cs5 by Alex Alegre

elcome to our latest installment of the NAPP “Hot Tips” series. Normally at this point in the introduction we’d say, “You’re now holding 100 of the coolest CS5 tips and tricks on the planet in your hands,” but we’re going lean and green this time around so this unbridled wealth of CS5 knowledge is only available as a digital download. We also can’t say, “…within these pages, you’ll find the condensed knowledge of some serious Photoshop® experts,” because we challenged just one amazing Photoshop expert – NAPP instructor and Layers TV co-host, Mr. Corey Barker, to knock our collective socks off with his unmatched Photoshop prowess. We can’t even say “100 Photoshop CS5 Tips” because Corey is so darn good, he gave you 105 tips in all. Yep, that’s 5% more Photoshop knowledge than you bargained for with our compliments. Aw, shucks. No. Please…don’t stand up and applaud. Awww, you are too kind.

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Produced by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals Photoshop is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.

1. FREE FLOATING PANELS

7. GET ON THE GRID

The interface in Photoshop CS5 focuses on using panels for grouping all of the features that you need. If you prefer a floating panel layout, just click on the panel’s tab and drag it outside of the panel area. This will make it a floating panel.

If you zoom in to 600% or above in CS5, Photoshop automatically shows you a small grid around your pixels called the pixel grid. It assumes that since you’re zooming in so far you want to work at the pixel level. This makes it easier to visualize your changes at a very detailed level if need be.

2. SAVING YOUR WORKSPACE

Conversely, if you read the previous tip and found the functionality to be extremely annoying don’t sweat it—you’re not alone. That’s why Adobe gave us the ability to turn off the pixel grid. Just click the View menu and go under Show. Click on Pixel Grid to turn it off. If you ever want it back on just go to the same place to enable it again.

Once you’ve set up your workspace exactly the way you want it, you may want to save it for later use. If you choose Window>Workspace>Save Workspace, you can enter a name for your current layout. Saving the workspace can also save your current keyboard shortcuts and current menus.

3. SAVING A WORKSPACE WITH MENUS AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS If you go to Window>Workspace>Keyboard Shortcuts & Menus, you have the option of expanding each of the menus and showing or hiding whichever command you would like. This will let you make a specific menu set for your workspace. Once you have customized your menu, you can save it as part of the workspace by choosing Window>Workspace>Save Workspace.

4. FILE>OPEN RECENT Under Photoshop>Preferences (PC: Edit>Preferences), you have an option called File Handling. In the Recent File List Contains field, you can specify how many files you would like it to remember.

5. SAMPLE COLOR FROM ANYWHERE You can use the Eyedropper tool to pick colors from any area of your screen. First, press the letter I to select the Eyedropper tool, then click-and-hold inside your document, and drag outside the document window onto the object you’d like to sample. Release your mouse button and the sampled color appears as your new Foreground color.

6. DOCUMENT YOUR HAPPY ACCIDENTS

8. KICK IT UP A NOTCH WITH SMART FILTER MASKING You can selectively show or hide any of the filters that you have applied to a Smart Object by painting on the mask for the Smart Filter (just click on the Smart Filter’s thumbnail, select the Brush tool, and paint with black). This takes your creativity to a completely different level.

9. RESET A DIALOG If you are working with any dialog that has an OK and a Cancel option, you don’t always have to cancel out to get back to the original state of the effect. If you press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key when you are in a dialog, the Cancel button will turn into a Reset button. This will give you a chance to try the effect again without having to leave the dialog.

10. BLACK AND WHITE 101 Black and white could not get anyeasier. Open an image. Choose Image>Adjustments>Black and White. Instead of using all of the sliders that are in the resulting dialog, click on the different areas of the image that you want to make darker or lighter and drag—left to make them lighter, right to make them darker.

Sometimes our best creations happen by pure experimentation and accident. Sitting in front of a Photoshop file, you are 40 History States in, and then it happens—magic! You really want to be able to get back to that moment. To do so, make sure that you turn on the History Log checkbox in the General Preferences (Photoshop>Preferences>General [PC: Edit>Preferences>General]). You can save the information as metadata, as a separate text file, or both!

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11. THE CLONE SOURCE PANEL

16. TOGGLE BETWEEN KEYFRAMES

This panel has a couple of neat features for people who spend a lot of time in cloning. You can now set up a series of preset areas in the Clone Stamp tool. Simply click on one of the icons at the top of the Clone Source panel and Option-click (PC: Alt-click) on a point. This will save that location to the first icon. Click on the second icon and do the same thing. Now you can save a series of location points and go back by just clicking on the icon.

When animating objects in the timeline, Photoshop interpolates between keyframes to give a sense of movement. However, if you would like the animation to toggle between keyframes, Control-click (PC: Right-click) on that keyframe in the timeline to bring up the contextual menu and select Hold Interpolation. The appearance of the keyframes will change and, when played back, it will cut to each keyframe.

