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15 Photoshop Tips

1. "Paint away" color with the Paint Brush in selected areas to go from color to black and white in a color image to make a portion of the image stand out. Change the blend mode to Color in the Paint Brush options palette to paint in the black and white sections.

2. Press the Shift to add more to the selection, or press the Alt to take away from the selection when using your magic wand tool.

3) Photoshop's image gallery will build a webpage of thumbnailed images for you should you have a large number of images to display. To do this follow steps: FILE > Automate > Web Images Gallery

4. Double click on the 'T' on a Type layer in the Layers Palette to automatically select the entire text layer.

There are at least two ways to switch between the various measurement units that Photoshop displays.

5. One is to change them in your Preferences by going to the Photoshop menu under Preferences and choosing Units & Rulers (in Photoshop 7 under Mac OS 9, Preferences is found under the Edit menu). From here you can change the ruler units and click OK.

6. Option two is to open the Info Palette (go to the Window menu and choose Info) and click on the small triangle next to the cross in the lower left quadrant. This will bring up a menu that will permit you to change units.

7. To cycle through different screen modes, simply press the F key

8) You can select just the pixels without the transparency area of the layer by holding the Cmd/Ctrl key and clicking the mouse on that layer in the Layers palette.

9. Do you have a layer style you like to use a lot? You can save that layer style as a style that will show up in your styles palette. In the Blending Options, just under OK and Cancel you'll see 'Save Style'. Name it and save it. You'll then find this new style in the Styles palette. Note: the style must be in its own layer.

10) Sometimes when you combine multiple images, there will be a bit of fringe around the edges of the composite images. To hide this, follow steps Layers > Matting > Defringe. From the dialogue box, choose the default setting; it that doesn't work, undo it, and try Defringe again at a setting of 2.

11. If you have too many layers, simply select the right layer by using the move tool ( V ) Right click the mouse over the layer and a drop down list will come up.

Alternatively, you can put your layers in layer sets. On the bottom of your layers palette, click the create new layers set (looks like a folder), name the new layer set, and just drag the layers you like in that set. Great for coping a set too. Highlight the set right click and copy.

12. Press Shift-Command-M (Mac)/ Shift-Control-M (PC) to toggle between Photoshop and ImageReady.

13. Press Shift-Command-Option-S (Mac)/ Shift-Control-Alt-S (PC) to access the Save for Web dialogue rapidly,

14. Press Cmd/Ctrl J to duplicate your current layer.

15) To bring up the Extract dialogue box, press Command-Option-X (Mac)/ Control-Alt-X (PC). Within the Extract dialogue box, switch to the Extract Edge Highlighter tool by pressing the letter "b.", the Fill tool by pressing the letter "k.", and change the Edge Highlighter's brush size by holding the ] key to make it larger and the [ to make it smaller.