The Ramblings of a Fool

Unique Photoshop feature: some tools can “toggle” uncontrollably.

After much frustration and hundreds of “throw away your preferences and restart the program moments” I finally found out what was going on with my Photoshop Phucking Phreaking out all the time.

Lemme back up and ’splain what the problem was. Ever since I switched to Leopard on my Macs, I’ve been pretty pleased (someday I’ll write that review I promised). I got used to the overly-subtle indicator under active applications in the dock… I’ve grown accustomed to the translucent menu bar (now something you can set since the most recent leopard update). I’ve even worked it into my workflow to use QuickLook to peruse images in a folder to see which one I really want to open. And yes, even the weird stacks thing has been accepted by me.

Leaving one BIG change to get used to… SPACES.

Using spaces requires a complete change in mindset when on your machine. Very daunting and quite the barrier to overcome, but I figured I’d better be a good lil’ Apple boy and give it a shot. Well… I loved it. Really, really loved it. It was like I had 6 (set your own number as you see fit) computers. Again, I loved it.

Until… (more…)

A fool am I. After years of using my cool FSACU action (Flatten/Select All/Copy/Undo) and it’s counterpart the FCU (after a specific selection… Flatten/Copy/Undo) both used to get a flat version of a multilayered Photoshop file to use in whatever way you want… I’ve recently found out that is already built in to Photoshop.

Duh.

D’oh.

Crap.

It’s Edit>Copy Merged (aka: Shift-Cmd-C)… damn, I thought I was “cool”. Replace the “c” with an “f” and we arrive at what I really am.

— TF

Adobe CS3 is almost here.

Yes, I know it’s been out for a while, but our copy here at the company was mailed to an old address. D’oh!

DHL contacted us and will be delivering the package today or tomorrow. I can’t wait to get my hands on it. God, I am such a dork.

— TF

As many of you know, Photoshop Actions are the best way to ease the pain of the multi-step tasks you have to do again and again in Photoshop. The most useful one (arguably) in my arsenal is the Flatten/Select All/Copy/Undo Action I’ve created. F-SACU, as I like to call it is easy to create, and will save you tons of time when dealing with the realities of PSDs that have scores (or even hundreds) of layers.

What it does:

• Flattens all the layers you have going in your crazy-huge PSD (the new flat image only shows the layers you had visible).
• Selects the entire canvas.
• Copies the canvas to the clipboard.
• Undoes the flattening so that your work is back to normal. (more…)

Adobe CS3 comes out tomorrow… Continion will be buying it and I’ll be test driving it soon… so hang loose and I’ll give a review and some Tips and or tutorials really soon.

Until then, here’s a novice level mini-tip (more of a semi-stern parental reminder) for CS2 (and CS1 (and probably CS3)):
When creating new layers, we all know we should name the layer right away and avoid hanging out with “Willa Ventually”. She’s nice at first, but she tends to multiply… quickly. Things get out of hand real fast, and by the time you realize it, it’s a huge pain to go and rename the layers later. Those who share PSDs with others absolutely have to name layers, the dent to production efficiency can’t be overstated. So here’s the easy fix (and a great habit we should all form):

Create all new layers by any of the following:

- Hit [shift]+[cmd]+”n”

- From the good ol’ Menu Bar choose: Layer>New>Layer

- Hold [opt] while clicking the “new layer” icon

Each of these options will bring up a special layer properties dialog with the “Name” input box already highlighted and ready for you to type (no clicking into the dialog box necessary).

Fast, easy, and super-important.

No foolin’.

Tom