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Make A Photoshop Client Presentation
To hide all your palettes and all your menus, and to display your current image centered on your monitor with a cool black frame around your image, just press the letter F twice, then press the Tab key (F, F, Tab). To return to your regular Photoshop work area, press F, then Tab. You’ll be the envy of all your friends, and eventually they’ll write folk songs about you. It’s almost embarrassing.
The Advantage Of Photo Filter Adjustment Layers
One of the most brilliant things Adobe did when they added Photo Filters to Photoshop (these filters replicate the old traditional screw-on lens filters) was to make them adjustment layers. You can create one by clicking on the Create New Adjustment Layer pop-up menu in the Layers palette and choosing Photo Filter. After you apply a Photo Filter from the resulting dialog (let’s say, for example, you used Warming Filter 81 to warm a cool photo), you can get the Brush tool (B), set your Foreground color to black, and paint over any areas of the photo you don’t want to be warmed. This gives you a level of flexibility you wouldn’t get any other way.
The Gaussian Blur Keyboard Shortcut
I thought that would get your attention. That’s because you know there’s no keyboard shortcut for applying a Gaussian Blur. But there is in my copy of Photoshop CS2. How is that possible? Because I created one, and you can too. Just go under the Edit menu and choose Keyboard Shortcuts to bring up the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog. Then, from the Shortcuts For pop-up menu, choose Application Menus. In the list of menus in the window beneath it, double-click on Filter to reveal all the choices under the Filter menu. Scroll down to Gaussian Blur, then click on the name. This brings up a field where you can enter the shortcut by pressing the keys you want to use. I recommend using Option-Shift-Command-G (PC: Alt-Shift-Control-G) because there are so few shortcuts not already being used by Photoshop. Click OK, and not only is the shortcut activated but your custom shortcut now appears in the Filter menu to the right of Gaussian Blur.
Resizing Paths The Easy Way
When you’re working with paths, you can visually resize your path by using the Path Selection tool. To do this, press A to get the tool, then go up in the Options Bar and turn on the checkbox for Show Bounding Box. This puts a Free Transform-like bounding box around your path, and you can use this bounding box to resize your path by dragging the handles (remember to hold the Shift key to resize it proportionately).
Undo On A Slider!
If you apply a technique (such as a filter or a paint stroke) and the effect is too intense, you can always undo the effect by pressing Command-Z (PC: Control-Z). But if you just want to decrease the intensity, instead of completely undoing it, go under the Edit menu and choose Fade. Want a less intense effect? Just move the Opacity slider to the left. The farther you drag, the less intense the effect. Drag all the way to the left, and the effect is undone.
Cracking The Easter Egg Mystery
Easter Eggs are usually funny little messages hidden within an application (engineer humor just cracks us up). Photoshop has a few of its own, but one of the lesser-known Easter Eggs is Merlin Lives. To see this Easter Egg, go to the Paths palette (under the Window menu), hold the Option key (PC: Alt key), and in the palette’s flyout menu, choose Palette Options. When you do, a tiny floating palette will appear with a picture of Merlin and just one button named “Begone,” which closes the dialog. I have to party with those engineer guys.
Removing Edge Fringe When Collaging
Any time you’re creating a collage, you’ll eventually add an image that has little white pixels around the edges of your object. Here’s a tip for getting rid of that “fringe.” Go under the Layer menu, under Matting, and choose Defringe. Try the default setting of 1 pixel and click OK. What this does (here’s the techno speak) is replace the edge pixels with a combination of the pixel colors in your object and the colors in the background (whew, that hurt). That usually does the trick. If it doesn’t, Undo it, then try a 2- or 3-pixel Defringe.
How To Duplicate A Color Stop
Here’s the scenario: You’re making a custom gradient using the Gradient tool (G) (by double-clicking the gradient thumbnail in the Options Bar to get to the Gradient Editor) and you need to duplicate one or more of the color stops. No problem. Once you’ve created one gradient color stop, you can make copies by Option-dragging (PC: Alt-dragging) it. Also, as long as you keep the Option key (PC: Alt key) down while you drag, you can jump right over other existing stops. It’s a color stop love fest, can you feel it?
Zooming All Your Tiled Images At Once
If you’ve chosen to tile your open windows (in the Window menu, under Arrange, choose Tile Horizontally [or Vertically]), in Photoshop CS2 you get some hidden functionality. If you want all the tiled images to be displayed at the same level of magnification, just hold the Shift key, grab the Zoom tool (Z), zoom in on one of the images, and all the other tiled images will jump to that same magnification. This is great when you’re trying to compare a number of similar images for detail.
The Trick To Tricky Extractions
Adobe’s own Julieanne Kost (Photoshop guru and instructor supreme) showed this at the Photoshop World Conference & Expo, and it had everybody’s jaw dropping, but little has been said of it since, even though it’s built into Photoshop CS2’s Extract function (found under the Filter menu). It’s called Textured Image and you use it when you’re dealing with a tough extraction—a person with a dark shirt posing on a dark background, for example—and Extract can’t really tell where the shirt ends and the background begins. Turning this on helps detect the edges by examining the texture, and if it detects a texture (like you might find in a shirt), it can often help pull you out of a tight situation.