12. USE OVERLAY IN THE CLONE SOURCE PANEL Have you ever used the Clone Stamp tool and wondered what exactly you were going to paint in the area? Wonder no more. Now you can turn on the Show Overlay checkbox at the bottom of the Clone Source panel to automatically see an overlay of the image, as you clone it. Also, by default, the “Clipped” option is turned on in CS5, which clips your overlay to the actual brush size. If you want a full image overlay (you probably won’t because it’s really hard to see your original image) you can turn Clipped off. One more thing. You can automatically turn this feature off and on by turning on the Auto Hide checkbox.

17. FCHANGE INDING THE PANEL TABS HARD TO READ? THE FONT SIZE Sometimes, it’s a bit hard to read the type in the panels. Choose Photoshop>Preferences> General (PC: Edit>Preferences>General) and change the UI Font Size. This will make the type in the panels larger. You will need to restart Photoshop to see the type change.

18. UNDO HEAVEN, JUST ADD HISTORY STATES

One of the cool features of video layers is that they can be set up as Smart Objects. This opens up a ton of possibilities for image manipulation, including scaling, rotation, and even warping.

If you are like me, and love having a good amount of Undos in the event that you go overboard with your adjustments, you can change the amount of History States that you have in Photoshop CS5. Note that the location of the History States preference has changed as well. Choose Photoshop>Preferences>General (PC: Edit>Preferences>General) and notice that there is now a Performance option on the left. You can change the History States in this area. Keep in mind though, if you are excessively using History States, you may want to rethink what you are doing wrong in the first place. I know I have to.

14. CHANGE TIMELINE SETTINGS

19. PERFORMANCE PREFERENCES

You can modify the duration setting in the timeline by going to the Animation panel’s flyout menu and selecting Document Settings. In the dialog, you can set the duration and also choose a frame rate from the pop-up menu or you can enter a custom setting.

Here are two things that can help in the Performance preferences: Your Memory Usage can let you specify how much of your RAM you would like to dedicate to the use of Photoshop, and you also have the option of setting up a scratch disk in the Performance preferences (think of a scratch disk as temporary RAM that Photoshop creates by using actual hard drive space).

13. VIDEO CAN ALSO BECOME A SMART OBJECT

15. SCRUB THROUGH TIMELINE You can quickly scrub through the timeline by clicking-and-holding on the Current Time Indicator. You will notice the cursor turn into opposing arrows. Just click-and-drag either to the left or right to scrub through the timeline.

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20. BEFORE AND AFTER IN CAMERA RAW

24. RESETTING PHOTOSHOP’S PREFERENCES

As you work on a photo in Camera Raw, you’re undoubtedly going to want to see what it looks like in comparison to the original. Well, Camera Raw doesn’t really have a sideby-side preview, but here’s the next best thing: When you’re in Camera Raw, there’s a Preview checkbox at the top right of the image preview. You can turn it on to see your changes or turn it off to see the before view of your photo. However, that’s kind of lame. Instead, just hit the letter P to toggle the preview on and off.

Here’s a quick way to reset your preferences in Photoshop: Press-and-hold CommandOption-Shift (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Shift) while you start Photoshop. As you start the program you will get a pop-up dialog asking you if you would like to delete the settings file. Deleting the file will create a new set of preferences from scratch.

21. A QUICK GOTCHA WITH THE P KEY IN CAMERA RAW

Instead of going through the preferences to change your unit of measure, you can Control-click (PC: Right-click, though more and more Macs now have access to the Right-click, too) on the ruler and select your preferred measurement unit from the contextual menu.

Here’s a little “gotcha” from the last tip. Remember that little preview checkbox we talked about? Well it only displays a before/after view of the current panel you’re working in. For example, say you make a bunch of changes in the Basic panel (Exposure, Blacks, Saturation, etc...) and then switch to the HSL/Grayscale panel and make a bunch of color changes there. If you turn off the Preview checkbox while in the HSL/Grayscale panel you’ll only see the before and after views of the effects of that specific panel. In other words, your Basic panel changes that we mentioned first will be turned on unless you go back to that panel instead.

22. TURNING OFF THE CROP TOOL OVERLAY I have to say this tip rocks if you use Adobe Camera Raw a lot. See, in previous versions of Camera Raw, if you cropped your photo you’d still see all of the cropped area around it as you were working. It was really annoying and you never got to see your real photo until you opened it in Photoshop. Now in the new version of Camera Raw, you can get rid of that crop overlay stuff and actually see your photo the way that it’s going to look by clicking on another tool. So when you’re done cropping just press the letter Z key, for example, to go to the Zoom tool and get out of crop mode. Trust me, it’s a lot easier to work on your photo this way.

