Okay, there’s one more way, just switch tools—a dialog will appear asking you if you want to complete the crop or not. Just hit Don’t Crop.

July 16th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Scrubby Slider Shift-Click Trick

Adobe borrowed scrubby sliders, a very cool feature from Adobe After Effects, and put it in Photoshop. You use it by clicking on a field’s name, rather than in the field itself, and the value in the field changes as you drag (scrub) over the field’s name. However, it scrubs in very small increments. That is, unless you hold the Shift key, which is ideal when you need to make big changes in the field (like from 0 to 256).

July 13th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Quick Trick To Reapply That Filter

Want a convenient shortcut that lets you run the last filter you applied, without going to the Filter menu? Too bad (just kidding). Simply press Command-F (PC: Control-F). What if you don’t want the same settings (ah, I knew you were going to ask that)? Try pressing Command-Option-F (PC: Control-Alt-F), which brings up the dialog for the last filter you applied with the last settings you used.

July 12th, 2007 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

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Photoshop Tutorials

- Reverse Restoration
  Corey shows you how to make a new photo look damaged by blending in some unusual textures.
- Rain Drops
  In this tutorial, Corey not only creates the raindrops, but also the splashes that are formed with the raindrops hit the hands.
- G.I. Joe
  Corey's tutorial this week was inspired by a real American hero!

More Fun with 3D

Continue exploring the possibilities with Photoshop’s new 3D tools.
Reverse Restoration

Corey shows you how to make a new photo look damaged by blending in some unusual textures.
3D Background Effects

Use Photoshop’s new 3D tools to create some dazzling background effects.
Striking Match, Part 2

In the second part of this tutorial, Corey finishes creating this illustration of a striking match.

Layers TV: Episode 110
New episodes are coming soon. In this old episode, RC goes start to finish through a Flash CS4 project using the new 3D tools and importing an audio file. Corey talks about the distortion features inside of Adobe Illustrator. You can download each episode by subscribing to the podcast on iTunes. var so = new SWFObject('http://media.kelbymediagroup.com/players/player.swf','mpl','500','300','7'); so.addParam('allowfullscreen','true'); // so.addVariable('type','rtmp'); so.addVariable('file','http://media.kelbymediagroup.com/switch/video/layers-tv-episode-110.mp4'); so.addVariable('plugins','hd-1'); so.addVariable('hd.file','http://media.kelbymediagroup.com/switch/video/layers-tv-episode-110-hd.mp4'); so.addVariable('hd.state','false'); so.addVariable('image','http://www.layersmagazine.com/images/layerstv-logo.jpg'); so.addVariable('height','300'); so.addVariable('width','500'); so.addVariable('autostart','false'); so.addVariable("backcolor","0x000000"); so.addVariable("frontcolor","0xF1F1F1"); so.addVariable("lightcolor","0xF88E21"); so.addVariable("quality","100"); so.write('player'); [...]
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 for Mac
The new professional-level Quadro FX 4800 with 1.5 GB of memory brings a much-needed performance upgrade to the Mac Pro lineup.
Prezi
Prezi is a Flash-based visualization, storytelling, and presentation tool that allows you to create nonlinear presentations.
Terry White’s New App | Printing from Lightroom 2
Happy Thursday everyone! Just wanted to pop on in and share what’s new in the intranets: Terry White’s New Iphone App Terry white over at his techblog is usually covering all sorts of technology and letting us know what his favorite apps are for the iphone. He’s taken that love and mixed it with [...]

Adding Keywords to Multiple files

In Bridge, you can add keywords to images to make searching for pictures a little less cumbersome. You don’t, however, want the process to become tedious as well. By either Command-clicking (PC: Ctrl-clicking) or Shift-clicking on images, you can select multiple files inside Bridge. Once you have the files selected, you can go to the Keywords panel and turn on any keyword you like. This will apply the keyword to all of the files that you have selected. It takes away a little bit of the pain of categorization, but just a little.