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DuffzillaWorking faster in Photoshop

Published: 2010-02-06 02:19:03 +0000 UTC; Views: 116339; Favourites: 4240; Downloads: 13551
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..Okay, I know "efficiency" isn't the sexiest thing in the world. There are flashier, more attractive tutorials out there but I thought it might be useful to put together a basic bundle of tutorials focussed on helping you work faster in Photoshop.

You can have a look at the little table of contents panel to see if you already know this stuff.
If everything here is new to you, and if you go through the whole tutorial, you should work twice as fast the next time you paint something. ..so you can spend less time messing around with menus and more time painting.

I think I was planning on saying more here than I can remember right now but if I come up with anything, I'll update.


EDIT:
Jesum crow, it's a DD!
Thanks to everybody who's favourited and commented and found it useful ...and to ^znow-white for featuring it and ~the-arkz for suggesting.
It wasn't a waste of time after all.
I want to bring your attention to two comments made below: (edited for brevity)

"Doing create workpath like that creates an insane amount of unnecessary paths, much easier to use the pen tool and make the points yourself.
The reason why so many path points is bad is because if you were to make that a .tiff file with the workpath as a clipping path, the filesize skyrockets."

"Using the pen tool is much more efficient for your 'path follow' part, but each to their own I guess."

My response to these was along the lines of these techniques being for quick digital paintings as opposed to hi-res, multi-layered Photoshop extravadanzas and that doing it this way is quicker than tracing manually woth the pen tool.

If you're going to work on huge files and doing a lot of vector stuff, take these comments into account.


THANKS AGAIN
Related content
Comments: 289

KatiraMoon In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 23:54:11 +0000 UTC]

I have no time to go through all this right now, but I'll save it on my computer so that I can read it later. It seems like there's a lot of helpfull tips here, awesome work!

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glorycolor [2010-02-08 23:24:04 +0000 UTC]

thanks a lot for sharing~!

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iluvu2 In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 23:10:29 +0000 UTC]

Cool, thanks for taking the time to make this reference! Very helpful.

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PullItApart [2010-02-08 22:58:28 +0000 UTC]

Hey, I really learned some things!

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mechta In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 22:23:16 +0000 UTC]

great tutorial
i've been using ps for years and its still helpful
i especially liked the part about the smudging presets
thanx ^_^

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shroomys [2010-02-08 22:22:45 +0000 UTC]

" ..Okay, I know "efficiency" isn't the sexiest thing in the world. "


^^ Hahah! Nicely put In any case, this
is one sexy tutorial! Very helpful

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WeirdoQueen In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 22:12:07 +0000 UTC]

now i just need to figure out what applies to photoshop elements 5... D:

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Woodland-Mel [2010-02-08 21:56:59 +0000 UTC]

Thank you SO MUCH for making this- I get questions about this kind of stuff and it's so much easier just to point to something that other visual people can understand! Ugh! LOVE!

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Duffzilla In reply to Woodland-Mel [2010-02-16 23:47:22 +0000 UTC]

I'm glad it might come in useful, then

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QwakQwak [2010-02-08 21:51:22 +0000 UTC]

you just made my day

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Susapp In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 21:47:11 +0000 UTC]

This is one of the best tutos for Photoshop in dA!

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fractal2cry [2010-02-08 21:30:51 +0000 UTC]

thanks!

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Kish-Kashi In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 19:54:59 +0000 UTC]

ha, the only art ive ever seen BEFORE it got a DD aswell!

congrats!

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MaLize [2010-02-08 19:50:53 +0000 UTC]

What a great tutorial!

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Segundus In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 19:48:47 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for the tutorial

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jornas [2010-02-08 18:43:05 +0000 UTC]

I got most of this, but it makes a great reference guide! Awesome work! Fave all the way!

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Djiloa In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 18:27:47 +0000 UTC]

Waow it seems very useful, thanks for sharing ^^

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Lord-Shot [2010-02-08 18:23:25 +0000 UTC]

wow, big file with a lot of good and usefull information

congrats for the DD and thanks for the information

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FelipeChoque In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 18:18:44 +0000 UTC]

efficiency IS the sexiest thing ever, IMO
great tutorial!!! thanks a lot!!!!

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Iosys-luis [2010-02-08 17:13:48 +0000 UTC]

We owe you so much

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Duffzilla In reply to Iosys-luis [2010-02-08 21:55:59 +0000 UTC]

Ya don't owe me nothin'..

nothin' I tells ya!

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Iosys-luis In reply to Duffzilla [2010-02-08 22:30:41 +0000 UTC]

Thank you

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stickyjam In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 17:08:40 +0000 UTC]

This is incredibly useful! Thank you

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Aetria-chan [2010-02-08 16:58:44 +0000 UTC]

wow...*o* just that...x3 thnks a lot!

