› › D E P A R T MENTS> PHOTOSHOP USER>^ MARCH 2020[ 118 ]
Opacity to 48% divided by 3, you don’t have to do the math.
You’d type 48/3 into the Opacity field, and when you press
Enter, you end up with 16. You can add, subtract, divide,
and multiply (use the * symbol for multiplication). You can
also do compound math, such as 20*2+5–2, which would
give 43. These work in every field that accepts numbers in
Photoshop. If you’re in a dialog with multiple fields, press
Tab to move to the next field. Now that’s handy.ALIGNING YOUR TEXT
This tip is so simple, you may have missed it. When you add
text, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to align it center, left, or
right without leaving the keyboard? You know what a big
slowdown it is to reach for the mouse while typing. If you
press Command-Shift-L (PC: Ctrl-Shift-L), it will align your
text to the left; press Command-Shift-R (PC: Ctrl-Shift-R) to
align right; and, you guessed it, press Command-Shift-C (PC:
Ctrl-Shift-C) to center the text. While you’re at it, highlightthe text, and add the < or > symbol to the Command-Shift
(PC: Ctrl-Shift) keys to change the size of the text.DOUBLE OUTER GLOW
When you look at a realistic glow around something, you’ll
see that the light loses brightness and color the farther away
it is from the subject. To create a realistic glow, I like to make
a thinner colored glow using the Outer Glow layer style, and
then add a second, larger glow in white at a reduced Opacity.
There’s one problem, though: If you look at the Layer Style
dialog, you see that you can add additional instances of
Stroke, Drop Shadow, and a few others, but curiously, you
can’t add a second Outer Glow. (“But why can you add
additional instances of Color Overlay?” I always ask.) Here’s
the tip and what I’ve been doing for years: When I need that
additional outer glow, I just add a Drop Shadow and change
the Distance to 0 px and Blend Mode to Normal. Now it
behaves just like a second Outer Glow. nALL IMAGES BY COLIN SMITH | PHOTOSHOPCAFE.COM