25. CHANGING YOUR RULER SETTINGS

26. CHANGING THE COLOR OF YOUR IMAGE WINDOW (AKA: PASTEBOARD) IN PHOTSOHOP In CS5, you can change the background color that your images show up on in the image window. For example, some folks prefer to have their images surrounded by black or even white instead of the default medium gray. If you ever want to change this just press Command-K (PC: Ctrl-K) to go into Photoshop’s preferences. Then click on the Interface section on the left side (second from the top) to bring up the interface preferences. Now change the Color settings for the Standard Screen Mode to whatever color you want your images to appear over.

23. TURN THE FONT OFF AND ON The Font Preview is either loved or hated. I find myself usually turning it off, and here’s why: I love fonts—lots of them. I install fonts like there’s no tomorrow. I’m assuming that this is going to catch up to me at one point or another, but I continue to troll sites to find more and more fonts. As you install more and more fonts on your machine, you might notice that there could be a performance problem. Because of this, we should go to Photoshop>Preferences> General (PC: Edit>Preferences>General) and turn off the Font Preview Size checkbox in the Type preferences. You can also turn on the Font Preview Size there too, if you happen to like it. I’ll stay away from that argument for now.

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Another way is to select the Paint Bucket tool in the toolbar. Set the desired color in the Foreground color swatch and Shift-Click in the background area to assign that color.

27. DELETE YOUR LAYERS

31. MODIFY TEXTURES ON 3D OBJECTS

In earlier versions of Photoshop you could press the Delete key to delete a layer but you had to have the Move tool selected first (weird, I know). Now they’ve changed it so you can press the Delete key with any tool selected (well, nearly any tool) and it’ll delete the currently selected layer for you. The only catch is it doesn’t work with tools that the Delete key actually does something with, i.e., the Pen tool or the Magnetic Lasso tool.

If you import a 3D object that has a texture applied to it that texture will show up as a sub-layer with your 3D layer. To modify or replace the existing texture, simply doubleclick directly on the texture name in the Layers panel. A dialog will open with the 2D texture. Make whatever changes you need, then close and save the document. Just like a Smart Object, it will update automatically in the main document.

28. ACCESSING TOOLS IN A TOOL GROUP

32. VANISHING POINT AND 3D

Let’s say that you are using the Magic Wand tool, but would rather be using Photoshop’s Quick Selection tool. No problem! Just press-and-hold the Shift key while pressing the group’s keyboard shortcut (W in this case) and you can access all the tools within that tool group.

While working in the Vanishing Point filter, you can create a multi-plane grid and return the part of the image contained in the grid back to Photoshop as a 3D layer (choose Return 3D Layer to Photoshop from the flyout menu). Once it is a 3D layer, you can move the object around in three dimensions using Photoshop’s 3D tools.

29. MEASURING IN VANISHING POINT

33. EXPORTING 3D TO AFTER EFFECTS

In Vanishing Point, you can take advantage of the new measurement tools by measuring something in three dimensions. You simply grab the Measure tool (R) and click between two points. Then in the top of the dialog, enter an establishing value in the Length field. This value will be what all other measurements will be based on. You can then render these measurements to Photoshop from Vanishing Point’s flyout menu. TIP: You may want to use a blank layer before going into Vanishing Point because when measurements are rendered, they appear on the currently active layer.

When you create a grid box inside Vanishing Point, in addition to having the option of returning that grid back to Photoshop as a 3D object, you also have the option of exporting it as a 3D object that you can import into After Effects CS5 and manipulate in a 3D layer. Just click on the small right-facing triangle in the top of the dialog, and in the flyout menu choose Export for After Effects (.vpe).

30. SETTING MEASUREMENT PARAMETERS

The Dodge and Burn tools got a big enhancement in Photoshop CS5. They actually work like we think they should now and you’ll get very good results with them. There is one trick though. When you select the Dodge or Burn tools, take a look in the top Options Bar and make sure you have Protect Tones turned on. This protects some of the key tones in your photos while dodging and burning (mainly the skin) and makes the tools work a lot better.

When using the Analysis tools in Photoshop, you will need to establish the scale of measure. Go under the Analysis menu, choose Set Measurement Scale, and select Custom. You have three settings to modify: Pixel Length, Logical Length, and Logical Units. An example would be if you know your document is 100 pixels wide, you would enter 100 in the Pixel Length field. Then, if you know that 100 pixels equal an inch, you would enter 1 for Logical Length. Then type inches for Logical Units. Now you have set the Measurement Scale to measure every 100 pixels as one inch.

34. BETTER DODGE AND BURN

35. GROUPING AND STACKING IN BRIDGE When you have multiple shots of the same subject and would like to group them, image stacks are a good idea. Either Shift-click or Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on the images to group and press Command-G (PC: Ctrl-G). This will create a stack of the images. You can expand the stack by pressing Command-Right Arrow (PC: Ctrl-Right Arrow) or collapse the stack back into itself by pressing on Command-Left Arrow (PC: Ctrl-Left Arrow).

