> PHOTOSHOP USER>^ OCTOBER 2019[ 110 ]
DAVECROSS
Photoshop Q&A
Q: How can I copy just a selection (not the pix-
els) to another document?
A: You can do this by using drag-and-drop with any
selection tool (rather than the Move tool). With a
selection tool (such as the Marquee tool), click-and-
hold on the selection and then drag it onto the other
document. If you’re using tabbed documents, drag it
onto the other document’s tab, and then wait for that
document to become active. Once you can see the
other document, drag it from the tab onto the image
area and release.Q: I must have pressed something by accident
because suddenly my Toolbar and panels no
longer show. What did I do?
A: The Tab key is the shortcut for hiding all the panels, and
it’s a toggle shortcut: Press it again to show all the panels.
If you want to keep the Toolbar and hide the other pan-
els, press Shift-Tab.Q: Someone told me to use Image Processor
to save a bunch of PSD files as JPEGs. It
looks like that option is in both Photoshop
and Bridge. What’s the difference? Where’s
the best place to use it? And how do I use
Image Processor?
A: It’s the same command, but there’s one important differ-
ence between using it in Photoshop (File>Scripts>Image
Processor) and in Bridge (Tools>Photoshop>Image
Processor). When you use it in Photoshop, you can
choose to process either the open images or a folder of
images (every image within that folder will be included,
along with the images in any subfolders, if you choose
that). So, if you have a folder that contains images other
than the ones you want to save as JPEGs, you’ll have a
problem. When accessing Image Processor from Bridge,
you can visually choose the images in Bridge with which
you want Image Processor to work. For that reason,
I prefer using Image Processor in Bridge.
As for how it works, the beauty of the Image Pro-
cessor is its simplicity. Assuming that you use Bridge,
select the images you want to save as JPEGs, and then
go to Tools>Photoshop>Image Processor. Bridge will
automatically switch to Photoshop for the rest of
the operation. In the dialog, choose the location to
save the images. Note: It’s okay to choose the samelocation, as a folder called JPEG will automatically
be created. Then check Save as JPEG, choose the Qual-
ity setting you want to use, and if you don’t want to
change the size, leave the Resize to Fit box unchecked.
If you want to resize the images, enter the value you
want for the longest measurement; for instance, if you
enter 900 for both W and H, for landscape images,
Photoshop will make the width 900 and the height will
be whatever the math works out to. Click Run to pro-
cess all the selected files.Q: I have a photo of my son dressed as a ghost.
How can I make him look see-through in
this photo?
A: To make something see-through, it has to be on its
own layer and, in this case, you also have to cover
up the original subject. First, make a selection of the
ghost and press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to copy the
selection onto a separate layer. Hide that layer by click-
ing its Eye icon in the Layers panel.
Now, with the Background layer active, make
a rough selection around the ghost, and then use
Edit>Content-Aware Fill to cover up the original
ghost. The results don’t have to be perfect, as you’ll be
showing the ghost layer again, but of course you
want to make it look as accurate as possible. To
preserve the original background, make sure that
Output To is set to New Layer in the Content-Aware
Fill panel.