Photoshop Tips & Techniques

OK, these rough notes are more for me than you - bits I find useful grabbed from other sites, mags or my own experiments. If you know your way around photoshop, scroll down to see what’s useful for you.

There are 4 Sections: General, Text & Type, Colour, Shortcuts.

This page is updated sometimes & most recent stuff is at the top of each section.

General tips

ADD A LAYER MASK TO A SET

You can do it by selecting top folder layer and clicking the add layer mask button.

LAYER BASED SLICES

If you're creating an image for the web, instead of flattening it and then slicing, use the Layer-based slices feature. Go under Layer>New Layer Based Slice. You will find Photoshop does a lot of the work for you now.

SHARPEN FLESH TONES IN CMYK

To get the best effect when sharpening flesh tones in CMYK mode, apply the filter to only the Cyan channel of the image.

SAVE FOR WEB PREVIEW TIP

When using the Save for Web dialog, you can see how your image will look on different platforms by using the arrow in the upper right corner of the preview and selecting which platform you want to see.

FAST CHANGE LAYER STYLES

Right click (or ctrl click Mac) the little f symbol on a layer denoting a layer style. This will give you instant access to any of the possible layer styles. You can also right click anywhere on a layer styles layer when visible for the same menu.

PRESET DOCUMENT SIZES

You can create your own custom New Document preset by finding the “New Doc Sizes.txt” file in the Photoshop>Presets folder. Put in name for the new document in quotes, eg. "A5 portrait". After some space put in the width then height then units of measurement (inches, pixels, mm, cm, points or picas). Finally the resolution eg. 72 dpi. More instructions in the file. The changes take effect after you restart your computer.

GUIDES

To add guides at a specific location on the canvas, use the View » New Guide command. This is especially useful for placing guides from within an action.

RADIAL BLUR DRAFT MODE

Use draft mode to test the amount of blur before using a higher quality setting.

ADDING A BLACK LAYER MASK

Alt click the layer mask icon to add the layer mask where everything is hidden (ie black), then paint white.

SLIMMING PLUG-INS FOR FASTER STARTUPS

Create a folder and name it something you can easily recognize, then just copy only the plug-ins you want from the default Photoshop plug-in folder into your new folder. Next time you start Photoshop, hold Shift-Command/Shift-Control. Now you can select your new plug-ins folder for faster Photoshop startups.

Type and text

TYPE OVER TYPE

If you want to start new type layer on top of or very close to another type layer layer hold down Shift before clicking on the page. That way you won’t automatically begin working on the existing type layer.

CHANGE ALL LINKED TYPE LAYERS

If you want to make the same change to more than one Type Layer at the same time, first click on one layer (don't select the text though). Then link all of the Layers you want effected in the Layers palette, then hold the Shift key and make your changes to one of the Linked Layers. All of the Linked Layers will show the same change.

EXACT SIZE TYPE BOXES

With the Type tool, hold the Alt/Option key and click in your document. The Paragraph Text Size dialog box will appear, allowing you to enter the exact size you'd like for the column.

USING THE LINE TOOL TO ROTATE

You can use the line tool straighten a picture or scan. Drag the line tool across the top edge then either choose edit>transform>rotate OR image>rotate canvas>arbitary. The edge is aligned horizonatally.

Colour

REMOVE GRADIENT BANDING

To eliminate Gradient banding in your printings, go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise. When the dialog opens, enter 2 for Amount, Gaussian distribution and check the Monochromatic box. Now just hit OK.

DARKER BLACK PRINT

To make an incredibly dark black when printing, create a "midnight" black by entering a CMYK build of C=75, M=50, Y=50, and K=100.

Dealing with preference file when PS plays up

If photoshop is going weird it might be a corrupted preferences. You can delete it as PS creates a new one on start up. Quit photoshop then find it... It's here:

• Windows XP and Windows 2000: Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop\7.0\Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Settings.
• Windows NT: WinNT\profiles\<username>\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop\7.0\Adobe Photoshop 7 Settings
• Windows 98: Windows\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop\7.0\Adobe Photoshop 7 Settings

HOW DO I REPLACE THE PREFERENCES FILE?

In Photoshop 7, replacing the Prefs is as easy as pressing down Control-Alt-Shift (Windows) immediately after you start launching Photoshop 7. (Don't hold down the modifier keys before you launch, press them immediately afterward and hold them down until you see the dialog box.) You'll be asked in you want to delete the "Adobe Photoshop Settings File." Rather than replacing the Photoshop Prefs file, this replaces the entire Settings folder, include Color Settings, Actions, Tool Presets, and all of the other settings files.

Rather than losing all of your settings, you can manually replace just the Prefs file:

• Quit Photoshop.
• Locate the Adobe Photoshop Prefs file.
• Delete the file.
• Restart Photoshop.
• Reset your preferences.
• Reload any custom palettes.

SPECIAL TIP: MINIMIZE PREFERENCES DISRUPTION

You can prevent corruption of the Prefs file by making it a Read Only (Windows) or Locked (Mac) file. Remember, though, that Photoshop won't be able to update the file, so make sure that all of your preferences, palette locations, and tool settings are just as you want them before securing the Prefs file.

PLEASE ADD TO PS8

Here's what I'd like to see added to PS 8.

1. when in full screen mode add the ability to move the corners of a picture into the middle of the screen - esp. useful when zoomed in doing detail work.
2. abilty to add layer masks to individual layer styles - without having to create layers.
3. Ctrl Z to layer styles for quick undoing.