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36. CREATING FAVORITES IN BRIDGE

41. CROPPING TO A SPECIFIC SIZE

Sometimes navigating to folders you have specific images in can be cumbersome. Save yourself some time and create favorites out of your most-used folders. To do that, Control-click (PC: Right-click) on the folder and select Add to Favorites from the contextual menu. The next time that you need to find that image, you can go to the Favorites panel and click on the folder.

If you want to crop to a specific size with the Crop tool (C), enter the dimensions and resolution you want in the tool options up in the Options Bar. When you click-and-drag out your crop border, you will automatically constrain the crop handles to the size that you have set.

37. ADDING KEYWORDS TO MULTIPLE FILES In Bridge, you can add keywords to images to make searching for pictures a little less cumbersome. You don’t, however, want the process to become tedious as well. By either Command-clicking (PC: Ctrl-clicking) or Shift-clicking on images, you can select multiple files inside Bridge. Once you have the files selected, you can go to the Keywords panel and turn on any keyword you like. This will apply the keyword to all of the files that you have selected. It takes away a little bit of the pain of categorization, but just a little.

38. INCREASE AND DECREASE YOUR TEXT WITHOUT SCRUBBERS To increase and decrease your text size, select all of your text in a type layer and press Command-Shift-< or > (PC: Ctrl-Shift-< or >). Command-Shift-< decreases the text, while Command-Shift-> increases the text.

39. LADDING OADING A LAYER AS A SELECTION, TO, OR INTERSECTING THE SELECTION To load a layer as a selection, press-and-hold the Command (PC: Ctrl) key and click on the layer’s thumbnail. When you Command-Shift-click (PC: Ctrl-Shift-click), it will add that layer to the already existing selection. When you Command-Option-click (PC: CtrlAlt-click), it will subtract from the selection and when you Command-Option-Shift-click (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-click), it will intersect the selection.

40. GETTING BACK TO THE DEFAULT COLORS To get Photoshop back to its default Foreground and Background colors of black and white, press the D key.

42. INCREASING THE CROP TOOL’S OPACITY There are times you'll want to see what your finished product will look like once you have cropped it. The best way to see that is to have a black background. To do that, once you have clicked-and-dragged out your crop border, increase the Opacity in the Options Bar to 100 percent. This will make the area cropped away completely black, and will allow you to see what your finished product will look like.

43. USING THE BUTTON MODE IN ACTIONS The best way to automate tasks in Photoshop is to create actions of common tasks. When you are working with multiple images, you don’t want to keep selecting an action and clicking on the Play Selection icon. Speed up your workflow by enabling Button mode. In the Actions panel flyout menu, you can select Button Mode, which will let you run your actions by simply clicking on the action in the panel.

44. VIEWING AND BASKING IN YOUR IMAGE When I’m done working with an image, I like to sit and admire it (hey, I spent six hours working on it, I should). To do that, I hit the Tab key, and then hit the F key two times. This hides all of the panels and toolbars and lets you see the image by itself surrounded by black. To get back to regular mode, press the F key and the Tab key one more time.

45. CYCLE THROUGH ALL OPEN DOCUMENTS Press Control-Tab (on both a Mac and a PC) multiple times to cycle through all of the documents that are currently open.

46. CHANGING MULTIPLE TYPE LAYERS To change the properties of a series of Type layers, Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on each of the layers that you would like to adjust.

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47. PREVIEWING YOUR TYPE VERY QUICKLY

52. SAMPLING RING

Serif or sans serif? Oblique or Avant Garde? I'm from more of a “Yeah, that looks appropriate” school of font usage. If you like to cycle through your fonts to see what looks good, first commit the type. Once the type has been committed, click on the font name in the Character panel (Window>Character). With the font name highlighted, press the Up and Down Arrow keys to move through different fonts.

Sampling colors in Photoshop isn’t a new concept but there is a great new addition for sampling colors. When you select the eyedropper tool, choose a sample size and then click in the canvas area to sample a color. When you click you will notice a sample ring appear around the cursor. The top half represents the color being sampled and the bottom half represents the existing foreground color. Provides a great visual aid when color matching is critical.

48. SCRUBBERS 101 In most dialogs, you can use the scrubber (slider) to change measurements. To change the performance of the scrubber, try using these keys: Shift will make the scrubber jump very quickly to larger or smaller numbers and Option (PC: Alt) will slow down the scrubber to move one number at a time.

49. INCREASING BRUSH SIZES Pretty much all applications that use a brush can be regulated using the Bracket keys. The Left Bracket ([) key decreases the brush size, while the Right Bracket (]) key increases its size. If you press-and-hold the Shift key, it increases the size by a larger amount.

