Photoshop Quick Tip: How come my Colour Picker looks funny?

This morning one of my trainees was having a problem with the Colour Picker in Photoshop. Normally, when you click on the Foreground or Background Colour Swatch (at the bottom of the Toolbox) it looks like this:



However, this morning it seems like the Photoshop elves had been at the whiskey and the colour picker looked like this instead:

If this happens to you, you can get your normal Photoshop colour picker pop-up back by pressing Ctrl + K (Windows) or Cmd + K (Mac) to open up the General Preferences dialog box. To make sure you get the one you want, under the Color Picker pop-up menu, set the chosen Picker to "Adobe."

Photoshop Quick Tip : Exporting your layers as separate documents

This is a very quick tip today, but a handy one. If you are working on a document in Photoshop with multiple layers, it is possible to export each of those layers as separate documents. An example where I use this is if I have made up a document with several of my photos to work on, when I'm finished I can just shoot them out.

All you need to do is choose File > Scripts > Export Layers to Files.

Photoshop Quick Tip : Find your layers fast

When you’re working on a large document in Photoshop with many layers, a quick way to jump to the layer you want to work on is to:

1. Select the Move tool by pressing V on the keyboard.
   
   


2. Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac) on a portion of the image.
   
   A menu will appear when you click and will list all of the layers underneath your cursor.
   
   
   
   
   
   


3. To make a particular layer active, just click on it in the list of layers. Now, you’ve got your active layer.
   
   If you click Right-click or Control-click on a part of the image where there are no layers or if the layer is transparent in that area, then only the Background layer will be listed in the menu.

Photoshop Quick Tip : The best Photoshop keyboard shortcut!

Ok, this is probably a matter of personal opinion (and perspective) BUT, the first keyboard shortcut that I insist my trainees know in Photoshop is ...

Ctrl + Z (windows) Cmd + Z (mac).

This very simple shortcut will undo your last action/mistake.


If you need to undo more than one action then the other shortcut you will find invaluable is ...

Ctrl + Alt + Z (windows) Cmd + Option + Z (mac).

Photoshop Quick Tip: Copy Layer Styles and save time

Let’s say that you’ve added a layer style, or even several layer styles to a layer in Photoshop. Now you find that you need the same look on another layer, so is there a quick way to do this or do you have to go through the layers dialog box all over again? Well, yes of course there is a shortcut!

All that’s required here is to click on the layer style you want to copy to another layer and hold down the Alt (PC) or Option (Mac) key and drag the effect onto your layer of choice. By holding down the Alt/Option key you simply duplicate the layer effect whilst dragging the effect to another layer.

Photoshop Quick Tip: Save time by making your own custom document sizes

When you create a new document, Photoshop offers you a pop-up list (the Preset option) of the most commonly used document sizes in terms of width, height, resolution and colour mode. This includes sizes such as A4, Letter and the more popular web page sizes. However, you will often find that you use other sizes over and over. So rather than type in the details each time, you can just enter the size and resolution you need, give it a name and then save it as a preset using the Save Preset dialog box.

For example, I sell t-shirts on CafePress. The size required for T-shirt designs is 10 inches by 10 inches and requires a resolution of 200 ppi. So I saved this as a preset called T-shirts and now it appears at the top of the list. You can make as many custom document sizes as you want, so save yourself some time and make some custom document sizes.

Photoshop Quick Tip: Time Yourself!

Photoshop can tell you how long you are spending on different commands as you work. To find out (if you really want to know how long you play with each toy, I mean tool), then click on the right-facing triangle at the bottom of the document window. Usually you will see document info here, such as the file size but when you click on the triangle, choose Show from the menu and then choose Timing. This is effectively a stop-watch which times your actions on each tool or command.

So now you can start working towards your personal best, painting a circle in under 0.5 seconds.

Photoshop Quick Tip: Minimise the Toolbox

I'm in Spring Cleaning mode at the moment. Yesterday's tip was about getting rid of clutter in your Photoshop workspace by clearing away your palettes. Here's another quick one. Just double-click on the bar at the top of the toolbox and it is instantly minimised down to the bar with the feather image. To get the full toolbar back, double-click on the bar again.

Photoshop Quick Tip: Hide Those Unsightly Palettes

The Photoshop work area can become a very busy place with the wide variety of palettes that can be opened at any one time. If you want to show someone your work without all the clutter, a quick way to get rid of them all is to press Tab on the keyboard. That gets rid of ALL the palettes.

If you want to keep the Toolbox and the Options Bar visible, press Shift + Tab.

Photoshop Quick Tip: Find the centre of your document

Here's an easy way to find the exact centre of your image in Photoshop using the rulers and guides.

With your document open in Photoshop, make your rulers visible (Ctrl+R in windows, Cmd+R on the Mac). Make sure that Snap is turned on, you can check this by choosing View > Snap. Then click and drag a guide out from the left hand-side ruler towards the middle of your document. The guide should snap automatically when it reaches the vertical centre. Now click and drag on the ruler at the top of the document window and drag down towards the centre. Again the guide should snap when it reaches the horizontal centre. And there where they meet, you have the very centre of your document.

Photoshop Quick Tip: Flip those guides!

Yesterday we saw how you can use the guides to help you find the centre of your document. Today’s Photoshop tip shows you how you can flip a guide from being a vertical guide to being a horizontal (or vice versa).

