LiveDocs to the Rescue!

Sometimes you will find that the Help feature may not offer complete assistance on a specific topic.  Documentation for software often changes and expands, and LiveDocs is Adobe’s answer to this problem.  If you go to www.adobe.com/support/documentation, you can access online documentation on all of your Photoshop topics.  The good part about this documentation is that it is developed on a collaborative level, allowing the community to chime in on questions and answers to the topics at hand.

September 2nd, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Check Out Photoshop Help

The best place to check out what’s new and improved is still in the Help feature.  Choose Help>Photoshop Help and you will launch the Adobe Help Viewer.  This has an index of all things CS3, and includes a section on what is new.

September 1st, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Does Your 3D Act More Like 1D?

In Photoshop CS3 Extended, you have the ability to work with 3D files.  This, however, carries specific requirements to do so.  If your graphics card has a hard time keeping up with 3D, you can turn off the Enable 3D Acceleration in the Performance preferences.

August 31st, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Performance Preferences

Here are two things that can help in the Performance preferences:  Your Memory Usage can let you specify how much of your RAM you would like to dedicate to the use of Photoshop.  And, you also have the option of setting up a scratch disk in the Performance preferences (think of a scratch disk as temporary RAM that Photoshop creates by using actual hard drive space).

August 28th, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Zoom Scroll

Rather than using a keyboard shortcut to zoom in and out, use your scroll wheel!  Most mice these days have a center scroll wheel on them.  If you press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and use the scroll wheel on the mouse, you can zoom in and out of your document.

August 27th, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Undo Heaven, Just Add History States

If you are like me, and love having a good amount of undos in the event that you go overboard with your adjustments, you can change the amount of History States that you have in Photoshop CS3.  Note that the location of the History States preference has changed as well.

Choose Photoshop>Preferences>General (PC: Edit>Preferences>General) and notice that there is now a Performance option on the left.  You can change the History States in this area.  Keep in mind though, if you are excessively using History States, you may want to rethink what you are doing wrong in the first place.  I know I have to.

August 26th, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Finding the Panel Tabs Hard to Read? Change the Font Size

Sometimes, it’s a bit hard to read the type in the panels.  Choose Photoshop>Preferences>General (PC: Edit>Preferences>General) and change the UI Font Size.  This will make the type in the panels larger.  You will need to restart Photoshop to see the type change.

August 25th, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Know All of the How To Tutorials? Make Your Own!

At the bottom of the Help menu, there is an option that teaches you how to create your own How To tutorials for Photoshop.  In order to create How To tutorials, you will need some HTML skills and to know the directory where you need to place the How To files.  Sorry, there is no How To for HTML.  This is Photoshop.

August 24th, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Check Out the How To Tutorials in CS3

Starting off in a similar manner to our CS2 tips, there are really cool features and tutorials packed right inside of Photoshop CS3.  If you choose Help>How To, you can run through some tutorials on how to expand your knowledge on a variety of Photoshop topics.

August 21st, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)

Get Rid Of That Shapelayer Outline

If you’ve worked with a shape layer, you’ve probably noticed the appearance of a thin outline around the shape.  The outline you see around a shape layer really doesn’t mean anything. It won’t print or show up on a saved Web image; however, it does look flat-out distracting when you’re trying to work with your images.  Just click the mask next to the shape layer it’s on, and that outline will disappear.  Click on it again if you ever want to turn it back on.

August 20th, 2009 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (1)