25 QUICK FIXES FOR PRO DESIGNERS
- INCREASE SPEED WITH PLUGINS
- DO MORE IN CAMERA RAW
Freelance graphic designer Wendy Stephens (www.
darkirisdesign.co.uk) swears by the Painters Wheel
plug-in by Len White (http://lenwhite.com/
PaintersWheel/) to considerably improve her digital
painting speed: “I tend to paint in greyscale first and add
colour adjustment layers later, so I know the underlying
contrast is right. Picking greys using the traditional
colour picker in Photoshop can be a bit clumsy.
“In Painters Wheel, the greyscale rectangle at the
bottom currently shows four shades. If you click theThe Camera Raw plug-in in Photoshop CC can often
get overlooked, but it is a powerful program in its own
right. Rather quietly, it got updated to version nine in
April 2015, which doesn’t usually happen, as updates
come with Photoshop releases. Camera Raw 9
introduces two major new features, which could save
you time if you work a lot with photography and it even
takes on some of the burden that you usually use
Photoshop to manage.If you open multiple images in Adobe Camera Raw
(ACR) 9 (which you can do by selecting the images in
Bridge, Ctrl/right-clicking and selecting Open in
Camera Raw), then you will see a new Filmstrip view
down the left of the screen. There is a little flyout menu
at the top, which has the new features: Merge to HDR
and Merge to Panorama. Both of these tasks can be
done via Photomerge in Photoshop and certainly
Photoshop offers more options, but if you need a quick© Alexander WeaverMerge panel: ACR does all the work
for you and gives you a few options to tweak if needed. Once you hit
okay, it will process your image, which could take a whileNew menu: This flyout menu gives
you the selection options that used to sit at the top of this panel, as well
as the new Merge controlsFilmstrip: The new Filmstrip panel
shows you all of the images that you currently have open in ACRFurther editing: Once the merged
image is processed, you have access to all of ACR’s powerful
image-editing tools to continue retouching as you needmerge and wish to continue tweaking in ACR, then this
is a really powerful addition.
The process is simple; select all the photos that you
want to include in the Filmstrip and pick your merge
options – ACR does the rest. There are a few
customisation options, but they are minimal. However,
once the merge is done, you have the full range of ACR
tools to tweak the new merged image to suit your
needs, before opening in Photoshop.little + sign on the left you get five, then click again for
six and so on. I also find the Painters Wheel itself
invaluable when choosing colour palettes. It just feels
more intuitive to me when selecting colours that
work well together. Drag the little circle on the outer
wheel to change the colour. Then drag the little circle
in the centre triangle to change the tone. As you drag,
it keeps the original colour in the top left hand
triangle, showing the new colour next to it. Brilliant
for refining colour choices.”- KEEP COLOURS IN ORDER WITH
THE SWATCHES PALETTE
“Whether you’re designing for print or web, having
your colour swatches and palettes well organised
can help speed up your process. Finishing a project
can be difficult if you’re constantly using your
Eyedropper tool or plugging in RGB values,” says
graphic designer Alexander Weaver (www.
behance.net/atweaverdesign). Alexander suggests
opening your Swatches palette and viewing all the
default swatches. You can delete any swatch by
right-clicking on it and choosing Delete Swatch from
the pop-out menu, or by dragging a swatch to the
trash. Clearing the whole palette means you can
start to build up the colours that you need for your
projects rather than seeing all of the default colours.
Alexander Weaver goes on to say, “Graphic
designers don’t have to start from scratch with colour
schemes and play around for a length of time with no
clear goal. Colour schemes can be created from
something as simple as a photograph with a whole
range of hues. Often Dribbble, Pinterest, Behance and
Greyscalegorilla are a great source of colour palette
inspiration for your design.
“Now that you’ve taken the time to organise your
Swatch library and clear your Default palette, maintain
the progress that has been made. Organise and name
your palettes as you’re adding colour swatches. Save
your palettes and swatches to your libraries for
repeated use in the future.”© Wendy Stephens