Tagged: Photoshop
Free 3D gold text template for Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop‘s layer effects offer you great customization when you mix and match the different effects together. But unless you’re really talented, getting the effect you want can be difficult. Take the image above for example. It offers a fairly realistic 3D effect, but it’s really just two text layers on top of each other with different layer effects applied.
You can download the above free template for creating 3D gold-styled text, which comes in three different sizes.
Quickly select skin tones in Adobe Photoshop CS6
I completely missed this new Adobe Photoshop CS6 feature until Grant Friedman pointed it out in the above video over at PSDTuts.
Suitcase Fusion 4 update brings Adobe Photoshop CS6 compatibility
This update adds a font auto-activation plug-in for Adobe Photoshop CS6 to the list of applications supported by Suitcase Fusion 4, in addition to some optimizations for Apple’s OS X Mountain Lion (10.8).
Instructions for the update here.
Is Apple working on a Photoshop competitor?
Patently Apple reports on recent Apple patent filings that indicate Apple is working on a graphics application with a new fancy-pants GUI. Now I don’t doubt that Apple is (or was) working on a graphics package. But I HIGHLY doubt that this graphics app was meant to compete with Photoshop – unless you feel like iWork actually competes with MS Office. That being said, a fourth app added to iWork would be nice, no?
Very interesting patent filing, nonetheless.
Getting the most out of your Photoshop History panel
Adobe Photoshop‘s History panel is probably one of the most useful tools in Photoshop, allowing you to undo and redo things you’ve already done to your image with the click of a button. Many users, however, don’t take advantage of the flexibility that the History panel offers.
You may have noticed that the History panel doesn’t save a history state when you hide or show a layer. If you’re not paying attention, this can throw you off a bit when you’re working on a complex layered document. You can adjust Photoshop to save that layer visibility state by visiting the History options via the fly-out menu in the History panel and turning on Make Layer Visibility Changes Undoable. Below are a few more useful features of the History Panel worth looking at. (more…)
Observe Photoshop’s scratch disk use with the Efficiency Monitor
If you’re experiencing a slow-down while using Adobe Photoshop, you may be thinking you need more RAM (always a good idea!), but there’s a chance that isn’t the problem. Thankfully, Adobe offers an easy way to help you decide if more RAM is necessary for a better user experience.
At the bottom left of Photoshop CS5 and CS6’s window is an indicator that can display all sorts of information. Among file size, color profile and save progress, is one called Efficiency. You can click the flyout window arrow and choose Efficiency to get the indicator just to the left (see the image below).
If you’re lucky, it will always say 100%. Anything below 100% indicates that Photoshop has used all its allocated RAM and is using your hard drive as a scratch disk, thus slowing it down. You can allocate more RAM to Photoshop in the preferences, but if memory serves me, Photoshop allocates around 60-70% of your RAM by default. Any more than that and you’re likely to start having problems with the rest of the system. If the Efficiency Indicator displays anything below about 85-90%, I would highly recommend investing in more RAM.
Photoshop CS6 interface color keyboard shortcut
Photoshop CS6 introduced a new interface option which allows you to choose from four shades of brightness while working in the app. It was jarring at first, but once I got used to it I loved it. Still, there are times when I want to leave the new dark interface and use something a bit lighter. Adobe made it easy with a handy keyboard shortcut.
Photoshop CS6 offers interface brightness flexibility
Simply hit Shift + Function + F1 to lighten the interface, or Shift + Function + F2 to darken it.
Tutorial: Photoshop CS6 Content Aware Move Tool
iStockPhoto plugin for Adobe Creative Suite apps makes image searching easy
I spend a lot of time searching for stock photography. One of the sites I spend the most time on is iStockPhoto due to its large selection of images and relatively low cost. Switching between my InDesign layout and Safari to compare the images on the website to the layout to see if the image is appropriate can be tedious – especially when you consider the time to download and place the comp images.It would be so great if you could do it right inside InDesign, Photoshop or Illustrator without using a browser. Thankfully, you can with this nifty plugin.
iStockPhoto has released the iStockPhoto Plugin for InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator that adds a Panel to all three apps which allows you to search for images, view the images, create and view light boxes, and place a comp image directly into your file, and purchase the image – all without ever leaving the Adobe application.
Installation is simple, as the plugin is installed for all three apps via the Adobe Extension Manager. The plugin is free. You can search for images and add comp images to your layout, but you must have an iStockPhoto account to use lightboxes and purchase images.