Let’s pretend you’ve pulled out a vertical guide when you really wanted a horizontal guide (I know, my mind wanders too). Well you don’t have to go back to the rulers and start again, all you need to do is hold down the Alt Key (in windows) or the Option key (on the Mac). This will flip the guide from horizontal to vertical or vertical to horizontal. A handy little time saver.

Photoshop Quick Tip: Displaying Image Size Information in Photoshop

Rather than choosing Image > Image Size to open the Image size dialog box, a really quick way to find out Image size information in Photoshop is to press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) and then Click and hold down the mouse button over the file information box at the bottom of the document window.

A little box appears telling you, the width and height of the image (in pixels AND in the currently selected unit of measurement), the number of channels and the image resolution. Rapid!

Photoshop Quick Tip: Adjust your selection size

When you have made a selection in Photoshop, you can easily make that selection a few pixels larger of smaller by choosing Select > Modify. To make your selection bigger choose Expand, to make the selection smaller, choose Contract. It works best if you Expand or Contract by only a small number of pixels at a time (i.e. 4 or 5 pixels at most). Otherwise the edges of the selection won’t stay sharp, they have a tendency to look quite bumpy.

Photoshop Quick Tip: More Tips For Your Tools

I’m sure you are well aware that when you roll your mouse over any tool in the toolbar in Photoshop, you’ll get a little tooltip letting you know the name of the tool and it’s shortcut key.

What you might not know, is that in the Info palette, you can get further hints about how to use any particular tool. Choose Window > Info if the Info palette is not already open. If you don’t see a tip at the bottom of the palette then go to the Info palette menu and choose Palette options, from there click on the checkbox for Show Tool Hints.

Now try picking a few different tools and check out the extra tips in the Info palette.

Photoshop & Illustrator : Quick Tip - Get more from your Zoom

It's important when you are editing an image in Photoshop or Illustrator that you can zoom in (to work on a pixel by pixel basis if necessary) and then zoom out again to see how your changes look. To speed up your workflow enormously, try using keyboard shorcuts rather than clicking on the Zoom tool in the tool box or using the View menu.

Here are some keyboard shortcuts to try:

• To quickly view your image at 100%, double-click the zoom tool in the toolbox.
  
• With any tool selected, press Ctrl and + (Windows) or Cmd and + (Mac) to zoom in, or press Ctrl and – or Cmd and – to zoom out.
  
• Press Ctrl+spacebar (Windows) or Cmd+spacebar (Mac) to temporarily select the Zoom In tool from the keyboard. When you're finished zooming, release the keys to return to the tool you were last using.
  
• Press Alt+spacebar (Windows) or Option-spacebar (Mac) to temporarily select the Zoom Out tool from the keyboard. When you're finished zooming, release the keys to return to the tool you were last using.
  
• Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) to change the Zoom In tool to the Zoom Out tool.
  

Photoshop: Quick Tip - Smart Objects

Smart Objects are a new Photoshop CS2 feature. They allow you to perform non-destructive transformations (scaling, rotating, warping) of raster and vector graphics. You can select a layer and turn it into a “smart object”. This allows you to shrink and then enlarge a graphic without any loss of quality. Normally when you shrink a graphic, it is virtually impossible to return it to its previous size with losing quality. By creating a smart object you can “tag” a layer and it becomes immune to the damage caused by resampling and resizing.

To turn a layer into a smart object, highlight the layer and choose Layer > Smart Objects > Group Into Smart Objects. An icon will appear in the Layers palette indicating that the layer has changed.



This new feature seems to be somewhat overlooked but I think it’s a great time saver and gives you some of the advantages you’d have working with vector files.

Photoshop: Quick Tip - Use a new layer for retouching

If you are retouching a photograph, for the sake of safety (and your sanity if you accidentally erase something you didn't want to) , you should do all of your retouching on a separate layer above your image. By doing this you are only changing your new layer and won't damage your main image and you can play with blend modes and opacity to achieve different levels of retouching.



So if you are using the Clone Stamp tool (S) or the Spot Healing Brush (J) or the Healing Brush (J), in the Options bar at the top of the screen, turn on the Sample All Layers option. Now you will be sampling from your main image but painting onto the new layer you created above it.

Photoshop: Quick Tip - Push Your Pixels x 10

When you have the Move tool (V) selected in Photoshop you can move an entire layer, or if you've made a selection, you can move the selection using the arrow keys on the keyboard Up, Down, Left or Right. Each time you press an arrow, your layer or selection will move 1 pixel in that direction. If you want to speed things up, you can hold down the Shift key and at the same time press an arrow and now the object will move 10 pixels at a time.

Photoshop: Web Photo Gallery Templates using Flash

Photoshop CS2 has a Web Photo Gallery wizard which allows you to very quickly and easily create a web photo gallery. This feature also appeared in Photoshop CS, but new to CS2 is the ability to produce Flash-based photo galleries.

You can download the source files for these templates from Adobe and then customise them yourself using Flash.

Win: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=2961
Mac: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=2960

Photoshop: Quick Tip - Rename Your Brushes

If you don’t like the names appearing on brushes in the Brush Picker, for example you might like to rename “Airbrush Tilt Size and Angle 75” with a simpler shorter name, like “John” or “Mary”, or “Airbrush 75”, if you want.



All you need to do is Right-Click on the brush in the Brush Picker and choose Rename Brush from the pop-up menu. A dialog box appears and you can then type in the new brush name and click OK.