The Graphic Mac

It may not be apparent to you that you can switch from one Adobe Photoshop CS4 tool to another, then back again with just a single click. It wasn’t to me, until I came across it by accident. Let’s say you’re carefully cloning an area of your image with the Stamp tool and you have a slight lapse in concentration… doh! Simply hit the E (switches to the Eraser tool) key and hold it down, erase the goof with your cursor, then let go of the E key. You automatically switch back to the Stamp tool so you can quickly finish the cloning job. The key is to hold down the key while performing the task of the second tool.

Apple iPad GUI Elements in a layered Photoshop file

Teehan+lax has made available a layered Photoshop file containing all the iPad GUI elements you could possibly need. The file is built using vectors, so it’s all still fully editable. If you need to mock up something quickly for a client, this layered Photoshop file will certainly do the trick.

You can download the 24MB layered Photoshop file here.

And if you have the need for an iPhone version, grab the 9MB layered Photoshop file here.

If you want to open a layered Photoshop file as a flattened image you can save time by going to the Open dialog box in Photoshop and selecting your file. Hold down the Shift and Option keys and hit open. You will be presented with a dialog box asking if you wish to Read the Composite Data Instead. Hit OK and you will have a flattened version of your file opened instead of the layered version. This key-combination works while double clicking a file in the Finder as well.

Adobe added a handy feature to Photoshop CS4 with the rotate canvas tool, which allows you to temporarily rotate your view of the canvas on screen without actually rotating the physical document. You can quickly rotate the canvas no matter what tool you currently have selected simply by holding down the R key for a second or two, then dragging your mouse to rotate the view.

Photoshop brushes are an important tool for creating textures and roughing up a design. Spoon Graphics has a great collection of rough and grungy drybrush stroke brushes you can download for free that are fantastic.

Rather than using your mouse to invoke Photoshop’s color/patter Fill dialog box, you can use the quick keyboard shortcut, which is Shift + Delete.

Did you know you can quickly and temporarily switch to the Zoom tool in Photoshop CS4 simply by hitting the Z key? How about by hitting Command + Spacebar? Command + or Command - works pretty well too. Adobe offers a plethora of ways to use the tools available in Photoshop, and my friends at CreativeTechs have posted 11 ways to Zoom in Photoshop CS4 to prove the point. Some of these options I was unaware of, or simply had forgotten about. Some are more cumbersome for me than they’re worth. But the fact that there are so many ways to accomplish such a simple task is impressive, if you ask me. Be sure to check out all the other great tips available at CreativeTechs – it’s a great resource for users of Adobe’s Creative Suite apps!