Photoshop Tips #21


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*1. THE BIG ELECTRIC CAT AND STRANGE CARGO

Impress your friends and family with this useless Photoshop trivia. 
While Photoshop 4 was under development, its code name was Big 
Electric Cat. As homage to that creative name, Adobe added to version 
4 a secret splash screen with a portrait of a Big Electric Cat. To see 
the secret splash screen, press Ctrl in Windows and choose Help, About 
Photoshop. On the Macintosh, press Command and choose Apple Menu, 
About Photoshop.

While Photoshop 5 was under development, its code name was Strange 
Cargo (the Big Electric Cat was placed inside). As before, Adobe added 
a secret splash screen for the code name. To see the secret splash 
screen, press Ctrl-Alt in Windows and choose Help, About Photoshop. On 
the Macintosh, press Command-Option and choose Apple Menu, About 
Photoshop.

Apparently, the Adobe folks were too busy to come up with a code name 
for Photoshop 5.5, but you can still see the Strange Cargo splash 
screen.


*2. ACHIEVING THE PERFECT TONE OR INTENSITY

If you have trouble intensifying a tonal area with Photoshop's 
manipulation tools, try this trick. Select the area you want to affect 
and duplicate it onto a new layer. Then you can adjust the layer modes 
and opacity to fine-tune the area of your image.

To create a duplicate of a selection on a new layer, first select the 
area. Then choose Edit, Copy and Edit, Paste. Photoshop will place a 
duplicate of the selection on a new layer.


*3. FILTERS AND LAYERS

As you may know, many of the Photoshop filters are not applicable to 
an empty layer. Fortunately, you can quickly fill a layer with 
content.

To do so, select the contents of the layer and fill it with white. 
More specifically, press Ctrl-A in Windows or Command-A on the 
Macintosh. Then (assuming white is in the background color slot), 
press Shift-Ctrl-Delete in Windows or Shift-Command-Delete on the 
Macintosh. Photoshop will fill the layer with white.


*4. PREPARING FOR CHANGES

Regardless of your skill or experience, you will probably have to 
modify every design or image you create based on external opinion 
(clients, art directors, etc.). Therefore, take steps to ensure those 
modifications are as simple as possible.

To do so, always save a source Photoshop file before you flatten the 
image for the final proof. The source Photoshop file should contain 
all of the layers, text, and colors. By developing this work habit, 
you'll be able to quickly modify the source file and export an updated 
image.


*5. CREATING A FLATTENED DUPLICATE OF AN IMAGE

In our previous tip, we advised you to keep a source Photoshop file 
that has all layers and text intact. This allows you to easily make 
changes to your image and export a new version very quickly. However, 
we didn't mention how you can quickly export a flattened version of 
your source file.

To do so, choose Image, Duplicate. In the resulting dialog box, select 
the Merged Layers Only check box and click OK. Photoshop will place in 
a new image a flattened version of all the viewable layers in the 
source image. At this point, all you have to do is save the duplicate 
image.


*6. LIMITING THE PHOTOSHOP COLOR PICKER TO WEB-SAFE COLORS

If you've used Photoshop for any amount of time, you're probably 
familiar with the Color Picker that appears when you double-click a 
color swatch. However, you may not know that you can limit the colors 
the Color Picker displays to Web-safe colors.

To do so, double-click the Foreground Color Swatch to display the 
Color Picker dialog box. Then select the Only Web Colors check box at 
the bottom of the dialog box. Photoshop will filter the color display 
to show only Web-safe colors.


*7. SHARING FILES WITH OTHER USERS

If you share image files with other users, particularly those using 
version 4 of Photoshop, be certain to save your image in Lab mode. 
Unlike other color modes, the Lab mode format is the same for 
Photoshop 4 and 5. Saving your image in Lab mode will prevent 
Photoshop from shifting colors if someone opens the file in another 
version.


*8. KEEP A HANDLE ON ANIMATION SPEED

Adobe ImageReady allows you to create animated banner GIFs. However, 
to keep the cells in the animated banner from flashing by too quickly 
to read or view, you can maintain a minimum 2-second frame rate.

To set the frame rate for all the cells in your animation, press Shift 
and select each cell in your ImageReady document. Then choose Other 
from the Frame Delay Time menu. In the resulting dialog box, enter

2

in the text field and click OK.


*9. USING FONTS ONLY IN ADOBE APPLICATIONS

You can identify fonts that are to be used only by Adobe applications. 
To do so, place the font files in the Adobe Fonts folder instead of 
the Fonts folder in your operating system.

In Windows, the Adobe Fonts folder is located in Program Files\Common 
Files\Adobe\Fonts. On the Macintosh, the Adobe Fonts folder is in 
System Folder\Application Support\Adobe\Fonts.


*10. MIX AND MATCH FONTS AND SIZES WITH CHARACTER FORMATTING

With the new Photoshop Type tool, you can mix and match fonts and 
sizes of characters or words in the same text layer. To do so, select 
the Type tool from the toolbox to open the Type dialog box. Enter some 
text in the text area. Then, select a portion of the text and change 
some of the font attributes, such as font typeface and size. As you 
can see in the preview, Photoshop renders the multi-formatted text.