50. QUICK WAY TO FIND A PANTONE APPROXIMATE COLOR Ever wanted to know what a specific color would be in a specific library (like Pantone)? Select the color with the Eyedropper tool (I). Click on your Foreground color swatch to open the Color Picker. You will notice there is a button for Color Libraries. Click on that, and it will bring you the approximate color swatch for whatever library you chose.

53. 3D GROUND PLANE SHADOW CATCHER In addition to Repoussé, another great new feature added to 3D is the ground plane shadow catcher. When used, this feature creates an invisible ground plane, which will receive shadows cast by the main 3D object based on the lighting that was applied to the object. To see the shadows you must put the layer into Ray Tracer mode from within the 3D panel.

54. BROWSE 3D CONTENT ONLINE Sometimes you need more 3D content than what Photoshop will give you. There are some great 3D resources that you can access right from within Photoshop. Just go under the 3D menu to the bottom and choose Browse 3D Content Online. This will open your browser to an Adobe landing page for 3D. Here you can download free materials, access stock 3D libraries like 3dvia and Archive 3D. There are also links to other news and training for 3D in Photoshop.

51. WHAT IS REPOUSSÉ? Repoussé is the name of the new 3D features in Photoshop CS5 Extended. The word repoussé is actually a French term that refers to a process of forming a relief into a sheet of metal or something by hammering a shape from one side. How it came to be the name of this feature is a long story but basically it refers to Photoshop's ability to use internal constraints to push and pull textures and surfaces in 3D. Though it is only part of what this feature can do, the name somehow stuck. Another point to remember is that Repoussé along with all the other 3D features are only available in the Photoshop CS5 Extended version.

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55. PROGRESSIVE RENDER SELECTION

60. MINI BRIDGE IN FILMSTRIP MODE

In order to see reflections and shadows in 3D you must do a Ray Trace render. However, when you select Ray Trace it will attempt to render the entire image. Sometimes you just need to see a render of the area you are working. You can save time by creating a marquee selection round the area you want to render. Then choose Progressive Render Selection under the 3D menu.

Okay, so we know how cool Mini Bridge is right? Here’s something just as cool. Did you know that if you drag the Mini Bridge panel to the bottom of your screen it will dock at the bottom in a filmstrip-look similar to Lightroom (allowing maximum screen area while still accessing Bridge).

56. DELETE EMPTY LAYERS Ever have a whole lot of scattered empty layers in your document? It just takes forever to go in there and delete each one, especially if they are mixed with other layers. Now all you need to do is go under the File menu to Scripts and choose Delete All Empty Layers. Done!

57. CUSTOM DEFAULT LAYER STYLES Tired of those silly default colors and settings in the layer styles panel. Well the suffering ends now. You now have the ability to save a layer style, perhaps one you use all too often, as a default setting. Simple set up your layer style then click the Make Default button at the bottom of the panel window. Voilà!

61. PUPPET WARP GETS SMART! The new Puppet Warp feature is a great way to have more control over image distortion, but did you know that if you convert the layer into a smart object it will apply the Puppet Warp as a Smart Filter? This gives you the freedom to work non-destructively by allowing you to access the distortion control points even after you have applied the distortion.

62. CROPPING NOW WITH RULE OF THIRDS We now finally have a “rule of thirds” grid as a default feature for the crop tool. This gives you a visual aid for achieving a better composition on images you're cropping. Generally, you would position the point where the lines intersect over objects of interest in your image. You can change to a full grid, or no grid at all, by accessing the Crop Guide Overlay menu in the Options Bar.

63. NEW BRISTLE BRUSHES 58. HDR TONING ONLY WORKS ON A FLAT IMAGE As cool as the new HDR Toning feature is, there is still one little caveat. You can only apply it to a flattened image, meaning no layers. It will prompt you to flatten the image if you try. Also it will not work on a smart object. Believe me, we tried. Best thing to do is apply the image in a duplicated flattened version and then drag it into your layered document.

59. CREATING 3D TEXT RASTERIZES Hooray! Photoshop can now create 3D text! However it also rasterizes it, which means when you convert a text layer into 3D it will convert the text to pixels making it un-editable. I would recommend making a duplicate of the text layer before converting to 3D. This will save you from having to completely start over if something goes wrong.

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There is a great new set of bristle brushes now available in Photoshop CS5 that allow you to paint with virtual bristle brushes. They're available in the brush menu, and the previews show the style of bristles on the brush. Simply choose a brush then open the Brush options to make adjustments.

64. BETTER 3D MERGING In order for 3D objects to interact with each other, they need to be merged into the same layer. Before CS5 you could only merge 3D objects of the same type. Like two primitive shapes or two 3D postcards. Well now you can merge any 3D shape with another. Just select them both and choose Merge 3D layers from the 3D menu. However, you can still only merge two 3D layers at a time.

