iPhone Photo Keys is an interesting iPhone/iPod Touch Photoshop helper application available on the iTunes App Store.

Photo Keys turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a Photoshop companion tool by putting the entire Photoshop toolbar, as well as many useful shortcuts right at your fingertips. If your iPhone or iPod Touch is nearby that is.

After downloading the iPhone app from the Apple app store, you also must install a server app on your computer so that the Photo Keys app can connect to it via wi-fi. The main toolbar screen contains all the tools in the Photoshop toolbar palette. Simple click any tool to select it in Photoshop. For tools that contain multiple tools, such as the Rectangular Marquee tool, you can cycle through the tools by clicking the same tool multiple times.

 There is also an Edit screen which contains 4 rows of commonly used editing shortcuts. Following these keys, there are 8 fully customizable hotkeys that you can configure in the server setup. These can be used to preform any Photoshop keyboard shortcut or trigger custom Photoshop Actions.

Finally there is a Move screen. This screen contains four arrow keys, which are used the same way as the ones on your keyboard. Below the arrow keys is a selector, which allows you to specifiy how you want the arrow keys to work, this is similar to holding down modifier keys while using the arrow keys on your keyboard. Tapping an arrow with 1 finger will move the selection 1 pixel, tapping with 2 fingers will move it 10 pixels. The benefit of having arrow keys in this tool is that it allows you to use them with your left hand, so you don’t have to take your hand off the mouse like you do when using the keyboard arrow keys.

Feature list:

• Full screen Photoshop tool bar. 
• 20 useful editing keyboard shotcuts, such as Cut/Copy/Paste, Undo/Redo, Open/Save, and many more. 
• 8 Fully customizable hot keys. Useful for defining your own keyboard shortcuts or custom Photoshop Actions. 
• Arrow keys with 3 selection movement modes. 
• Zoom bar, allows you to zoom in and out by sliding your finger across the bar or by clicking the + or – magnifying glass icons. 
• Supports Bonjour for auto-configuration.

I have not used this app, so I can’t vouch for it’s usefulness. However I did purchase the company’s other iPhone app Air Mouse, which turns your iPhone/iPod touch into a virtual mouse and Air Mouse is excellent an well thought out piece of software. I can only imagine that Photo Keys has the same amount of polish and attention.

Photo Keys has server software for both Mac & PC. Photo Keys is only $3.99 at the App Store (iTunes Store link).

Photo Keys: Photoshop Toolbars On Your iPhone is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghill Cartooning

I don’t own a Wacom Cintiq graphics tablet, but I have heard quite a bit of grumbling from Cintiq owners about the way the cursor is displayed: I guess it’s offset a bit with the idea that your hand would obscure the cursor so Wacom has offset it a bit, which takes some getting used to.

But those Cintiq users are in luck: there’s a utility out there that might just ease your pain.

Although not designed with this particular use in mind, Mac OS X utility software Cursorcerer from Doomlaser allows the user to hide the cursor by use of a global hotkey. It can also autohide an idle cursor and bring it back as soon as you move the mouse. Just install the Preference Pane, set your preferences and you’re all set for Cintiq bliss.

via Ray Frenden on Twitter.

Cursorcerer: Hide Your Cintiq Cursor is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghill Cartooning

Key commands are formatted for Macintosh; Windows users swap out “Command” for “Control” & “Option” for “Alt”

Create A New Layer: Command (Apple key)-Shift-N
Illustrator bonus tip: I used to think you couldn’t do this in Illustrator using a keyboard command, but I was recently digging into the Keyboard Shortcuts prefs and discovered the keyboard shortcut for creating a new Layer: Command-L. Awesome!

Jump to the next/previous layer: Option – ] or [
This would be similar to selecting an object

Move The Selected Layer Up or Down: Command - ] or [
This would be similar to moving an object up or down

Copy A Selection To A New Layer: Command – J
Similar to an option-drag to copy an item

Select Any Object, Regardless of the Current Layer:
Similar to selecting Illustrator’s Selection tool and selecting/moving an object. When using Photoshop’s Move tool, hold the Command key and click on the object. That object’s layer will be selected as well. The Move tool’s options allow you to set this as the default behavior, but I find it odd to work that way. I much prefer using the modifier key to enable the feature.

Manipulate An Object With Transform Handles:
Highlight the layer whose object you wish to  manipulate, then hit Command-T. The Transform box will appear, and you can then drag the object around as well as resize with the transform handles.

A bonus, non-keyboard tip for resizing just a Selection: make your selection using the Marquee tool (or any other selection tool), then go to the Select menu and choose “Transform Selection” to get the transform handles.

6 Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts For Illustrator Users is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghill Cartooning

It’s happened to all of us digital creatives. The dreaded day when you just cannot get one of your Adobe applications to launch. Usually there’s a deadline looming (of course). You’ve restarted your computer (three times) and still you cannot get Photoshop to launch. You’ve tried a few tips from some Google searches, but still nothing. Your geek cred is showing it’s limitations. And your deadline isn’t getting any further away.

