Here are a few handy keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop for those of you out there like me who spend an inordinate amount of time in the Creative Suite primarily using Illustrator. These are not keyboard shortcuts that you can use in Illustrator, but rather are keyboard shortcuts providing methods of doing things in Photoshop that you are used to doing in Illustrator that at first it might seem isn’t possible, like click directly on an object to select it, drag to a new layer, etc.
Continue reading '6 Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts For Illustrator Users'
by George Coghill -
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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?
Continue reading 'Adobe Apps: Backup Your Prefs'
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http://www.vimeo.com/2304440
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.
Continue reading 'Video: Photoshop CS4 Drag-Resize Brush Keyboard Shortcut'
by George Coghill -
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Great resource for Adobe Photoshop users — reference cards for quick overviews of Photoshop’s interface, specific and often-used tools.
Includes links to versions for Photoshop CS3 and CS4 as well as both Macintosh and Windows versions.
Some of the “cards” are actually links to Adobe’s own online help (which is where the default Help in CS4 apps now takes you). But the rest of the cards look helpful in learning or referencing common tools such as the Pen tool, the Marquee tool, and the Brush tool. Worth a look and a download for the reference cards that suit your workflow. Sure to enhance your productivity.
Continue reading 'Photoshop Cheatsheets and Reference Cards: Free Downloads'
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A quick note that as of the posting date, there are a handful of plugins not yet available for the Creative Suite CS4 applications.
The list for me so far includes: all font activation plugins for Linotype’s Font Explorer X, “Select Menu” for Illustrator CS4, Canon’s Scangear CS plugin to access your scanner from within Photoshop’s Import menu, and plugins from developer Worker72a such as the ‘Zoom To Selection’ plugin for Illustrator.
Continue reading 'Creative Suite CS4 Plugin Availability'
by George Coghill -
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Sharon Steuer’s free ”Zen Of The Pen” PDF is an excellent introduction to the inner mysteries of the vector pen tool in Adobe Illustrator.
The pen tool is one of those obscure graphics programs tools that everyone tries once, and then gets so confused by that they never get any further with it. And understandably. It looks like a fountain pen, but it doesn’t act like one. Click and “draw”, you get weird “handles” sprouting out from a dot. Ignore that, and some annoying rubber band line gets stuck to your pen tip, all distorted out of — not even a straight line! Right there most Illustrator users think to themselves “this program sucks”.
But they couldn’t be further from the truth…
Continue reading 'Zen Of The Pen'
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Layers Magazine has a hefty selection of videos showcasing the new tools and features of all the Adobe Creative Suite CS4. Each video is a short demo/tutorial,walkthough/how-to of all the new stuff you can expect in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and the rest of the software in CS4.
by George Coghill -
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If you aren’t aware, Adobe is announcing the CS4 update the their Creative Suite design software package today. Photoshop always gets the spotlight, but us vector artists want the scoop on our baby: Illustrator CS4. I guess the gag order was lifted as of midnight, because details are pouring in, and even Adobe has updated their site to feature CS4.
Illustrator guru Mordy Golding over on his Real World Illustrator blog has a nice detailed overview of the major new features and refinements in Illustrator CS4.
Continue reading 'Adobe Illustrator CS4 Details Released!'
by George Coghill -
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Although technically these tips apply to any graphics software, this particular tutorial over at Spoon Graphics focuses on the exact steps to set up bleeds for print design in your document within Adobe Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop. The method to do so in other graphics application might be slightly different, but these walkthroughs should give you enough info to apply it to non-Adobe software.
Continue reading 'Setting Up Bleeds For Print Design In Creative Suite'
by George Coghill -
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While I had no idea that Photoshop had a 3GB RAM limit, a clever user over at MacOSXHints.com has figured out a hack/solution/workaround using a RAM disk as a virtual scratch disk. Clever.
Continue reading 'Photoshop’s 3GB RAM Limit – A Workaround For OS X Users'
by George Coghill -
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