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chunkbucket — Quick and dirty photoshop tips
Published: 2010-05-16 16:06:08 +0000 UTC; Views: 2866; Favourites: 40; Downloads: 85
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tips to make you finish your pics faster! tips you might already know!Related content
Comments: 22
Ohhh clipping masks, turns anything you already drew into a mask for other layers, right click "create/release clipping mask" on a layer "clipping" to the layer below
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Funny, I use all of these and I am glad someone is putting this out there cause they do make a difference (hand tool FTW!!). I can't remember the last time I didn't fill with the pen tool and those shortcuts are CRUCIAL!
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Thanks for the tips, but how do you make paths with the ink tool without those stupid handles getting? It seems you can just stop a curve and go into another direction. Been using the tool for a long time now and I still haven't figured that out.
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when i lay down anchor points, i drag after clicking, just a little towards the direction i'm laying them down. then i kind of adjust the tilt / length of the handles to define the curve before letting go.
hope that helps, or at least makes some kind of sense!
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you can also alt/option click on an anchor point. This makes it so the following anchor won't be affected by the weight of the preceding one. Works great for me! If that doesn't make sense, let me know.
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great tip! trying out that one ... takes a little getting used to (my brain is not used to planning ahead for following anchors!) but i'm gonna make myself get accustomed to it! it's super handy
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Hey I just remembered a really important one:
You can Shift-Hotkey to cycle through the different tools associated with the same hotkey. For example, if you hit "R" it will take you to the blur/sharpen/smudge tool, but you'll only get the one that's active. If you hold SHIFT, and hit "R" you can cycle through them.
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Awesome.
I would've also included brush control shortcuts.
While using the Brush tool:
[ --- to decrease size
] --- to increase size
(holding shift while pressing these keys modifies brush hardness instead of size)
ALT FOR EYEDROPPER
hold Alt to temporarily switch to the eyedropper tool.
NUMBERS FOR OPACITY
pressing the number keys will change opacity.
The first number you press changes the opacity by tens. (pressing 5 sets it at 50%).
Quickly pressing a second number sets the other digit.(pressing 5 then 3 sets it at 53%)
ohh.. ooh.. and Ctrl + J to duplicate a selected layer, or copy a selection to a new layer.
And in CS5, there's a whole mess of new shortcuts. It's too bad I've never tried it before.
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thanks 
yeah, i use all of those shortcuts too (except the alt for eyedropper, that seems handy but it doesn't seem to work for mac... gotta find out what that one is), but if i were to start including everything well... it would never end!
like cmd [ / ] to change layer order, shift + / - to cycle through all the layer blending modes, holding down alt to duplicate a layer when dragging... all shortcut staples that i guess people would have to do more research on their own to discover.
i was aiming to give more of a brief introduction, then my attention span ran out and i left out a bunch of things i would've loved to have added (like the ones you mentioned)!
i'd love to try CS5 as well... i haven't even had the chance to go through most of CS4's features (the rotating canvas is awesome for drawing!)
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I just figured the brush shortcuts would be the most immediately useful for painting/coloring/CGing/digital inking/whatever-else-people-do.
Haha! Yeah. Rotating canvas rocks. Painter has had that feature since forever, I was wondering why it took so long for Adobe to put it in Photoshop.XD
That's weird about the Mac version not having the alt-dropper shortcut though.
I myself make it a point to learn the most important keyboard shortcuts of the programs I use (and I hate it when they're severely lacking.) I definitely learned a few new things here though. Thanks for this!
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yeah, those brush shortcuts definitely are very useful when drawing! i should add those in at some point, thank you for pointing that out
i'm a total shortcut whore too... i always secretly stare at my colleagues to see if they do a shortcut i don't know, and if they do, i go "WHAT DID YOU JUST DO!! TEACH ME" ahaha xD
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good tips.
i'm wondering why most artists on dA (and most artists i meet at conventions) work with photoshop and not illustrator. I find illustrator easier and since it's all in vectors, easy to edit and enlarge. Not to mention that working solely with paths seems a lot easier than messing with selections.
oh, and did you talk about selection saving in this tutorial? i found that to be extremely useful with line projects.
these are pretty good tips and i agree that if you're using photoshop or illustrator that you should memorize the key commands.
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good tips.
i'm wondering why most artists on dA (and most artists i meet at conventions) work with photoshop and not illustrator. I find illustrator easier and since it's all in vectors, easy to edit and enlarge. Not to mention that working solely with paths seems a lot easier than messing with selections.
oh, and did you talk about selection saving in this tutorial? i found that to be extremely useful with line projects.
these are pretty good tips and i agree that if you're using photoshop or illustrator that you should memorize the key commands.
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thanks
i guess it depends what kind of art they're working on, photoshop and illustrator are different tools to suit different needs. if brush strokes are more key to the art being made, then photoshop is the tool for it... it's hard to get that kind of brush control in illustrator especially if working on a digital painting. but if it's a clean vector style illustration, i'd go for illustrator for more ease and control over the paths.
i agree that working with paths in illustrator is way easier than in photoshop. easier to come up with concentric circles or geometric shapes too with the pathfinder tool
i didn't manage to cover selection saving here, but that's a good one too!
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MELLIES I LOVE YOU. This is so useful!!
I'm coming back to Malaysia in August. We are meeting up in Singapore this time. I WILL NOT FAIL.
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any tips to make things move along faster are greatly appreciated!
i knew most of the keyboard shortcuts (being a fan of any keyboard shortcuts, myself :3)
but i hadn't been able to master the masking. at all. or switching layers that way! genius! <3
+faving for reference
thank you so much for showing this
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ooh, I didn't know about 'path to selection' or the fancy quick way to switch layers :0 thanks!
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