Photoshop Tips #3


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*1. CLICKING AND POINTING

Unless you are extremely well coordinated with a mouse or you 
are lucky enough to have a drawing tablet, painting or drawing 
in Photoshop can be frustrating. The simple task of tracing a 
shape with a paintbrush tool can be daunting if you have to 
freehand it with a mouse. Luckily, Photoshop allows you to 
point-and-click-paint with every one of the Photoshop 
paint tools.  

For example, to paint an outline of a shape, choose the 
Paintbrush tool from the toolbox and select a brush size from 
the Brush palette. Then, position the brush at a starting point 
around the edge of the shape and click. Move the brush to the 
closest point along the edge of the shape that can be reached 
with a straight line, then press Shift and click. Notice that 
Photoshop paints a straight line to the new point. Continue 
this process around the edge of the shape until you arrive at 
the starting point. You'll be amazed how much point-and-click 
painting can speed up your work.


*2. HIDE THE ANTS

Marching ants refers to the edge of a selection--you know, the 
blinking dashed line that appears to be ants marching around 
the selected object. Although an important interface feature, 
the selection edges often interfere with the ability to judge 
colors and shapes.  

Therefore, make a habit of removing the selection edges with 
the Hide Edges command. To temporarily hide the Selection 
marquee, press Ctrl-H in Windows or Command H on the Mac. To 
view the hidden Selection marquee, press Ctrl-H or 
Command-H again.


83. DON'T LIMIT YOURSELF TO THE ACTIVE WINDOW

Very few Photoshop users realize that the majority of tools 
work outside the active window. For example, you can use the 
Rubber Stamp tool to set the source in one image window but 
copy the source area to another image window. To do so, press 
Alt in Windows or Option on the Mac and click in the source 
image window. Then, activate another image window and begin to 
paint with the Stamp tool. 

Likewise, the Eyedropper tool works across windows. You can 
even specify a new foreground or background color from another 
image window without making the source image window active. 
This allows you to use another window as a quick color picker. 
To use the Eyedropper tool to select a new foreground color, 
choose the tool and click on a color. To select a background 
color, press Alt in Windows or Option on the Mac and click 
a color.


*4. NEW WINDOW VIEW

In our previous tip, we explained how many of the Photoshop 
tools work across windows. Another time-saving habit is using a 
new window view to see an image from different perspectives.  

Using multiple windows to create different views of the same 
image has a number of applications. For example, in a large 
file you can create two window views, one displaying the left 
half and the other displaying the right half of the image. This 
allows you to switch from one area of the image to another with 
a single click of a mouse rather than scrolling. Another 
example is using two window views to display a normal view and 
a magnified view. This allows you to perform detailed work 
while still viewing the effect of your changes. In another 
example, you can display the three RGB color modes and the 
composite image in different windows so that you can more 
effectively monitor changes to the image.


*5. JUMPING BETWEEN PHOTOSHOP AND IMAGEREADY--PART 1 OF 2

As you probably know, Photoshop 5.5 ships with ImageReady 2.0. 
Although they are two separate applications, Adobe has added 
features to both so that you can seamlessly jump between 
Photoshop and ImageReady.  

One feature is the new Jump To button at the bottom of the 
Photoshop and ImageReady toolbox. For example, if you open an 
image in Photoshop and then click the Jump To button, 
ImageReady launches and opens the original file. Likewise, if 
you click the Jump To button on the toolbox in ImageReady, 
Photoshop launches and the opens the original file.


*6. JUMPING BETWEEN PHOTOSHOP AND IMAGEREADY--PART 2 OF 2

In our previous tip, we described how you can use the Jump To 
button on the toolbox to open the active Photoshop image in 
ImageReady or open the active ImageReady image in Photoshop. In 
addition to the Jump To button, you can use a keyboard shortcut 
to jump to the default graphics application.  

To do so, press Shift-Ctrl-M in Windows or Shift-Command-M on 
the Mac. The original file of the active image opens in the 
default graphics application. In Photoshop, the original file 
of the active window opens in ImageReady. In ImageReady, the 
original file of the active window opens in Photoshop.


