This is Erin, and I get
to be the pclayers blogger this week! I thought I'd just share some
random photoshop fun stuff this week, because to me, playing around
in photoshop is half the fun of scrapbooking.
Today I thought I'd start out with some
workspace stuff. I'm all about being efficient, so I use tons of
shortcuts and have everything all laid out for me the way I want.
This is what my workspace looks like.
I realize my pictures are a little small, but you can click on them and they'll show up bigger. Did you know you don't have to keep your pallets organized the way
adobe likes them. You can drag whichever ones you want in and out.
You can have up to 4 per grouping. You can also stick a bunch up at
the top, but the amount depends on the size of your monitor. So if
you don't use your channels and histogram pallets everyday, get rid
of them!
The next step is shortcuts.
I'm sure most of you have figured out
that the letters next to your tools in their flyout menus are the
shortcuts. For example, if you want the type tool press "t".
Some of my favorites aren't obvious
though. For example, there's no flyout menu for the move tool and
wand tool. So here's a quick list of "must knows".
move tool = v
wand tool = w
reset your foreground and background
colors to black and white = d
switch between your foreground and
background colors = x
(stay tuned later this week, and you'll
find out why this last one is so important!)
toggle through screen modes = f
hide pallets and menus = tab
You can also find the shortcuts for
other items in the menus at the top. For example, to copy a layer,
press ctrl-j (on a pc of course; mac shortcuts use the little apple
instead).
Ctrl-J is a great one to know, but it's
a pain to find it in the menu. I don't know every shortcut, just the
ones I use a lot while I'm working. If you find yourself digging
through menus to find something frequently, then take a look at the
shortcut, and by the end of your scrapping session you'll probably
have it memorized. What happens though if there isn't a shortcut for
something you use all the time? Make your own shortcut of course!
See how I have a shortcut for gradient
map. I bet you don't! This was something I was using all the time,
and I wanted a shortcut. It's pretty simple, just follow along.
Go to -->window --> workspace -->
keyboard shortcuts & menus
Next click on the keyboard shortcuts
tab
Find your menu. For example, gradient
map is found in the image menu, in the adjustment submenu.
Once you've found what you're looking
for, just click on it and you'll be able to type your shortcut. (Use
the ctrl and shift buttons, don't spell them out.) Pick some random
combination you'll remember. If the shortcut is already in use,
you'll get a little message telling you that. You can override a
shortcut, but don't override one you'll ever use. Press
ok when you've picked something you want.
Now that you've spent the time to
set-up everything the way you want, you need to save your workspace.
Go to -->window -->workspace --> save workspace. Name your
workspace and press ok.
Now if you look in your -->window
--> workspace menu, you'll see your new workspace at the bottom.
If you ever need to go back to the default settings, just select the
default workspace option from the menu. Then you can go right back
to your settings. This is also really helpful if you've got more
than one person working on a computer.
Have fun setting up your workspace, and
of course, if you have any tips be sure to post them in the comments!
