Handy PS Tips/Shortcuts
Discussion
Who knows some interesting tips or shortcuts for using PS?
I have one that I used to think was common knowledge, but recently I haven't found anyone who has known about it. It is as follows...
If you want to make a picture level, then it is a pain to use the arbitrary rotate by trial and error until you get the right value. So, if you select the "Measure" Tool (press I then shift+I, shift+I), then you can drag a line across the horizon (or anything else that should be either horizontal or vertical). when you ae happy with your line, go into Image>Rotate>Arbitrary, and as if by magic, the correct value for levelling your line will be in there, so just press enter. Voila - a real time and hassle saver.
If anyone else has any similar things post them here and we can all learn
I have one that I used to think was common knowledge, but recently I haven't found anyone who has known about it. It is as follows...
If you want to make a picture level, then it is a pain to use the arbitrary rotate by trial and error until you get the right value. So, if you select the "Measure" Tool (press I then shift+I, shift+I), then you can drag a line across the horizon (or anything else that should be either horizontal or vertical). when you ae happy with your line, go into Image>Rotate>Arbitrary, and as if by magic, the correct value for levelling your line will be in there, so just press enter. Voila - a real time and hassle saver.
If anyone else has any similar things post them here and we can all learn
That levelling one is superb - a real workflow improver. I wonder if there is a way of automatically cropping the image to the outer edge of the original after rotating?
Anyway, lots of people ask about spot-colour in images - by far the quickest / easiest way I've found is:
Desaturate / grayscale / apply filter in whatever way you feel appropriate to create the B7W image, then simply use the history brush to "paint" back the colour on your chosen subject. If you generate your B7W image using more than one step then the history brush may not work so just make a copy of the image, apply B&W , paste onto colour original and then history brush.
Anyway, lots of people ask about spot-colour in images - by far the quickest / easiest way I've found is:
Desaturate / grayscale / apply filter in whatever way you feel appropriate to create the B7W image, then simply use the history brush to "paint" back the colour on your chosen subject. If you generate your B7W image using more than one step then the history brush may not work so just make a copy of the image, apply B&W , paste onto colour original and then history brush.
Bee_Jay said:
One more question, once you have done that, how do you then crop it easily?
Obviously you can drag a box with the crop tool, but is there an easier way?
>> Edited by Bee_Jay on Wednesday 11th May 15:15
i don't know a way apart from the crop tool - bu I find that only takes about 2 seconds. don't forget you can also use the crop tool to change the angle of a photo too, so you would then be doing both things in one fell swoop, but it's not as accurate as the Measure Tool method.
when you drag the cropping box, you can rotate it by mousing down to one corner of the box then going a bit over the outside of the line, until the rotate arrow thing appears. make it level (you can line up the bottom of the box with the horizon, then drag it back to the right place for the crop) and press enter. done
trackdemon said:
That levelling one is superb - a real workflow improver. I wonder if there is a way of automatically cropping the image to the outer edge of the original after rotating?
Anyway, lots of people ask about spot-colour in images - by far the quickest / easiest way I've found is:
Desaturate / grayscale / apply filter in whatever way you feel appropriate to create the B7W image, then simply use the history brush to "paint" back the colour on your chosen subject. If you generate your B7W image using more than one step then the history brush may not work so just make a copy of the image, apply B&W , paste onto colour original and then history brush.
that is a good way of doing the spot colour, and it'e the most versatile. But if you are doing spot on a bright colour that doesnt appear everywhere in the photo (like grey or white or black etc) then there is another way that can have more accurate results. If you go to Select>Colour[sic]Range then select the colour you want to keep on the picture below the box that comes up. You may want to select more than one colour (or shade thereof) by holding down shift. Then play with the Fuzziness slider until you get the result you want. It doesn't matter if there are other bits selected that you don't want, as long as the edges of what you want in colour are well defined. If there are unwanted selections then just deselect them using the marquee tool (hold down the alt key on a mac, maybe same on windows, to deselect things). Once you have your correct selection you can create a new layer with it, then desaturate the original bottom layer and do all the contrast adjustments etc that you need. The good thing about this method is that it can select fractions of pixels which the history brush won't unless you are using differing opacities, so the blending can look better.
i hope that makes sense
Does anyone know a way of cropping a picture so that it conforms to a paper size (i.e. A3, A4, 4x6 etc)... I know I can change the canvass size, but I'd like to be able to drag a "proprtional template" over the picture to choose what I'd like keep/lose.
