Photoshop Preferences & Settings
For my first week I figured I should start with the basics in my learning of Photoshop. I’ve never really spent much time understanding the preferences and settings of the program. So today I spent most of the afternoon watching a series of tutorials on Kelbytraining.com titled “Customizing Photoshop” by Dave Cross and taking notes. For those of you who are not familiar with Kelby Training, it is a website that is dedicated to providing education for creatives. It is available only by subscription at $199/yr. unless you are an NAPP member, then the cost is $179/yr.
Ok, on to what I learned in my 3-4 hours of watching the tutorials and taking notes. I’m not going to repeat each item they covered in the tutorial, only items that I found helpful and had never used before. I should also mention that I work in PS CS4 and some of the items I mention may not be available in previous versions of PS.
First you need to know how to access your preferences in PS. Go to the Edit menu>Preferences>General.
Under the General section, the only item of interest to me was the ability to set up the scroll wheel to zoom in and out of an image. This might be a little annoying when you are trying to scroll up and down.
The next section was Interface and the one thing I found interesting here was the option to turn off “Tool Tips”, which at times can be annoying when you already know what each tool is called.
In File Handling you can turn off “Enable Version Cue” if you don’t have that program.
Performance is something I have used before to adjust the number of History states PS will hold for you while you are working, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Caution should be used when adjusting this preference. Too many History states will cause your computer to run slowly since it uses RAM to store the History as you work. The default of 20 history states is usually sufficient.
Cursors are pretty standard, although I thought it might be nice to have a cross hair in my brush tip when painting.
Transparency gives you the option to change the appearance of the grey and white grid. A good point they made in the tutorial was to change this to grey and another color, such at pink or red, if you are working with white text. It can be difficult to see the text on a transparent layer otherwise.
Units & Rulers allow you to set the default measurements of your rulers and text. I prefer to have my rulers and text set to pixels.
Guides & Grids lets you change colors of your guides and grids depending on what is appealing to your eye. But the most important thing I got from this section is the ability to turn off those pesky slices numbers. If you inadvertently select the slice tool you will get a slice number in the upper left hand corner of your document, and no matter what you do it won’t go away. Turn this option off and you won’t have to worry about that anymore. Of course if you slice images for use on the internet, you will want this option turned on.
Type options included a nice feature that those of us with vision problems will appreciate. You can change the size of the display of the fonts in the drop down list.
So that summarizes what I found interesting in the Preferences section of the tutorial. Next week I’ll cover other helpful settings within PS.
My PS Favorites
Here is a list of the Photoshop sites I visit regularly to view tutorials and download plugins. I will update this list as I find new sites to visit.
PS Download Sites
Action Central http://www.atncentral.com/
Adobe Exchange http://share.studio.adobe.com
Free Photoshop http://www.freephotoshop.com
Free Photoshop Brush Viewer http://abrviewer.sourceforge.net
Lunacore http://www.lunacore.com/
Mis-Printed Type Brushes http://www.misprintedtype.com/v3/goodies.php
Miss M Paper Lilies http://www.missm.paperlilies.com
PanosFX http://www.panosfx.com/
Photoshop Brushes http://www.photoshopbrushes.com/
Photoshop Roadmap http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/Photoshop-downloads
Shop the ArtStore http://www.shoptheartstore.com
Sketchpad http://www.sketchpad.net
The Plugin Site http://www.thepluginsite.com
PS Tutorial Sites
Absolute Cross http://www.absolutecross.com/tutorials
Good Tutorials http://www.good-tutorials.com
Photoshop Tutorials http://photoshoptutorials.ws/
Photoshop Box http://www.photoshopbox.com
PhotoshopTV http://www.photoshopusertv.com/
Photoshop Support http://www.photoshopsupport.com/
PS Lover http://www.pslover.com
Tutorialized – Photoshop http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/Photoshop/1
WebTekNique http://www.webteknique.net
First week of discovery
Ok, so I didn’t spend last Friday educating myself on the programs of my trade. Instead, I visited a local high school career day and enlightened some students about the great job I have and what it takes to become a graphic/website designer. It was a fun day, and the kids asked some really great questions.
The discovery I made was in taking a good hard look at what it took me to get where I am today. In preparation for the day with students I reviewed my education, the skills I acquired during and since leaving school, starting and building my business, making business contacts to build a network of potential client sources, and the continuing need to learn my ever-changing trade.
I realized I have worked hard to get where I am now, that I will need to continue to work hard and educate myself in order to stay competitive in today’s market, and how lucky I am to have found a profession that still excites me everyday. I also discovered how much I love talking about my job and letting people know that I love what I do. I really do look forward to going to work each morning to see what new challenge awaits me.
Hopefully this Friday I will be able to post information concerning the things this blog is all about. Now back to the work at hand!
Welcome to my blog!
Ok, I’m gonna have a go at this blogging thing. Hopefully I’ll be able to post some interesting stuff here to keep you coming back for more. Each week this year I am going to spend at least part, if not all of my day on Fridays learning more about the programs I use everyday in my work. These include Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign, and Illustrator. My intent is to share the tips and tricks I learn about each of these programs with anyone who needs or wants them.
If you have specific topics of interest that you would like to hear about, please feel free to let me know. I may have insight into particular areas of the programs and will be able to help you immediately. I’ll be posting links to tutorials I find or creating them myself for you to download.
My hope is first, to further educate myself, therefore becoming more proficient at my trade, and second, to share my knowledge with others.
I hope you enjoy my blog and will comment on my postings if you find them useful.
Enjoy!
Monica