Having History Track Your Layer Visibility
By default, the History palette tracks the last 20 things you did in Photoshop, but (weird as this may sound), it doesn’t track when you hide or show a layer. For some reason, it just doesn’t record that. Well, that is unless you know this tip: Go to the History palette’s flyout menu and choose History Options. When the History Options dialog appears, turn on the checkbox for Make Layer Visibility Change Undoable. Now, you can undo your showing and hiding of layers from the History palette.
Getting Back To The Filter Gallery Defaults
Let’s say you’ve tried all the filters in the Filter Gallery, and changed each setting so much that you can’t remember what the default, out-of-the-box settings were. Well, you’re out of luck (kidding). Here’s a trick for getting back to those default settings for any filter the Filter Gallery supports (like any of the Artistic filters, the Sketch filters, etc.): Open one of these filters (by choosing it from the Filter menu) and when it opens in the Filter Gallery, press-and-hold the Command key (PC: Control key) and you’ll see that the Cancel button changes into the Default button. Click it (while still holding down Command/Control) and the default settings will magically reappear.
What’s Smarter Than Using Guides?
Oh wait. I know this one. It’s…it’s…Smart Guides! (That’s right, for 500 points.) These little below-the-radar additions to CS2 are there to help you align objects on layers, but they don’t show up just on the edges of your object. As you drag your layer, they look for angles and corners within your layer, and the guides then extend out from there. That’s why they’re called “Smart.” To turn them on within your multilayered file, all you have to do is go under the View menu, under Show, and choose Smart Guides. Once they’re enabled, they appear automatically as you drag. They’re handier—and smarter—than you’d think.
Creating A Flattened Version Of Your Layered Image
Alright, you’re working on a Photoshop file that has a “bizillion” layers, and you want to create a new layer that’s an exact copy of what your flattened image would look like. First, create a new blank layer by clicking on the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette, then press Command-Option-Shift-E (PC: Control-Alt-Shift-E). You can also go to the Layers palette’s flyout menu and choose Merge Visible while pressing Option/Alt. Either way, the new layer you created will now have a flattened version of your image.
Switching From Warp To Free Transform (And Back Again)
If you’re using CS2’s Warp Image feature (which is accessed by bringing up Free Transform, then Control-clicking [PC: Right-clicking] inside the Free Transform bounding box and choosing Warp from the contextual menu), there’s a good chance you’ll need to resize the image once you start warping it. If that happens, there’s a button you can click that will switch back to Free Transform. It’s near the top-right corner of the Options Bar, and clicking the button will toggle you between Warp and Free Transform.
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Photoshop Tutorials
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Wild West Grunge
Corey shows you how to recreate this rugged, weathered look using a couple of filters, blending modes, and layer masks.
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Wall of Text
Use a clipping group to place an image inside of a background of text, with another layer of text placed in front to create depth.
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Natural Brushes
In this tutorial Corey shows you how to take an existing image and turn it into it’s own custom brush.
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Custom Coins
In this tutorial Corey creates a realistic-looking coin effect using the channels palette and the lighting effects filter.
Text Shape Layers
Converting text into shapes allows you to distort the text as you like while retaining straight, clean edges.
Borders Under a Minute
Create really cool borders in under a minute to use on virtually any one of your photos or even video for that matter.- Custom Coins
In this tutorial Corey creates a realistic-looking coin effect using the channels palette and the lighting effects filter. - Natural Brushes
In this tutorial Corey shows you how to take an existing image and turn it into it's own custom brush.
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Creative Contrast in Photoshop CS3
In this tutorial, we’ll take a look at some interesting techniques for improving contrast using the Shadow/Highlight command, empty adjustment layers, blend modes, and the Blend If sliders in the Layer Style dialog. -
Enhanced Workflow in Lightroom 1.1
In this article, we'll focus on techniques that will strengthen your workflow skills and simultaneously reveal some of the new features in Lightroom 1.1. -
Handlin’ Photoshop and Illustrator Content in Flash
we’ll take a look at how things work across Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash-specifically, some features and techniques for getting rasterized Photoshop content and vector Illustrator content into your Flash movies. -
Understanding Channels in Photoshop CS3
Photographer Chris Alvanas wants to go over Channels, because understanding what they are and what they do is key to understanding what their potential is.
Removing Those Typographically Incorrect Spaces
If you’re trying to set type that looks typographically correct in Photoshop, there’s an old habit you’ll have to break, and that’s the curse of putting two spaces at the end of every sentence. This is a holdover from people who at one time used traditional typewriters, where adding two spaces was necessary, but in typesetting that’s a huge no-no. About 70% of the text I copy-and-paste from text files that people give me has two spaces, but I use this Photoshop tip to fix the problem in just seconds. First, go under the Edit menu and choose Find and Replace Text. In the Find field, press the Spacebar twice (entering two spaces), then in Change To, press the Spacebar just once. Click Change All, and every time Photoshop finds two spaces at the end of a sentence, it will replace it with just one, making you typographically correct.
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Photoshop CS3 for Photographers Tour May. 19 - Nashville, TN
Photoshop CS3 for Photographers Tour May. 22 - San Francisco, CA
Photoshop CS3 for Photographers Tour May. 28 - New York, NY
Maximum Photoshop Tour May. 30
