Let
Photoshop Rebuild Your Prefs
If you need to delete Photoshop’s current preferences file (which
is a common “first-line-of-defense” troubleshooting move),
you don’t have to go digging around your drive. All you have to
do is hold the Command, Option, and Shift keys (PC: Control-Alt-Shift)
when you first launch Photoshop, and you’ll be greeted with a
dialog asking you if you want to delete the Photoshop Settings File.
If you do, click Yes, and Photoshop will build a new, pristine set of
preferences for you
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Find
The Hidden Magnetic Pen Tool Options
I know what you’re thinking—finding the Magnetic Pen tool
options? I didn’t even know there was a Magnetic Pen tool in the
first place. Adobe has done a great job of hiding it. Anyway, to get
to the Magnetic Pen tool (the magnetic part means it snaps to well-defined
edges to help you draw accurate paths around objects), you have to start
by choosing the Freeform Pen tool from the Toolbox (it’s nested
with the Pen tool). Only then will the subterranean Magnetic checkbox
surface in the Options Bar. However, to access the all-important Magnetic
options so you have a chance in hell of actually controlling this tool,
you have to dig deeper into the underground world of CS2 to make these
options bubble to the top. Click on the down-facing black triangle to
the right of the Custom Shape tool icon in the Options Bar to reveal
a pop-down menu few will ever see—the Freeform Pen Options. In
this rarely viewed menu, you’ll find a checkbox for Magnetic,
and clicking on it will bring the grayed-out Magnetic options to life,
and open a treasure chest of newfound riches (also known as more boring
options).
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Getting
Better EPS Previews
Problem: The image looked great in Photoshop, but now that you’ve
converted it to CMYK, saved the file as a TIFF, and placed it into QuarkXPress,
InDesign, PageMaker, etc., the image looks awful—way oversaturated
and totally whacked. Reason: The preview of CMYK TIFFs just looks like
that, so don’t freak out—if it looked right in Photoshop,
it should print fine. Okay, what if you saved the file as an EPS, and
when you place the image into your page-layout app, the color of the
image looks okay, but it’s not crisp and clear, but pixelated.
Reason: By default, the preview embedded within EPS images is a lame
256-color preview. Solution: When you choose Save As (from the File
menu), choose Photoshop EPS in the Format pop-up menu, and click Save,
the EPS Options dialog will appear. In the Preview pop-up menu, choose
JPEG. That way, it sends a 24-bit, full-color preview, rather than the
lame 256-color preview.
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Do
You Have Enough RAM? Ask Photoshop
Not sure if you have enough RAM? Just ask Photoshop. Believe it or not,
it can tell you. Here’s how: Open a document that’s indicative
of the type of image you normally work on. Work on the image, doing
typical stuff, for about 10 minutes. Along the bottom left-hand corner
of your document window, just to the right of the current document magnification
readout, is the status bar. By default, it’s set to display your
document’s file size, but if you click-and-hold on the right-facing
triangle to the right of it, a pop-up menu of options will appear. Choose
Show, then Efficiency. If the percentage shown is 100%, bingo! That
means that Photoshop is running at peak efficiency, because 100% of
the time your image manipulations are being handled in RAM. If the efficiency
number shown is, say, 75%, this means that 25% of the time, Photoshop
ran out of RAM and had to use free hard drive space to make up for it,
which means Photoshop ran much slower 25% of the time. An efficiency
of 75% is pretty much as low as you want it to go. If it shows anything
less than 75%, it’s
time to buy more RAM. Quickly!
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Stop
The Crop Snapping
Problem: When you’re trying to crop an image using the Crop tool
(C), your cropping border tries to snap to the edges of your document
window. This might also be happening when drawing large Marquee selections
as well. Solution: Press Command-Shift-; (PC: Control-Shift-;), which
is the shortcut for turning off this snapping. The only downside is
it turns off all snapping (like Snap To Guides, Snap To Grid, etc.).
If you just want the Crop snapping (or Marquee snapping) off, go under
the View menu, under Snap To, and choose Document Bounds, and your tools
will no longer try to snap to your, well, document bounds.
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How
To Use RGB Filters On Grayscale Images
If you’re working on grayscale images, you’ll find there
are some Photoshop filters that won’t work (they’re grayed
out, so you can’t access them). Of course, it’s always the
really cool filters, such as Lens Flare and Lighting Effects, that are
grayed out. But don’t be dismayed (in fact, be “mayed”)
because you can still use those filters—just switch to RGB mode
(it’s found under the Image menu, under Mode), apply the filters,
then switch back to Grayscale mode. It won’t affect the color
of your image because, well, there is no color—you’re working
on a grayscale image. Switching to RGB doesn’t suddenly pour color
onto your image; your grayscale image will still look grayscale in RGB.
When you switch back to Grayscale mode (after applying the filters),
you’ll get a warning asking, “Discard color information?”
You can safely click OK, because after all, there was no color to begin
with.
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Get
Print Resolution From Your Digital Camera Images
Problem: You imported an image from your digital camera and although
the physical dimensions of the image are rather large, the resolution
shows up as only 72 ppi. How can you get enough resolution to print
this image? Solution: Go under the Image menu and choose Image Size.
Turn off Resample Image, then in the Resolution field, type the resolution
you need for the specific device you’ll be printing to. When you
do this, Photoshop will automatically input the Height and Width that
would result from using that resolution (the image size will definitely
be smaller—the higher the resolution needed, the smaller the physical
dimensions of your image). All you have to do is click OK and Photoshop
will do the math, creating an image in the new smaller size, with the
new higher resolution. The good news is that by doing it this way, there’s
absolutely no loss of quality to the file whatsoever.
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Putting
Your Lens Flare On The Spot
This tip lets you precisely position the center of the Lens Flare filter
by using the Info palette and a little-known feature of the Lens Flare
dialog. First, open the Info palette (found under the Window menu),
then put your cursor over the precise spot in your image where you’d
like the center of your lens flare to appear. Look in the Info palette,
under the X and Y coordinates, and write down those two coordinates
(I knew one day I’d find a use for the X and Y coordinate readings).
Then go under the Filter menu, under Render, and choose Lens Flare.
There’s a fairly large preview window in the center of the dialog.
Hold the Option key (PC: Alt key), click once on the preview window,
and it brings up the Precise Flare Center dialog. Enter those X and
Y coordinates you wrote down earlier (you did write them down, right?),
click OK, and your lens flare is precisely positioned.
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Stroking
Half A Path - Half A Path?
If you’re an advanced user, you already know that you can draw
a path and then apply a stroke along that path (using the paint tool
of your choice) by choosing Stroke Path from the Paths palette’s
flyout menu. But dig this: If you draw your path, but only want to stroke
a portion of that path, all you have to do is make a selection (using
the any selection tool) of the part of the path you want stroked. Then
when you choose Stroke Path, it will only stroke the area of your path
that is contained within your selection. Boom! That was the sound of
our heads exploding.
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Add
To Your Selections Through The Channels Palette
If you’ve got the Channels palette open and you have multiple
saved Alpha channels, you can load any Alpha channel as a selection
by holding the Command key (PC: Control key) and clicking directly on
the channel’s name. This instantly loads the selection. An even
better tip: If you hold the Command key (PC: Control key) then add the
Shift key (making it Command-Shift/Control-Shift) and click on another
Alpha channel, it adds that to your current selection. You can keep
adding more selections to your original selection until, well…
until you run out of Alpha channels.
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