Ted Maynard's
Photoshop Tips & Tricks

Quick Selections:

  • To select an object that is already on a layer, hold down your Command key (Control on Windows) and click once on the name of the layer.

Instant Brushes Palette:

  • To access the Brushes Palette while using any tool that utilizes brushes (Photoshop 7), hold down the Control key (Macintosh) and click on the image or Right click (Windows). The brushes Palette will appear whereever your cursor is at the time.

No Snapping:

  • Many time when adjusting a cropping rectangle, you'll find that it seems to jump, making precise placement difficult. This is because Photoshop tries to snap to the edges of the document, to guides or to objects on layers. To override this: after grabbing the cropping rectangle, hold down the Control key (Macintosh only) to deactivate snapping. Windows users: Control-semicolon turns off snapping,

Perfect Size New Document:

  • Ever noticed that when you go to make a new document that the default size and resolution seems to be different every time? This is because Photoshop alters that default size to match the last thing you copied. You can use this to your advantage. Let's say you have selected a person in a photo and now want to move them into their own separate document. Simply Copy and choose File>New. Don't change anything, just click OK. Now Paste. The image will fit perfectly in the new document.

Photoshop 7 Bug Fix:

  • As wonderful as the improvements are, Photoshop 7.0 has a few bugs. The fix is simple. Go to the Adobe web site where you can find a free, downloadable upgrade to Photoshop 7.01.

Make White... White:

  • Often when you scan a photo or drawing on white paper, the paper has a light greyish tint. Newsprint is famous for this. To quickly turn the grey back to white, choose Image>Adjust>Levels from the Menu. Click the white (rightmost) eyedropper on the dialog box. Move the cursor onto your image and click on the grey area. That grey will instantly be converted to pure white.

Fast Layer Selecting:

  • To quickly select a layer that you want to move or work on without touching the Layers Palette, try this: hold down the Command key (Control on Windows) and click any visible part of the layer you want right in the window. Its layer will automatically activate.
Vector or Raster??:
  • Many clipart CDROM's these days come with both Vector and Raster versions of each drawing. Which should you bring in to Photoshop to work on? Raster or pixel-based graphics will already have a predetermined size and resolution, which may or may not be large enough for what you need. The same graphic in a vector format (like EPS or Adobe Illustrator) can be any size or resolution you choose. When you open these graphics in Photoshop, a dialog box will open on the screen in which you can type in the specific dimensions and DPI you need.

Viewing CMYK Gamut:

  • Color images for print should be worked on in RGB mode to reduce the file size. However, most colors viewable in RGB are not printable. To get a preview of what colors will shift to when printed, choose View>Proof Colors from the menus.

Viewable Brush Sizes:

  • In order to see a circle which represents the exact size brush you are about to use (instead of the cute but useless icon of the tool you're using which is the default) you need to change your Preferences. Under File: Preferences, choose Display and Cursors. Set tools and other cursors both to Precise.

To bring up the Fill Dialog Box:

  • Mac's: Hold down the Shift key and hit the Delete Key
  • Windows: Hold down the Shift key and hit the Backspace Key

Scanning translucent paper:

  • Scanning images printed on translucent paper (like newsprint) can often cause a bleed-through of the print on the other side. Try putting a sheet of black construction paper on top of the paper you're scanning before you close your scanner cover. This prevents light shining through the paper, reflecting off the white scanner cover, and bleeding back through the other side.

Scanning line art:

  • One of the most difficult things to scan is artwork that consists of thin solid patches of color, such as text, clip art, or the typical logo on a business card. To look at the complexity of a photograph, you would think that it would be more complicated, but no.
  • A trick to getting better scans of line art is to set an artificially high resolution. Normally, for print work, 300 DPI would suffice. But this is too low to capture the details of line art. Instead, try scanning at 600-800 DPI, (be prepared for a large file size) then reducing the resolution back down to 300 with the Image Size Dialog Box in Photoshop.

To make an image fill your screen after you've opened it:

  • Hit Command (Control for Windows) zero

To fill text or any selection with your foreground color:

  • Hit Option-Delete (Alt-Backspace for Windows)

What file format should you save in?

  • Images that will be printed: TIFF (.tif)
  • Images that will be printed that will have transparent areas (created by a clipping path): EPS (.eps)
  • Images for video or television: PICT (.pct)
  • Images for CD-ROM or other on-computer-screen presentation: PICT (.pct) or Bitmap (.bmp)
  • Images for the Internet: JPEG (.jpg)
  • Images for the Internet that have a minimal number of colors in them, will have transparent areas or will be animated: GIF (.gif)
  • Images you are still working on that have layers: Photoshop (.psd)

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