TIA - assuming that makes any sense what-so-ever!
PS Great first tip DCW!
edited: to correct a potentially embarrassing "PS"...
>> Edited by chim_knee on Wednesday 11th May 15:47
TIA - assuming that makes any sense what-so-ever!
PS Great first tip DCW!
edited: to correct a potentially embarrassing "PS"...
>> Edited by chim_knee on Wednesday 11th May 15:47
You can do that using the select tool, and then select Style, Fixed Aspect Ratio and then typing in the size of the paper into the toolbar at the top, units doesn't matter as it is the relative aspect ratio you are interested in.
It will then drag to that ratio only, then you can crop.
That's how I do it anyway...
>> Edited by Bee_Jay on Wednesday 11th May 15:49
>> Edited by Bee_Jay on Wednesday 11th May 15:50
It will then drag to that ratio only, then you can crop.
That's how I do it anyway...
>> Edited by Bee_Jay on Wednesday 11th May 15:49
>> Edited by Bee_Jay on Wednesday 11th May 15:50
Bee_Jay said:Sounds interesting, and about right... definitely going to give that a go when I get home. Cheers.
You can do that using the select tool, and then typing in the size of the paper into the toolbar at the top, untis doesn't matter as it is the relative aspect ratio you are interested in.
It will then drag to that ratio only, then you can crop.
That's how I do it anyway...
Chim_knee said:
Does anyone know a way of cropping a picture so that it conforms to a paper size (i.e. A3, A4, 4x6 etc)... I know I can change the canvass size, but I'd like to be able to drag a "proprtional template" over the picture to choose what I'd like keep/lose.
Yup - easy peasy
select the crop tool by press ing C. then in the toolbar at the top you can select the dimensions you want it cropped to. You will have to know these, it doesn't do presets so with A4 set it to 210mm x 297mm (I think). You can leave the resolution field blank and it will just crop to those proportions, or you can enter the desired resolution and it will resample to the correct size
>> Edited by dcw@pr on Wednesday 11th May 15:52
_dobbo_ said:OK - no offense but let's start with the easiest ones...
Ok here's a question then - my CTRL shortcut key just doesn't work at all.
So although the menu says "CTRL+Z" should do an undo - it doesn't work.
Anyone seen this? I've searched the help but no luck and it's doing my nut in!
It's not a Mac is it?
Do you have a KVM (keyboard video mouse) switch?
chim_knee said:
You can do that using the select tool, and then typing in the size of the paper into the toolbar at the top, untis doesn't matter as it is the relative aspect ratio you are interested in.
It will then drag to that ratio only, then you can crop.
That's how I do it anyway...
Sounds interesting, and about right... definitely going to give that a go when I get home. Cheers.
You can also make a load of custom crop tools.
Martin.
chim_knee said:
Does anyone know a way of cropping a picture so that it conforms to a paper size (i.e. A3, A4, 4x6 etc)... I know I can change the canvass size, but I'd like to be able to drag a "proprtional template" over the picture to choose what I'd like keep/lose.
TIA - assuming that makes any sense what-so-ever!
PS Great first tip DCW!
edited: to correct a potentially embarrassing "PS"...
>> Edited by chim_knee on Wednesday 11th May 15:47
If you click on the crop tool the pre-select menu becomes available. Click the little down arrow by the crop tool emblem at the top of the tool bar. The pop down menu appears. If the one you want isn't there, make your own by clicking the little arrow in the blue circle and typing your own. (Hope that makes sense)
Martin.
PS - no one likes a smartarse, but the easy leveling tip is one of the first I learned. Scott Kelby's book is invaluable.
chim_knee said:
Ok here's a question then - my CTRL shortcut key just doesn't work at all.
So although the menu says "CTRL+Z" should do an undo - it doesn't work.
Anyone seen this? I've searched the help but no luck and it's doing my nut in!
OK - no offense but let's start with the easiest ones...
It's not a Mac is it?
Do you have a KVM (keyboard video mouse) switch?
No offence taken! No it's a PC, no KVM switch - CTRL+whatever shortcuts work in all other programs. I'm guessing there is some kind of switch in photoshop that controls the behaviour of the CTRL key but i'm f
d if I can find it. To be honest I'm at the stage where I'm going to uninstall/re-install and see how I get on.
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