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…

While using Photoshop one day (living happily in Space 4), I noticed that I couldn’t select anything. I had the marquee tool (or rectangular selection tool, or whatever) selected and when I went to draw a selection box, the move tool arrow showed up, then switched back into being the marquee, then the move tool, and back and forth and again. Non-stop. This rendered the marquee tool useless… also known as making Photoshop suck.

So naturally, I thought it an anomaly and restarted PS. Same problem came back. So I then threw away my Photoshop .plist file and all was well in the world. I used PS again and again with no problem for a few hours then BANG. Same crap.

All day, everyday I would use PS for a while and when the problem returned, I’d throw away the prefs and restart. Annoying when you’ve got bosses and clients breathing down your neck. They don’t even know what a marquee tool is let alone care that it doesn’t work.

So after much pain and sorrow, it finally dawned on me what was going on. Sometimes when I’d switch between my spaces, the problem would begin. I can’t remember now if it was only when I used my keyboard shortcut to “see all spaces” and then choose Space 4 or if it was using the shortcut keys I set for each of the spaces that caused it (maybe both), but basically… Spaces and Photoshop CS 3 have this bug. Adobe has released some updates and to my knowledge they didn’t address this… Apple too has released various updates since and as far as I know this is still unresolved.

Anyways… moral of the story is, I fell in love with Spaces, but it was a short lived love affair as it finally got to be problematic as it interfered with time spent with my real true love, Photoshop.

Oh well.

— TF

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

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

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.

Why do it:

• What’s in the clipboard is nice and small (talking filesize, folks) version of that behemoth of a PSD you have going on there.
• You can paste the new mini-file into whatever will accept a graphic (a new Photoshop file, Illustrator, even Flash and Word to name a few)
• If you create a new PSD and paste the graphic into it, you can print that WAAAAAY faster than you could the behemoth (only a fraction of the info needs to be processed for printing vs. the behemoth).

So here’s how to do it:

Take your awesome Photoshop file with it’s bazillion layers (this examples only has a few layers, but it’ll do), make sure the Layers Palette and the Actions Palette are up, then…

Step 1: Click on the “new action button” at the bottom of the layer palette.
(These thumbnail images can all be clicked on to reveal a full-sized version)

Step 2: Name your action and give it a keyboard shortcut (I chose the name “F-SACU” and the keyboard shortcut [SHIFT]+[F12]).
(That particular key command my trigger Exposé for some of you… I’m not a big fan, so I’ve disabled my Exposé)

Step 3: At the top-right of the Layers Palette, click the “options button” (the lil’ arrowhead in a circle).
Notice that the name of your action is now in the Actions Palette and the “record button” is highlighted.

Step 4: Select “Flatten Image”.
Don’t worry, Gollum… all your precious layers won’t be lost.

Step 5: Select your entire canvas by hitting [CMD]+[a].
The “marching ants” will show up around the edge of your canvas.

Step 6: Take a step back in your history [OPT]+[CMD]+[z].
Should undo your “select all” command.

Step 7: Take a ANOTHER step back in your history [OPT]+[CMD]+[z].
Should undo your “flatten image” command.

Step 8: Click on the “Stop Recording button” at the bottom of the Actions Panel.
That’s it! Everything is back to normal.

Now I’ve got a kick-ass action that, in my case, can be called up just by pressing [SHIFT]+[F12].

Magically, a flat, easy to paste version of my crazy-humongous PSD is now in my clipboard.

Warning:

Slow down there, Mario! The action ain’t instant. It takes a second or two, so don’t go hitting your F-SACU keyboard shortcut and immediately got clicking around somewheres else. Let the action play out. You can actually see it working if you have the Actions Palette open (funnily enough, that “slow down, Mario” comment will mean different things to different people… for the young’uns out there, it’ll bring up visions of a Nintendo plumber, while for the older types (like me) it’ll make you think of an Indy Car racer from back in the day… but I digress).

Pretty simple, and pretty useful. Enjoy, folks.

TF

Less desirable alternatives to the F-SACU are the “‘Save As, then fish for where that file is’ method” and the “‘take a screen shot and take the time to trim away all the excess that comes with it’ method”. F-SACU allows you to have what you want, at the size you want in your clipboard to paste into whatever you want.

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