FEATUR ES YOU’VE NEVER USED I N PHOTOSHOP
If you want to see a really great histogram of your entire image, here’s a trick: Make
a flat version of your photograph, press Command-A (PC: Ctrl-A) to select everything,
open the Measurement Log panel, and then click Record Measurements. Export the
file to your desktop and open up the folder it creates, then load the CSV file into a
spreadsheet or data-viewing application. Choose a histogram data display and set up
the chart with appropriate colors and tags. The raw histogram won’t have any labels,
so you’ll have to add the Red/Green/Blue (top to bottom) on your own.Measurements, you’ll get a
count of how many objects
you selected, as well as the
area of each selection, the
perimeter, dimensions of a
bounding box, gray values
(roughly equivalent to lumi-
nosity), and more. When
you’re done measuring,
you can export the data to
a spreadsheet-ready file,
including the Histogram of
whatever was contained in
the selection areas.
Running Record Measure-
ments on a complex selec-
tion can yield hundreds to
thousands of individual mea-
surements, because each
selection area is unique. For
example, using the Magic
Wand tool (under the Object
Selection tool in the Toolbar),
with Contiguous deselected
in the Options Bar, will make
selection regions that aren’t
connected; each region is
counted individually.
LAYER CONTENT OPTIONS
Layer Content Options (Layer>Layer Content Options) is
just the menu access version of double-clicking on a fill
layer, such as Solid, Gradient, or Pattern. It’s handy for
building actions that rely on menu access. This feature
used to be more valuable before the Properties panel
was enhanced, and now only becomes active with
fill layers. Between you and me, I’d like to see the Fill
options moved to the Properties panel, too!REVEAL ALL
Have you ever moved something off to the side of your
canvas and lost track of it? This is your magic recov-
ery ticket. Using Image>Reveal All expands the visible
area beyond the canvas so you can see not only bits
that are hanging over that might get trimmed, but also
those bits and pieces you may have inadvertently slid
into oblivion. Once you have either moved everything
back where you can see it, or are confident you know
what will be trimmed, use the Trim or Crop command
to remove the excess viewing area.> KELBY ONE.COM
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