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You may have known that you can create and maintain multiple iPhoto libraries by holding down the Option key when clicking the iPhoto icon in the Dock. This is a useful feature for those who have large collections of photos. In the past, you had to hold the Option key down while launching iPhoto in order to access the dialog box which allowed you to choose which library to open. With iPhoto ’09, you can now just double click the iPhoto library in your Pictures folder to access the library you want to work with. Keep in mind that iPhoto will “remember” the last library you had open, so clicking the iPhoto icon without holding the Option key down will open the last library you worked with. Why would you want to create multiple iPhoto libraries? Well, I like to create a new library for each year. Not only does iPhoto load faster, but it makes it much easier to back up each library to DVDs.
Switching between multiple libraries in iPhoto
Rearrange the Photoshop brushes panel
If you use brushes in Adobe Photoshop as much as I do, you no doubt have a few favorite brushes you use often. It can be a real pain if you have several (or in my case, dozens) of brush sets loaded, scrolling through them looking for your faves. Thankfully, you can change the order your favorites appear at in the brushes panel – possibly saving you lots of scrolling each time you use the brush. To rearrange the order the brushes appear, simply go under Edit>Preset Manager and choose Brushes from the pop-up menu. Then click on your favorite brush and drag it to anywhere in the panel you prefer. To move more than one brush, shift + click on multiple brushes to move them all at once.
Creating straight selection lines with the Photoshop lasso tool
Did you know that if you want to make a selection in Photoshop with the regular Lasso tool (instead of the freeform ones you normally get using the tool), you just hit the Shift + L key combo, which gives you the Polygon Lasso tool? The lines you get will be straight and connected to each other. This is perfect for selecting straight edged objects in your photos, such as buidings, cars, etc. Hitting the key combo again gives you the Magnetic Lasso tool.
Zoom all Photoshop documents at once
Did you know that when you’re working with multiple Photoshop documents open at once that you can zoom them all to 100% with a simple keystroke? By holding down the Shift key and double-clicking the Zoom tool in the Toolbox, all your document views will be set to 100%. Pretty handy when you’re evaluating several images at once. Of course, this assumes you have each image open in its own window, rather than CS4′s tabbed window mode.
Quick tip: Easily enable OSX Dock magnification temporarily
If you’re like me, you don’t particularly care for OSX’s Dock magnification feature. I just don’t like trying to hit a moving target, especially when I’m dragging files to drop on an icon on the Dock! But every once in a while, I do have the desire to have the feature enabled. You can quickly enable Dock magnification, without turning it on in your System Preferences by holding down Control + Shift while hovering your mouse over the Dock. When you release the keys, Dock magnification is turned off.
Getting the most from InDesign transparency
Long, long ago, Adobe gave us transparency in InDesign version 2. In each subsequent version of InDesign, Adobe has added ways to enhance documents with transparency, making it even more enticing. There’s one thing that hasn’t changed, however, and that’s the need to flatten transparency for output to a PostScript device. In the article InDesign Transparency: No Longer the Forbidden Fruit over at CreativePro, you’ll learn everything you need to know to produce a successful printed layout when you download the PDF excerpt from InDesign Magazine.
How to speed up your Mac
While there is no definitive cure-all for making your machine as good (and as fast) as day one, there are some basic things you can do that might help reclaim disk space, remove some clutter and generally speed up your Mac. Wired Magazine offers some insight and advice on how to speed up your Mac – what works and what doesn’t. If you don’t read the article, or you miss it, the one point I wish to drive home is that repairing file permissions and updating the prebindings will NOT speed up your Mac. It’s a myth that has lived too long.
Getting large layer icons in Adobe Illustrator
When you’re working in Adobe Illustrator, keeping your artwork on different layers can be a huge time-saver and makes it much easier to edit with complex illustrations — much like Photoshop. But sometimes you can’t be bothered to name your layers properly and you rely on the little icons in the Layers Panel to tell you which layer you want to work on. The problem is that those tiny layer icons can be difficult to identify the more you put on each layer (See the image above). Thankfully, Illustrator gives you way to make the icons in the Layer Panel larger. 
First, open the Layers Panel flyout menu and scroll all the way to the bottom and select Panel Options. Next, select the Other: radio button and enter a pixel amount in the size box (I chose 50 pixels). Obviously, this is the size you want your Layers Panel icons to appear. I recommend staying 75 pixels or under — anything larger and you’ll be scrolling quite a bit to see the layers in the Panel. Now just click OK and you’re all set. As you can see by the image below, the icons in the Layers Panel are now much easier to decipher. 
Though my sample illustration isn’t difficult to begin with, you can easily see the advantage of making the icons larger when you compare it to the first image.