looks muddy, as the layer
style blends too. Here’s a trick
that only super-special people
know (I guess that makes you
a member of the club now).
Double-click on Drop Shadow
in the Layers panel to open
the Layer Style dialog, and
choose Blending Options
near the top on the left. You’ll
see a checkbox that says
“Layer Mask Hides effects.”
Turn on the box and bingo!
The gradient or blended area
is nice and smooth and not
dirty anymore.PUT A BORDER AROUND AN IMAGE QUICKLY
When you’re framing a photo, you might want to put
a white border around your image to create a matte
effect, or there could be a zillion other reasons you
want to add a white border around your image. While
there are many ways to do this, here’s the fastest way
known to man (this only works on a flattened image):
Open the Properties panel (Window>Properties).
Where it says Canvas, type in a new width in the
W field that’s larger than the original size. Click the
chain link (if it’s not already turned on) to the left of
the field to link it to the Height field so it changes
too, and press Enter. Boom! Instant border and it’s
always white, no matter what the Foreground and
Background colors are set to.
If you’re working on a multi-layered document,
you can use the Crop tool (C) to add a border. Just
drag the crop boundary outside the edges of your
document; yes you can crop an image larger. It will
use the Background color to set the border color.
A third option is to choose Image>Canvas Size. Click
Relative and enter your extension amount. As you can
see, all of these will get the job done, but the first
method is the fastest.
CLEANING UP LAYER MASK GRADIENTS
ON OBJECTS WITH DROP SHADOWS
Have you ever used a gradient or brush on a layer
mask to fade an object that has a Drop Shadow layer
style? It might be annoying because the blended area
WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
Did you know that Photoshop comes with a free library
card? Yup, there are tons of brushes, styles, shapes,
gradients, patterns, and color swatches. First, go to
Window>Patterns (or whichever asset you want to work
with). The panel will open and it contains some, but
not all of the presets that ship with Photoshop. If you
choose the flyout menu (three horizontal lines) at the top
right of the panel, you’ll see an item that says “Legacy
[preset name].” Select that, and then scroll down to
see all the new items available for your immediate use.SAVING SELECTIONS FOR LATER USE
It recently came to my attention that a lot of people
don’t know this old trick, so here’s a reminder if you’ve
either forgotten or just didn’t know: how to save and
load selections. If you’ve made a selection that you may
want to use again later, go to Select>Save Selection,
give it a name, click OK, and now you’re ready. When
you need that selection, go to Select>Load Selection
and choose the name of the selection you saved. Now
the selection is turned on again.
Okay, here’s where it gets fast. Open the Channels
panel (Window>Channels). All your saved selections
are shown as separate channels. Yup, all Photoshop
does is create an alpha channel whenever you save
a selection. This is useful because now you can load
these selections super fast. Hold down the Command
(PC: Ctrl) key, click on the channel thumbnail, and the
selection will turn on. nALL IMAGES BY COLIN SMITH | PHOTOSHOPCAFE.COM
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