April 2008 Digital Group Meeting - Photoshop Tips

Meeting Notes March 2009 to 2018.
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spb
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Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:04 pm

April 2008 Digital Group Meeting - Photoshop Tips

Post by spb » Fri Apr 04, 2008 9:30 pm

28 attended another busy evening.

NEWS

Two items of news this month, both relating to Adobe;

a) Lightroom Ver 2 Beta is available for us to play 'find the bugs'.

b) Perhaps more interestingly Adobe have announced Photoshop Express which will be a free network-based image storage and manipulation application. This is clearly aimed at tweaking snaps for social networking sites, lacking any of the more serious manipulation capabilities. Nevertheless it is still quite sophisticated as far as it goes yet requires zero training. The Beta is available to test drive with no registration requirement here.

PHOTOSHOP TIPS;

Here is a collection of random hints and tips that should work in both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements;

1. See the size of the brush onscreen with Edit>Preferences>Cursors>Normal Brush Tip
2. The Caps Lock key changes brush cursors into a crosshair for accurate working
3. Square Brackets [ and ] change brush size and Shift + [ or ] change their softness
4. When working with a tool that uses a brush, press a number to change the opacity of the brush eg 6 = 60% ( for 100% press 100)
5. When working on a layer, press a number to change the opacity of the layer eg 6 = 60%. NB only works if you're not using a brush-based tool
6. The mouse scroll wheel is a quick and easy way to zoom in and out. You may have to enable this in Edit>Preferences>General>Zoom with Scroll Wheel
7. When zoomed in, pan around the image by pressing the Spacebar and then clicking and dragging
8. When a non-Background layer is active you can move it around by pressing the Ctrl key whilst clicking and dragging
9. When the Move tool is selected, nudge a layer by one pixel at a time using the Arrow keys. Shift + Arrow keys moves by ten pixels
10. To re-name a layer double-click on it's title in the layers palette.
11. Double-clicking on a Background layer also re-names it but also makes it a non-Background layer and therefore unlocks it
12. If an image consists of several layers, make a new layer and then Alt+Merge Visible creates a new composite layer of all the existing layers
13. The Marquee tools can be used with several modifier keys: Shift creates only squares and circles, Alt centres the Marquee where you first clicked, Spacebar enables you to move the Marquee whilst it is being created
14. Ctrl + F replays the last filter used. Ctrl + Shift + F opens control panel for the last filter
15. Double Click on the grey Photoshop background to go to File>Open
16. In CS3 Bridge if the Preview doesn't work go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced> Use Software Rendering then re-start Photoshop
17. In CS3 Bridge click on the Preview to show the Loupe. Use the scroll wheel to zoom the Loupe and drag to move it around
18. Create multiple duplicate layers with the Blending Mode of each set to Screen Mode to brighten dark images.

NEXT MEETING

The next meeting (and last of the season) will be on Thurs 1st May.

Cheers, Steve Brabner.

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