> PHOTOSHOP USER>^ OCTOBER 2019[ 52 ]
- SET UP AUTO SAVE FEATURE
When working in Photoshop, a crash can cause great pain when you
realize you haven’t saved your document. When Photoshop restarts,
it’s not 100% guaranteed that you’ll get your document back in the
state you left it. So a good tip is to set up your own auto save regime.
Go to Preferences CC (PC: Edit)>File Handling, turn on Automati-
cally Save Recovery Information Every, and pick the amount of time
from 5, 10, 15, 30 Minutes, or 1 hour. If I’m working on a layer- or
detail-heavy document, I set my time quite low so that in the event of
a crash, I won’t lose much of what I’ve done in the document.
14. RECENT FILES LIST
When I’m creating, saving, and closing a number of Photoshop files
that I may need to reopen and amend, I use the File>Open Recent
function to quickly select from a list of recently opened (and saved)
files. The default is the last 20 files but you change that amount. Go to
Preferences CC (PC: Edit)>File Handling, and at the bottom you’ll see
Recent File List Contains 20 Files. You can set that number up to 100.
Just enter the amount you want and click OK. You can also clear the list,
if you want, by going to File>Open Recent, scrolling all the way to the
bottom of the menu, and selecting Clear Recent File List. - CHANGE DEFAULT SAVE LOCATION
When you open a file and then choose File>Save As, by default you’ll
be taken to the folder where the original file is saved. This isn’t always
convenient if you’re saving versions of multiple documents to a dif-
ferent folder. Go to Preferences CC (PC: Edit)>File Handling, and
uncheck Save As to Original Folder in the File Saving Options at the
top of the dialog, and the next time you use the Save As command, it
will automatically go to the last location a file was saved. - RESET CHANGES
When making changes to an image using Curves, Levels, etc., you can
sometimes get carried away with the settings and then you want to start
over. Your only options in the dialog are either OK or Cancel. Clicking
Cancel means the dialog will close, and then you have to reopen it and
start again. Instead, just hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and the Cancel
button will change to Reset, which means you can reset all the adjust-
ments in the dialog without closing it and starting again.
15. HIDE PANELS
When you’re working on an image with a bunch of panels open
and you want to quickly preview the image without all the clut-
ter, just press the Tab key to hide the Toolbar, Option Bar, and
panels. Press it again to bring them back. Press the F key to cycle
through the Screen Modes, one of which will give you a full-
screen preview.
16. QUICK MATH
Imagine you want to add a rectangle shape to an image in which
you need to stack four elements vertically. Let’s say that the width
of your assets is 800 px but each of them is a different height.
If you’re like me and completely rubbish at math, then let Photo-
shop do the work for you! Just grab the Rectangle tool (U) and
click once on your image to open the Create Rectangle dialog. Set
the Width at 800 px but, for the Height, use the height dimensions
that you know. For this example, lets say they’re 37, 124, 187, and
88 pixels. I’ve run out of fingers already, so here’s the tip. Type the
following into the Height field: 37+124+187+88. Press the Tab key
and Photoshop will add it up for you. All you have to do is press
OK to commit the shape.