What if I told you this could be avoided, virtually forever? And also, that you can get back to work with all your settings just the way you like them?

That’s a strong claim, but I am going to back it up by showing you how. You’ll be able to get back to work exactly where you left off — all your preferences, settings & palette locations will be just the way you like them, all with a clean start.

Typically on computers (on a Mac at least), the standard answer when things seem too far gone is to “trash the prefs”, or in other words delete the preferences file for that piece of software. The reason behind this logic is the fact that the software, not finding the prefs where they are supposed to be, will create a brand new preferences file for you when you next launch the application.

The big problem here is that all your settings — well your preferences, actually — are stored in this file (go figure). Creating a new preferences file from scratch will also result in losing all the customization you’ve done for that particular piece of software. But there is a pretty simple solution to both these situations.

Simply put, you just need to save a duplicate/backup version of the preferences file/folder, and replace that when things get weird. The trick however is to set up your software just the way you like things before you do this. This is the trick to getting a “new” set of prefs with everything set up with all your customizations. This customized setup is best done with a brand-new set of preferences, so as to ensure your working with a clean, error-free version. At the very least, backing up your prefs right now with a working version set to just how you like things is better than nothing.

Here are the locations of the preferences files for Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign (Mac and PC). If you need to do this for other apps, you can reverse-engineer the locations pretty easily to find anything else.

Mac OS X:

Illustrator: Users>(username)>Library>Preferences>Adobe Illustrator CS[x] Settings>Adobe Illustrator Prefs

Photoshop: Users>(username)>Library>Preferences>Adobe Photoshop CS[x] Settings

InDesign: Users>(username)>Library>Preferences>Adobe InDesign>Version [x].0

Windows (XP & 2000):

Illustrator: Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator[Version][Settings].

Photoshop: Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop\[version #]\Adobe Photoshop [version #] Settings

InDesign: Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Adobe\InDesign>Version [x].0

(Note: to locate the file from Windows Explorer it may be necessary to set Explorer Folder options > View to “View Hidden Files and Folders”)

What I like to do it to save a backup copy of the preferences in the exact same folder where the actual preferences are, renamed to something different. I usually just append the word “backup” to the folder name. For example, “Adobe Illustrator Prefs” would be saved as “Adobe Illustrator Prefs backup“.

On a Mac I can confirm that leaving this backup folder in the same folder will do no harm. I am not a Windows guy so you may want to check further to see if this is a safe option.

What I like about this is the fact that my backup is right there where I need it — no searching necessary. I just make a copy of the backup folder, trash the “problem” version and rename the copy of the backup.

Because I am extra cautious, I usually drag the problem preferences folder to the Desktop instead of trashing it immediately, just in case I need to go back for some reason (you never know). After a week or so of things working fine I will then go back and trash the faulty folder.

It sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is, and you’ll be glad you set this up if you ever need to use it, trust me.

Adobe Apps: Backup Your Prefs is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghill Cartooning

Another brief video in my series introducing some great new features in Photoshop CS4 for artists, cartoonists, illustrators and anyone else who sketches or draws using Photoshop.

This video features the excellent new keyoard shortcuts that allow you to drag-resize the size of the brushes using the mouse pointer.

The drag-resize brush cursor feature was one of the top three features that enticed me to upgrade to the Adobe Creative Suite CS4 (Design Premium). While I primarily work with vector art in Adobe Illustrator (at least for my final artwork), I do a lot of sketching within Photoshop using my Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet.

As any Photoshop user will know, resizing the brushes can interrupt your workflow, especially when you are drawing or sketching. Not having to think about your tools is a big deal to me — I like to have the computer and the software get out of my way as much as possible.

With the new drag-resize brush cursor keyboard shortcuts, my productivity is very much increased now that I can — on the fly and exactly where I am working — change my brush size (as well as the hardness) of the brush. As a keyboard shortcut junkie, I am already used to having my left hand by the modifier keys on the Mac keyboard, so learning these required very little muscle memory.

I love being able resize the brushes with a gesture as opposed to having to stop what I am doing and size the brush up or down, then move the cursor back to where I was working (and repeat if necessary). As I mentioned, the hardness of the brush can also be controlled with keyboard shortcuts (the brush hardness is how soft the edges of the brush are).

Between the Spacebar for the Hand tool and these new shortcuts, for the most part I can almost work without needing to think about what I am doing at all. I also have the eraser tool mapped to one of the Wacom stylus buttons so I can quickly erase without switching tools.

If you work like I do, you’ll want to seriously consider an upgrade for this feature. It’s that great, honestly.

Oh — the other features in Photoshop CS4 that I upgraded for? The Rotate View tool and the Spring-Loaded Keys.

Video: Photoshop CS4 Drag-Resize Brush Keyboard Shortcut is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghill Cartooning