Photoshop : Quick Tip - See RGB and CMYK at the same time
Posted by Jennifer | June 19, 2006 | Leave A Comment
When you’re working on an RGB document in Photoshop, that will eventually be converted to a CMYK document for printing, it’s possible to see both versions at the same time and see the changes you make on the RGB image appear simultaneously on the CMYK image. Follow these steps:
1. Open an RGB image in Photoshop.
2. Choose Window > Arrange > New Window.
This opens another view of your existing document.
3. Press Ctrl+Y (Windows) or Cmd+Y (MAC) to see a CMYK preview of your image.
4. Click on the original RGB image and start editing. Your changes will be updated on the CMYK image as your work.
Photoshop : Quick Tip - Increase and Decrease the size of your Selection
Posted by Jennifer | June 19, 2006 | Leave A Comment
When you make a selection, you can easily make that selection a few pixels larger of smaller by choosing Select > Modify. To make your selection bigger choose Expand, to make the selection smaller, choose Contract. It works best if you Expand or Contract by only a small number of pixels at a time (i.e. 4 or 5 pixels at most). Otherwise the edges of the selection won’t stay sharp, they have a tendency to go round.
Photoshop: Tutorial - Vertical Type Tool & Character Palette
Posted by Jennifer | June 16, 2006 | Leave A Comment
The Vertical Type tool is used for typing text (surprise!!)vertically on your image. But did you know that you can also rotate the vertical text using the character palette? Here’s a short tutorial to show you how to use the tool and also how to change the orientation of the text.
This short tutorial, shows you how to use the Vertical Type Tool in Photoshop and how to rotate the Vertical text using the Character Palette menu.
Open an image file. I’m using a portrait shaped picture of two boats.
Choose the Vertical Type tool from the tool box.
Select any font you like, preferably something that looks quite heavy, choose a large size and set the anti-aliasing to strong. It’s also a good idea to use capital letters when you’re working with Vertical Type because each letter is the same height and therefore there won’t be large gaps between the bottom of one letter and the top of the next letter.( I selected Arial Black, size 72)
Type some text onto your image. Your typing will appear vertically on the screen.
Click on any tool on the toolbox to commit the type OR click on the Commit Any Current Edits button (
) on the Options tool bar to commit the type.
Change the orientation of text by 90 degrees with the Character Palette
Select the Vertical Type Tool again and highlight the words you have typed on your image.
Choose Window > Character to open up the Character palette menu
Click on the small triangle in the upper right corner of the Character palette menu and then click on Standard Vertical Roman Alignment. (It will initially have a check mark beside it indicating that the option is selected).
When you release the mouse button, the text will change direction.
Illustrator: Quick Tip - Rotating
Posted by Jennifer | June 14, 2006 | Leave A Comment
When you’re using the Rotate tool (R), you might find that when your mouse is too close to the rotate bounding box, that you’re getting strange results. To gain more control over rotation, move your mouse cursor a little bit away from the bounding box and you should find you have more control over its positioning.
Photoshop & Illustrator : Quick Tip - Get more from your Zoom
Posted by Jennifer | June 13, 2006 | Leave A Comment
It’s important when you are editing an image in Photoshop or Illustrator that you can zoom in (to work on a pixel by pixel basis if necessary) and then zoom out again to see how your changes look. To speed up your workflow enormously, try using keyboard shorcuts rather than clicking on the Zoom tool in the tool box or using the View menu.
Here are some keyboard shortcuts to try:
- To quickly view your image at 100%, double-click the zoom tool in the toolbox.
- With any tool selected, press Ctrl and + (Windows) or Cmd and + (Mac) to zoom in, or press Ctrl and – or Cmd and – to zoom out.
- Press Ctrl+spacebar (Windows) or Cmd+spacebar (Mac) to temporarily select the Zoom In tool from the keyboard. When you’re finished zooming, release the keys to return to the tool you were last using.
- Press Alt+spacebar (Windows) or Option-spacebar (Mac) to temporarily select the Zoom Out tool from the keyboard. When you’re finished zooming, release the keys to return to the tool you were last using.
- Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) to change the Zoom In tool to the Zoom Out tool.
Design: Most Commonly Used File Formats in Digital Design
Posted by Jennifer | June 9, 2006 | Leave A Comment
When you are creating designs digitally, you will come across many file formats. Here’s a brief explanation of what they all mean.
JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
Probably the most common of all file formats. It is used extensively on the web for photographic images. It has a small file size and can be good quality, but the downside is that it’s a “lossy” format – quality is lost when image compression is used to decrease file size. Repeated editing of JPEG’s results in a softening of the image and loss of detail. JPEG format supports CMYK, RGB, and grayscale colour modes.
GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)
Again, this is a very popular format for web graphics. It is limited to 256 colours (8 bit palette). They are more suited for images such as logos or images using blocks of colour. They do not work well with photographic images but their advantage is that they use lossless data compression, thus reducing the file size is possible without a large loss of quality.
PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
Often pronounced “PING”, this is probably the third most popular file format for web graphics. It uses a lossless data compression method known as deflation. Like the GIF format, images can be edited without many of the problems linked with “lossy” file formats.
TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)
This format produces excellent results and offers “lossless” compression. However the problem with TIFF’s is that they produce a very large file size. Some digital cameras are now shooting TIFF files, which are favoured over JPEGs by professional photographers. This format is often used when sending artwork to printers. TIFF is a flexible bitmap image format supported by virtually all paint, image-editing, and page-layout applications.
EPS (Encapsulated PostScript)
This format is closely associated with desktop publishing programs. EPS files can contain both vector and bitmap graphics and is supported by virtually all graphic, illustration, and page-layout programs. When you open an EPS file containing vector graphics created in another application, Photoshop rasterizes the file, converting the vector graphics to pixels.
PDF (Portable Document Format)
This is used widely both for print and internet distribution. It is a flexible, cross-platform, cross-application file format. PDFs are device independent and resolution independent. PDF files accurately display and preserve fonts, page layouts, and both vector and bitmap graphics. In addition, PDF files can contain hyperlinks and even sound and video.
PSD (Photoshop Document)
This is the native file format of Photoshop. PSD is the default file format for newly created images inside Photoshop and the only format supporting all available image modes (Bitmap, Grayscale, Duotone, Indexed Color, RGB, CMYK, Lab, and Multichannel), guides, alpha channels, spot channels, and layers (including adjustment layers, type layers, and layer effects).
AI (Adobe Illustrator)
This is the native file format of Adobe Illustrator.
INDD (InDesign Document)
The native file format of Adobe InDesign.
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About
Hi, my name is Jennifer Farley and I am a designer and design instructor based in Ireland. Read more about Laughing Lion Design .
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