65. EXPORTING ANIMATIONS IN PHOTOSHOP

70. POST-CROP VIGNETTE

This is a question I get asked often. When you create an animation in Photoshop, what then? Well, with Photoshop’s ability to handle video and a linear timeline with keyframe-based animation, you can export your animations as a Quicktime movie. When ready, just go under the File menu to Export and choose Render Video. Select Quicktime export and click the settings button to modify the render settings.

Here's a very simple tip for the newest Post Crop Vignetteing settings in the Camera Raw Effects panel. You'll see three options listed in the style pop-up list. The only one worth a darn is Highlight Priority. So stick with that one 90% of the time. You can try Color Priority once in a while if you don't care for that "burned in" edge look and it'll keep the colors looking more true. But honestly, Highlight Priority gives the nicest effect and it's where we stick for most of our photos.

66. BRIDGE AND MINI BRIDGE - USING CAMERA RAW If you need to still use Photoshop while you're automating Bridge tasks don't use the Mini Bridge to open Camera Raw files. There are two versions of Camera Raw in your system: the one that comes with Bridge CS5 and the one that comes with Photoshop CS5. Browsing a file in Bridge, you can right click and open that file in Camera Raw. However, if you right click and open a file in Camera Raw, the Bridge that is being opened is the one inside of Photoshop rather than the one inside of Bridge.

67. UNLOCK LAYER TRICK One quick way to unlock the background layer is by clicking on the padlock icon and dragging it to the trash. If that isn’t fast enough you can hold down the Option key (PC:Alt) and double click the padlock and it will unlock just the same.

68. COPY & PASTE LAYER STYLES You can copy on layer style to another layer simply doing a right-click on the FX icon and choosing Copy Layer Style from the menu. Then select the target layer and right-click again then choose Paste Layer Style. You can also hold down the Option key (PC:Alt) then click and drag the Fx icon to the target layer.

69. VINTAGE PHOTO LOOK Wanna give your photos a really old and vintage look? The new Grain feature in the Effects panel works great. However, try this tip. First go to the Hue/Saturation panel and covert the photo to a black and white. Then go to the Effects panel and start adding grain. The black and white look to the photo really brings home that classic style.

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71. SAVING A CUSTOM SHAPE When you have a vector shape you want to save as a permanent custom shape in Photoshop, simply select the shape then go under the Edit menu and choose Define Custom Shape. You can also right-click the path and choose Define Custom Shape from the pop-up menu. Then just give the shape a name when prompted.

72. 3D LIGHT WIREFRAMES It can get frustrating working with 3D lights. Especially since they aren’t necessarily objects, it’s just light. To make it easier though you can turn on the 3D light wireframes so you can see them as you edit. Just go into the 3D panel at the bottom and locate the eyeball and grid icon. Click on it and choose 3D light from the menu.

73. SCROLL WHILE LASSOING If you’ve zoomed in to use the Lasso tool (L) and you’re nearing the edge of the window, you’ll need to scroll over to continue using the tool. To do this, don’t let go of the Lasso tool and press the Spacebar. This will temporarily activate the Hand tool so you can scroll to the side. Let go of the Spacebar to continue using the Lasso tool.

74. LOADING A LAYER MASK AS A SELECTION In order to load a layer mask as a selection, Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on the layer mask thumbnail in the Layers panel.

75. DISABLING A LAYER MASK

80. COPY & PASTE BLEND MODES AND OPACITY

If you would like to temporarily disable a layer mask, press-and-hold the Shift key and click on the layer mask thumbnail.

76. MOVING A LAYER MASK

Not only can you copy and paste layer styles from one layer to another, but you can also use the same method to copy blend modes and opacity to multiple layers. Just pick the layer that has the blend mode and/or opacity setting you want, and Control-click (PC: Right-click) on it and choose Copy Layer Style. Then select all the other layers you want to share the same setting, Control-click again, and this time choose Paste Layer Styles.

To move a layer mask from one layer to another, click-and-drag the layer mask from the layer that it is on to the new layer. To copy a layer mask to another layer, press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key, then click-and-drag it to that layer.

81. CHANGE THE FILL OPACITY ON THE FLY

77. DELETING A LAYER MASK WITHOUT A PROMPT

You probably know that (with a non-painting tool selected) you can press a number to change the opacity of a layer (1 for 10%, 2 for 20%, etc.). But what if you want to change the Fill opacity rather than the opacity? Add in the Shift key, pressing Shift-1 for 10%, Shift-2 for 20%, etc.

This is a tip that doesn’t just apply to layer masks, but to anything that gives you a confirmation prompt. Whenever you try to do something in Photoshop (let’s say delete a layer mask, for now) it will prompt you with a warning dialog asking if you’re sure this is something that you want to do. Most of the time, it is a good idea to have this on, but if you want to bypass this dialog, press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key as you drag the layer mask into the trash. The dialog doesn’t even appear.

