Okay.... Doodler made a good point on one of the many "how to vote" and "how does PSC work" etc. threads. There are LOTS of those type threads around.

I'm interested in this particular thread to SHARE OUR SECRETS OF THE CHOP.

(secret #1: CHOP = manipulating a bitmap for artistic glory and sometimes laughs. Slang term for Photoshopping.)

If you are the type to hang onto your tricks of the trade, so be it. I have personally found that when I give something away, I get back 10 times the value from somewhere else. But if you wanna play cheap, you go ahead and keep those AWARD WINNING CHOPS CLUTCHED TIGHTLY TO YOUR CHEST. Perhaps they will comfort you during your sure to come heart attack!

Ok... where to start?

I've already shared the special LEVELS - HOLD DOWN THE ALT BUTT WHEN MOVING THE BLACK OR WHITE SLIDER secret. (ask Hammy about that one).

And there is also the FLATTEN AN IMAGE WITHOUT LOOSING YOUR LAYERS trick of OPENING A NEW LAYER AND THEN HITTING ALT+CNTRL+SHFT+E. (sorry, you MAC folk will have to translate on the fly).

Okay.... get at it SHARE SHARE SHARE....

I just learned this secret keystroke at a little photoshop seminar I attended... the instructor claimed that there was no way (that he knew of) to do this through the menus...

(on a mac) If you press option + apple + ~ it will select everything in the lighter 50% of the histogram (inverse selection to get to the darker 50%). oooh!

This one might be lame, but I found it to be one of those kick-yourself-for-not-knowing-sooner shortcuts:

When you're using the brush tool, hitting the bracket keys will increase & decrease the brush size... [ for smaller, ] for bigger. I feel like such an ass now for fiddling with the brush palette every time wanted to change the size

Hey, Reinman, good idea for a thread....



There's no need to, and a very valid tip. I mentioned somewhere that I teach graphic design techniques. One of my methods of teaching is to present the students with a task. I let them figure out how to get the results they are looking for without showing them how to do it. In other words, just get the job done. After a certain amount of time, we compare each other's work and discuss the techniques each used to achieve the end product. Only then do I show them the easy way (or the appropriate way) of obtaining the goal.

I found that when you struggle and try to figure out for yourself how to do something, and you stumble on a trick (or someone shows you) you'll never forget it. There are many key stroke combinations that aren't documented, but are nontheless there.

ReinMan, how basic or advanced are the tips you want to see posted here?

I figured out if you press in on the outside corners of your eyes until it just starts to hurt, and stare at one thing, in about 10 seconds things will slowing fade to black... Oh wait... wrong thread.

Okay, I agree with ya EJH, that brush size trick is Great! I was happy when I learned that in this advanced photoshop class I took years ago.

And I also liked this one... hitting the "X" key will switch the foreground and background colors, Very useful when adjusting a layer mask.

Another thing I never used until I took that class was Adjustment Layers. For instance, the Curves one. It keeps the values you enter in. When just using the Curves (Command/Control M) to make an adjustment, when you click OK, that's it! You lose the values you entered and can't go back unless you Undo! You could export/import the values but that's a PITA! ( pain in the ass)

That's a great idea-- I think when learning something new it's good to do it the "long way" first, so you get a better understanding of how it works. And it's interesting to see how many ways different people come up with to reach a common result. This could be a whole new topic of discussion...

it tooooo funny how i know nothing about photoshop( really i'm not just being funny) and i've been using it for about two yrs now so please keep the tips comming. thank you

On that same note, Screwy, let's say you're working on several pictures of the same object (or person, whatever) and you need to adjust them all using the same values (brightness, colour balance...) Instead of having to keep track of all the values you plugged in, press the option key (on mac) while choosing the adjustment you want, and the previous values will be there.

damn, does this make sense?

ReinMan's flattening shortcut on the mac: command -option-shift-e. This will flatten the image onto the new layer. When I tried it, though, the hidden or invisible layers were also included in the flattened layer. So you may want to discard them first. (I say command, others say apple, I say option, others say alt)

Can you also record an Action for this?

Good thread!

I found this accidentaly only recently (seems everytime I miss a key I find a new keyboard shortcut):
When you doubleclick on a layer mask, you can set colour and opacity there.
Then, when you click on a layer mask, and press backslash \, the masked part will be highlighted with the colour and opacity, similar as when working with Quick Mask. I find it very handy.

Another one - by pressing Ctrl + Alt + ~, you can select the luminosity of the whole image.
That means, white will be selected 100% opaque, a colour with luminosity 50 (see Lab colour picker) with 50 opacity, and black wil not be selected. Quite useful, for example when you want to turn a (B/W) layer into a layer mask for some reason, or emphasize the highlights, etc.

EJH wrote:


Yes, you can, and that would not be a bad idea, because your values would be available to you indefinately.

Thanks, I never thought of that!

good one, mint! Are you on a PC or mac?

Yep, me too!

UPDATE: FLATTEN IMAGE ONTO NEW LAYER MAC

If you're on mac, create a new layer, make sure it's the active one (selected) press option while choosing "merge visible" from the menu to the right of the layers panel (where the triangle is). This will flatten the image onto the new layer without adding the invisible layers.