25 QUICK FIXES FOR PRO DESIGNERS
- USE NONDESTRUCTIVE CROPPING
The Crop tool has been overhauled in the last
couple of years and one of the most useful
features, is the fact that you can crop your image
non-destructively, although this is not the default
setting. When you crop your photo, by default the
pixels that you get rid of are permanently deleted,
which isn’t ideal if you want to restore some of the
image in the future. However, with the Crop tool
05. FOUR WAYS TO IMPROVE
WORKFLOW WITH PHOTOSHOP’S TOOLS
COLOUR YOUR LAYERS
“[It] sounds banal, but colouring Groups and Layers can
really help in keeping an organised file. In the long run it
also makes sense naming essential layers to find
them easily. Colouring Groups helps as you can
differentiate between adjustments and additional
Details, for example, as with any other element you use
in your work. Giving them specific colours – for me
adjustments are red and titled as ADJ – in the Layers
panel [makes everything easy to locate].”SAVE PRESETS
“Brushes and actions help a lot, but [in particular] a
preset for Adobe’s Camera Raw filter is useful. When
you’re at the end and adding finishing touches, you
choose specific options that sometimes take up to ten
minutes to do. Then you realise a terrible error in your
work and fix it, having to do everything again... Saving a
preset in Camera Raw can save that time doing it again
and again. Whether it’s a simple Sharpness change or
Lights/Shadows, Camera Raw offers a lot of things.”SHORTCUTS AND CONTEXT MENUS
“It should be [a given for a designer], but I know my
shortcuts by heart because I have used them for so
long. It cuts an extreme amount of time not having to
use the menus. Also make use of the context menus
and the buttons in your Layers panel to add things
like adjustment layers quickly, without having to go
into the main menu.”THIRDPARTY APPS
“Try using an app to make screenshot versions of your
artwork. I just recently discovered that using an app
like Lightshot (https://app.prntscr.com) to make
previews and fast images for web presentation
purposes (1,000px+ but less than 1,700px), takes less
time than doing numerous saves in Photoshop and
sizing down your work from a big scale. This is the best
recent workflow improvement I’ve experienced.”$%3)'.%2ď!.$ď),,5342!4/2ď.)#/,!3ď-/.).˶"!2/),,%ď˴777
"%(!.#%.%45.+./7."%).'˵ď3(!2%3ď()3ď).3)$%ď3%#2%43ď&/2ď
(!6).'ď!.ď%&&%#4)6%ď7/2+&,/- USE SAVED
SELECTIONS
Illustrator and designer Adam Spizak (www.spizak.
com) saves time in his work by making the most of
the Save Selection and Load Selection commands
within Photoshop, which enable you to create
complex selections and save them for use in the
future. He explains: “When working with layers it’s
often very helpful to use selections for more
precision. One of the ways to be more efficient with
selections is [to use] the functionality to quickly load
and save selections in Photoshop. Stored in the
Channels palette, saved selections are very powerful
yet often overlooked by many users.
After creating a selection you can save it from the
main menu – click on Select and choose Save
Selection. Make sure the Radio button is clicked on
New Selection, then click OK. You can name your
selection and even store selections in a separate PSD
file for various projects. You can quickly load a
selection by navigating once again to the Select
menu and choosing Load Selection.
This is an extremely efficient method [especially if
you assign] a shortcut via the Edit menu and select
Keyboard Shortcuts (Shift+Opt/Alt+Cmd/Ctrl+K). You
can also see a list of selections from within the
Channels palette and load a selection by Cmd/
Ctrl-clicking on the Channels palette icon. Smart
management of your selections and channels will
save you hours of repeating the same mundane
tasks of selecting layers.”
selected, look in the main Tool Options bar at the top
of your window. Untick the Delete Cropped Pixels
checkbox and the next time that you crop, then
removed pixels are saved. If you want to recover
your image at any point, then you can go back to the
Crop tool and click on your image; you will see the
original photo in the crop box so that you can
choose how much to bring back.© Adam Spizakqď.ICOLASď-ONIN
"AROILLE