Today’s article is for all enthusiastic designers out there who use Photoshop as their primary tool for designing. It’s been 25 years since the first version of Photoshop was released and many folks in the designing field have been using it for many years, but some of you might be struggling with the basic tools or some advance preferences inside Photoshop. I mean, how many times it happened to you when you were working in Photoshop and some random questions starts to pop up in your mind: How should I do this in Photoshop? How should I do this quickly in Photoshop? What does this tool do anyway, I never use that? If you are facing these questions too, then I hope this article will definitely answer some of them and make your workflow smooth. So, let’s get started with seven useful Photoshop tips & tricks that you might not know about.
New Guide Layout – Stay Aligned
It’s always good to keep your developers happy by creating well aligned and pixel-perfect designs. If you guys are using the latest Photoshop cloud versions like Photoshop CC, then under the view menu you will find a new option called ‘NEW GUIDE LAYOUT’; Many of you might be familiar with column grid lines, but what if I told you can make them in Photoshop with just a few clicks? Isn’t it cool?
Artboards – Enlarge Your Canvas
I know what you’re thinking: “ARTBOARDS? Wait, you said this article is about Photoshop, not Illustrator!” Well, the good news is now you can make artboards in Photoshop as of 2015; if you are a web or UX designer, you may increasingly find yourself designing websites or apps for multiple devices. Artboards let you streamline your design process by giving you an infinite canvas on which you can lay out designs for different devices and screens. Also, while creating artboards, you can choose from a wide variety of preset sizes or define your own custom artboard size. Hence, if you are a subscriber to cloud versions of Adobe software then don’t forget to update to Photoshop CC 2015.
Helpful History Settings
Have you ever tried (and failed) to undo layer visibility by pressing ctrl+alt+z? Well, there is a small setting you need to perform before you can actually undo any layer visibility changes. Just go to your history options under the history panel by clicking on the top right corner icon and check mark the box that says “make layer visibility changes undoable”. And, if you are a beginner in Photoshop, don’t forget to crank up your history states the value in Edit > preferences > Performance > History states.
Quick Export Options
If you are a web or UI/UX designer, you must have faced the tedious process of exporting your assets by saving them all in PNG or JPG individually. Some of you folks would also have tried to export the assets by renaming the layers and generating the Image Asset as Photoshop cc lets you do that (Yes it does in case you don’t know about it yet). But if you have updated your Photoshop to CC 2015 you will be able to export anything by just right-clicking on that layer and export it in whatever format you want it to. You simply can change your export preferences by going to Edit > preferences > Export > and choose the desired format from the dropdown.
Insert Lorem Ipsum – Dummy Text
A new feature that will help save time when you’re producing mock-ups inside Photoshop is the handy new Lorem Ipsum function. Select the type tool and draw an area, type box by clicking and dragging out a selection. Now choose Type > Paste Lorem Ipsum to automatically fill your type area with dummy text.
Matting – Remove Fringes
Have you ever tried to crop a part of image using quick selection, magic wand or any other selection tool and got those weird black or white fringes (uneven strokes) around your selection? And what’s worse, it’s always a headache to remove. Now it’s easy and quick to remove, by just selecting the layer and going to the Layer > Matting > black/white Matte.
Video – Color Correction
Recent versions of Photoshop support video as well as images. You can open video clips in the same way as images, and move between frames via the Timeline panel. You can add adjustment layers to apply enhancements and corrections to the whole file. If you are video editor and often need to color correct the video clip and tired to use those confusing color wheels, then use the camera raw inside Photoshop for color correction. When you’re finished, select File > Export > Render Video – but be warned, depending on the size of your video, and the ambitiousness of your edits, rendering the file could take hours.