78. CHANGE LAYER CONTENT When you have an adjustment layer and you’ve spent quite some time painting on the layer mask, the last thing you want to do is start all over again if you decide you should have used a different adjustment layer. Instead, go to the Layer menu and from the Change Layer Content submenu, choose the adjustment layer you want to use. The adjustment layer will change, but the layer mask will be preserved.

79. DUPLICATING SMART OBJECTS When you use the standard shortcut Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to duplicate a smart object, changes you make to the smart object will affect both copies. To avoid this, Control-click (PC: Right-click) on the smart object and choose New Smart Object Via Copy. Now the two smart objects can be edited separately—ideal for making two Camera Raw edits of the same RAW file.

82. SELECT SIMILAR LAYERS Here’s a quick way to select multiple layers of the same kind—meaning multiple shape layers, type layers, or adjustment layers. Just click on one of the layers, and then from the Select menu, choose Similar Layers.

83. AUTO-SELECTING A LAYER Here’s a really cool way to select a layer: with the Move tool (V) active, press-and-hold the Command (PC: Ctrl) key and click on that layer in the image.

84. GROUPING MULTIPLE LAYERS IN A LAYER GROUP Layer groups are a great way to collect multiple layers into one set and manipulate them. Rather than creating one set and dragging all of the layers into the set, select all of the layers first. Once the layers are selected, press-and-hold the Shift key and click on the Create a New Group icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.

85. APPLYING A LAYER STYLE TO A LAYER GROUP You can apply a layer style to a layer group. Simply convert the layer group to a smart object by clicking on the group, then choosing Convert to Smart Object from the Layers panel’s flyout menu, and all of the layer styles will be available to you.

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86. TURN OFF AUTO MASKING IN CAMERA RAW

90. OPENING A JPEG IN RAW

The Adjustment Brush in Camera Raw is absolutely amazing. However, when you’re painting a lot with it you may notice a slight slow-down in its responsiveness. If that happens, try this. You’ll see an Auto Mask button at the bottom of the Adjustment Brush panel. Make sure it’s turned off (unless you absolutely need it turned on). That cuts down on the burden the tool puts on your processor and speeds the painting up a little.

Did you know that you could open and process JPEG photos in the Adobe Camera Raw dialog? If you’re in Bridge, select a JPEG photo that you want to edit. Then go to the File menu and choose Open in Camera Raw. You can also just press Command-R (PC: Ctrl-R) instead of going through the menu.

87. CHANGING THE ADJUSTMENT BRUSH COLOR OVERLAY After you paint with the Adjustment Brush you can hover your mouse over the pin (that’s the little dot the Adjustment Brush creates on your photo) and Camera Raw will show you a white overlay indicating where you’ve brushed on the photo. I find it helpful to see if I’ve missed any spots while painting. But what if you’re painting over something that’s white? It’ll be pretty hard to see the overlay and what you've missed. Well, all the way toward the bottom of the panel, right next to the Show Mask checkbox, you’ll see a little rectangular swatch. If you click on it, you’ll open a Color Picker dialog and you’re free to change that overlay to any color you want.

88. GO WITH THE FLOW The Adjustment Brush in Camera Raw has a few settings that can change the way you brush. For example, there’s a Size setting, which is pretty obvious. There’s also a Feather setting, which softens the edges of your brush. And finally there’s a Flow setting that affects how much of the effect is applied in each brush stroke. Well folks, right below that is a Density setting and we’ve gotten more questions about this little setting than anything. Wanna know why? Because when people try adjusting it nothing really happens. That’s because the Flow setting really does it all and Density barely does anything. So stay clear of the Density setting. Leave it at 100 and be done with it. If you want to adjust the characteristics of your brush then go with the other three settings.

89. SHARPENING WITH ALT/OPTION KEY Camera Raw has some killer new sharpening sliders that let you get a lot more sharpening work done before you ever even get into Photoshop. One cool trick when using the sliders is to press-and-hold the Alt (PC: Option) key when you drag them. This lets you see a grayscale image preview of that specific sharpening setting.

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91. SETTING A DEFAULT CAMERA PROFILE If you checked out the previous tip and you’ve become fond of the Camera Profiles (which we definitely have) then you may find yourself repeatedly setting the profile to one of your favorites. If this happens, then go ahead and tell Camera Raw to always make this your camera profile setting. First, change your profile to the one you like most. Then click on the Camera Raw flyout menu toward the right side of the panel names and choose Set New Camera Raw Defaults from the menu. Now every time you open a photo (shot with the same camera), Camera Raw will apply that profile by default.