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digigato In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 16:12:51 +0000 UTC]

This rules!!

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jenepooh In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 16:03:46 +0000 UTC]

A great idea! Congrats on your DD!

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Anikora [2010-02-08 15:38:20 +0000 UTC]

Woahhh thank you so much! This is so useful, this must have taken you ages!

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Duffzilla In reply to Anikora [2010-02-16 23:44:34 +0000 UTC]

It took a few hours, yeah but it seems to be well-received and it seems people have learned new things from it so it was worth it.

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Anikora In reply to Duffzilla [2010-02-18 15:52:46 +0000 UTC]

I've definitely learned a lot from it so thankyou again

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zachriel [2010-02-08 15:27:01 +0000 UTC]

I already knew some of these things, and I'm sure the rest of the tricks are just as useful. Great info

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Sassofot In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 14:56:05 +0000 UTC]

thanks a lot for this

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DraveDragonheart In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 14:55:19 +0000 UTC]

certainly one of the most handy looking run through of photoshop ive see thus far highlights important points and goes through some pretty handy tools and gives very handy tips very nice indeed a well deserved DD at that

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Duffzilla In reply to DraveDragonheart [2010-02-16 23:43:43 +0000 UTC]

thank you

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DraveDragonheart In reply to Duffzilla [2010-05-25 11:50:37 +0000 UTC]

not a problem

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Philiza In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 14:19:50 +0000 UTC]

This is gorgeous! Very well done and must have taken hours to accomplish.
I think this will really help me, thank you!
Your tutorial totally deserves a DD Congrats!

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leiaah In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 14:15:42 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for this!
Still a PS beginner, but this will come in handy in due time!

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UnseenChaos In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 14:14:40 +0000 UTC]

Very nice!
I just got ahold of Photoshop a couple of weeks ago, at most, and just skimming over this has already proven useful.
Many thanks for sharing this.

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calleena In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 14:14:24 +0000 UTC]

this is really awesome, love it!

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VAngelLJ In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 13:11:58 +0000 UTC]

Using the pen tool is much more efficient for your 'path follow' part, but each to their own I guess.

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Duffzilla In reply to VAngelLJ [2010-02-08 19:15:38 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, I know the work path thing would be heavy if you used a load of them but for tracing a path around a layer alpha, this method is quicker than going around point by point with the pen. I meant this to be more focussed on quick digital paintings, than massive psd files.

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Amazing-Toaster In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 11:28:26 +0000 UTC]

Doing create workpath like that creates an insane amount of unnecessary paths, much easier to use the pen tool and make the points yourself.

The reason why so many path points is bad is because if you were to make that a .tiff file with the workpath as a clipping path, the filesize skyrockets.

The mask section was good.

the actions were horribly explained, it can be used mainly for when there is a large project that needs all images to have a similar style effect e.g. B/W with high contrast, maybe a few filters. Using actions to just crop like that really doesn't explain how handy they can be.

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Duffzilla In reply to Amazing-Toaster [2010-02-08 19:10:52 +0000 UTC]

Luckily enough, the actions aren't horribly explained because nobody has been confused by the description so far. I did explain that Actions use multiple processes and I also said that I used the 'crop' as a simple example of an idea that can be applied to more complicated processes.
...and yes, the work path thing is not ideal for saving lots and lots of paths but I also said that these are things I use for quick digital paintings, not extravagant multi-layered long-term projects.

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Amazing-Toaster In reply to Duffzilla [2010-02-08 20:05:13 +0000 UTC]

you'll still get jagged lines all over the place.

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Duffzilla In reply to Amazing-Toaster [2010-02-08 21:24:17 +0000 UTC]

well, I've pasted your comment into the 'artists comment' box so people are aware.

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Amazing-Toaster In reply to Duffzilla [2010-02-09 03:53:48 +0000 UTC]

No.

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imahinasyon In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 10:36:47 +0000 UTC]

thanks for sharing. kudos

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prosaix In reply to ??? [2010-02-08 10:18:08 +0000 UTC]

I had a lot of trouble and still hadn't understood those masking things till now. Your tutorial greatly helps!

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Phobos90 [2010-02-08 10:01:54 +0000 UTC]

thanks for the tutorial, I wasn't even aware of some of the options that photoshop had and you presented. It was very helpfull, i hope you'll be doing more of these tutorials,

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Duffzilla In reply to Phobos90 [2010-02-16 23:43:20 +0000 UTC]

Thanks. There's a lot of tutorials online. I don't really know now what I could do for another tutorial.

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Phobos90 In reply to Duffzilla [2010-02-17 05:53:43 +0000 UTC]

well, if you are asking me, id suggest a tutorial that explains how shold anyone set their specifications in the preferences of photoshop( you know the cache,memory usage and scratch disks) cause i always have problems getting those specified to get max preformance without lagging windows or anything else working in the background.

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