*7. THE JUMP TO MENU

In the past few tips, we've described how you use the Jump To 
button on the toolbox or the Jump To keyboard shortcut to open 
the active Photoshop image in ImageReady or open the active 
ImageReady image in Photoshop. In addition to the Jump To 
button and the keyboard shortcut, you can use the Jump To menu 
to switch to Photoshop, ImageReady, or another application.  

When you install Photoshop and ImageReady, the installation 
searches for any Adobe graphics editing applications currently 
on your system, such as Adobe Illustrator or Adobe GoLive, and 
adds these applications to the Jump To menu in Photoshop and 
ImageReady. Keep in mind that the Jump To behavior differs 
slightly depending on the type of application you jump to. For 
example, if you choose File, Jump To, Adobe Illustrator, the 
original file opens in Illustrator. However, if you jump to an 
HTML editing application from ImageReady, the optimized file 
and the HTML file are opened in the HTML editor. Furthermore, 
If the optimized file contains slices, ImageReady includes all 
required image files for the full HTML document.


*8. ADDING APPLICATIONS TO THE JUMP TO MENU

When you install Photoshop and ImageReady, the installation 
searches for any Adobe graphics editing applications currently 
on your system, such as Adobe Illustrator or Adobe GoLive, and 
adds these applications to the Jump To menu in Photoshop and 
ImageReady. However, you aren't limited to Adobe-only 
applications in your Jump To menu. In addition to the Adobe 
applications the installer adds, you can include additional 
applications (including non-Adobe applications).  

To add an application to the Jump To menu for Photoshop or 
ImageReady, first create a shortcut to the application in 
Windows or an alias of the application on the Mac. To do so in 
Windows, locate and right-click the target application. From 
the pop-up menu, choose Create Shortcut. On a Mac, locate and 
select the target application and choose File, Create Alias.  

Next, select and drag the shortcut or alias to the Jump To 
Graphics Editor folder or the Jump To HTML Editor folder 
(ImageReady only) in the Helpers folder in the Photoshop 
application folder. Then, launch Photoshop or ImageReady to see 
the added application in the new Jump To menu.


*9. CHANGING THE DEFAULT JUMP TO APPLICATION

When you click the Jump To button at the bottom of the toolbox 
in Photoshop or ImageReady or press the equivalent keyboard 
shortcut (Shift-Ctrl-M in Windows or Shift-Command-M on the 
Mac), the default Jump To graphics application launches and 
opens the original file of the active image. As you probably 
know, the default Photoshop Jump To graphics application is 
ImageReady and the default ImageReady Jump To application is 
Photoshop. In this tip, we'll show you how to change the 
default Jump To graphics application. 

To begin, close Photoshop and ImageReady and open the Jump To 
Graphics Editor folder in the Helpers folder of the Photoshop 
application folder. Notice that the ImageReady shortcut or 
alias has curly brackets--{}--and the Photoshop shortcut or 
alias has straight brackets--[ ]. To specify a different 
default Jump To Graphics application for Photoshop, place a 
shortcut or alias to the target application in the Helpers 
folder and place curly brackets around the shortcut filename. 
To specify a new default Jump To Graphics application for 
ImageReady, place straight brackets around the filename of an 
application shortcut or alias. The brackets will not appear in 
the Jump To menu.  

The next time you launch Photoshop or ImageReady, you'll be 
able to launch the new default Jump To Graphics application 
using the Jump To button in the toolbox or the Jump To 
keyboard shortcut. 

Note: If no shortcut or alias is bracketed, the Photoshop Jump 
To button and keyboard shortcut launch ImageReady, and the 
ImageReady Jump To button and keyboard shortcut launch Photoshop.


*10. SEE THE SUNSET

All right, we confess. Today's tip isn't very productive, but 
it is kind of fun. An Easter Egg in Photoshop 5.5 is an 
alternate About Box that shows a box marked Strange Cargo 
floating out to sea while the sun sets. In addition to the 
pretty picture, if you wait a moment, you can see a scrolling 
credit list of all the people who brought you Adobe Photoshop 
5.5. To speed-scroll through the list, press Alt in Windows or 
Option on the Mac. To see the Easter Egg About Box, press 
Ctrl-Alt in Windows or Command-Option on the Mac and choose 
Help, About Photoshop. 