92. BYPASS CAMERA RAW AND GO STRAIGHT TO PHOTOSHOP If you’re in Bridge and you want to open a RAW photo without going through the Camera Raw dialog, just press-and-hold the Shift key and double-click on the image. It’ll bypass the Camera Raw dialog, apply the current settings to the photo, and open it in Photoshop.

93. WHERE DID LIGHTING EFFECTS GO? You may notice that in the Filter menu under Render there used to be a filter called Lighting Effects. Unfortunately, in CS5 this filter will not work in 64-bit mode. You need to go to the application folder and locate the Adobe Photoshop folder. Click on the application icon and press Command-I to get info. Then check on Open in 32-bit mode. Quit Photoshop then re-launch. The filter should be available now.

94. THE NEW REFINE EDGE

99. CONTENT AWARE: AWESOME!

This feature isn’t necessarily new but you could say it has been overhauled. With the new edge detection feature you can just make a very loose selection and then use this feature to tweak and fine-tune the selection. Then return it as a selection or even a layer mask. Bottom line: This feature takes most of the labor out of creating even the most complex selections.

That is perhaps the best way to describe this new feature. Content aware easily does 50-90% percent of the work right away. Simply select an area you want to remove then press Shift-Delete (PC:Shift-Backspace) and choose Content Aware from the Use menu and watch the magic. Now it’s not perfect but if it does 75% percent of the work only requiring you to do some minor tweaks, then it’s well worth it. I guarantee you will try this on every image you have. Even if they don’t need it. It’s that cool to see in action.

95. STRAIGHTEN THAT IMAGE QUICKER You may remember you can use the ruler to establish a baseline for the horizon of an image. Then you would use the Arbitrary rotation to straighten. Well since this became such common practice, Adobe added a straighten button in the options bar. Simply use the ruler to set the baseline as usual then just click on the Straighten button. Done!

96. HUD COLOR PICKER You can now access the color picker right on the fly in Photoshop CS5 by holding down Control-Option-Command as you click in the canvas area. It will pop up the color picker allowing you to move around the palette and select a color.

97. WACOM ENHANCEMENTS

100. HDR PRO/HDR TONING There are two ways to approach HDR in Photoshop now. One way, of course, is you can use the Merge to HDR Pro feature to combine several photos into an HDR image. However, if you are after that HDR look on a photo that wasn’t shot for it, go under the Image menu to Adjustments and choose HDR Toning. Here you have a number of settings that, when manipulated, can yield a pretty convincing HDR look from one photo. Hence the name: HDR Toning. It’s worth exploring because I have discovered that with some experimentation the results can be very interesting.

In previous versions you would have to go into the Brush Options panel to activate any Wacom pressure sensitivity features. Now you can turn them on and off on the fly right up in the Options bar. When you have a tool that supports pressure sensitivity selected, click the pen icon over a transparency to control the Opacity and choose the pen icon over a bullseye to control the brush size.

98. BRUSH SIZE CONTROLS Adobe has improved the brush resize shortcut and made it a one keyboard shortcut requiring you to only change the gesture direction. When the brush is selected hold down Control-Option (PC:Ctrl-Alt) then click-and-drag right to increase the brush size, left to decrease. Drag up to make the brush softer and down to make it harder.

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BONUS TIPS: 101. I SHALL CALL IT…MINI BRIDGE! So those of us who use Bridge know it’s an awesome app but wouldn’t it be cool if it could live inside Photoshop? Well thanks to custom Flash panels it does. Just go to the Window menu to Extensions and select Mini Bridge. This will open a new panel containing a light version of Bridge with only the most essential features available. Now you can browse and open your images without ever having to leave Photoshop. You can even dock it at the bottom of the interface and have a filmstrip view of your images while working. Pretty cool!

102. CHANGE OPACITY OF MULTIPLE LAYERS Before you could only change the opacity of a single layer. Now in CS5 you can change the opacity of multiple layers in CS5 by highlighting two or more layers and then change the opacity as you normally would.

103. SCRUBBY ZOOMY! To zoom in and out of your images is getting so much easier. While keyboard shortcuts will always be a favorite, a great new addition to CS5 is the Scrubby Zoom. Simply select the Zoom tool then click and drag to the right to zoom in and to the left to zoom out.

104. SEE WHAT’S NEW IN CS5. LITERALLY! When you’re in Photoshop and you want to know what’s new in CS5 and where it is located, simply go under the Window menu to Workspace and choose New in CS5. This will highlight all the new features in all the menus.

105. BRISTLE BRUSH PREVIEW The new bristle brush feature gives you the ability to add real bristle brush effects right in Photoshop. It even responds to the tilt of the Wacom pen. To see the angle of the brush there is a convenient preview window that comes on when you select a bristle brush. It can also be turned on or off inside the Brush Options panel by clicking the icon at the bottom. You can also click inside the preview window to change the angle of view from a side view to a top view.

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