Showing posts with label Tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tips. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
More accurately this should be called “7 Things Photoshop Does Automatically That Aren’t in the Automate Menu”, but I found that title to be a bit lengthy. Of course, Photoshop does many things “automatically”, but these are a few things I find especially useful and easy-to-use, that you may not know about yet. For the example images I’m going to use a few shots my girlfriend took during a trip to Europe using her point-and-shoot. I figure this to be the most ideal scenario for this example.
1 Auto Color
Image > Adjustments > Auto Color or [Ctrl + Shift + B]
For those of us that are professionals in the color-correcting field, this is a great feature to sometimes fix the poor colors a digital camera can capture. This isn’t a perfect fix for all photos all the time, but it can usually get you pointed in the right direction.
2 Auto Levels
Image > Adjustments > Auto Levels or [Ctrl + Shift + L]
This is another quick way to do some minor color-correcting on your images. What this does is correct the black point and white point in your image automatically. It’s looking for the nearest-to-white color and setting that as the white point, then finding the nearest-to-black.
3 Auto Contrast
Image > Adjustments > Auto Contrast or [Ctrl + Alt + Shift + L]
Auto contrast is another quick adjustment for Photoshop to automatically color correct your image. You usually don’t need to use this with Auto Levels, but sometimes it helps for images that look a bit more washed-out than you’d like.
4 Auto-Align Layers
Edit > Auto-Align Layers
This feature is pretty cool as it attempts to align the content on your layers as close as Photoshop can figure out. When you run this command you’ll get a set of options as to how you want Photoshop to try to align. You’ll need to have your layers selected in the Layers palette by Ctrl-clicking or Shift-clicking on the layers. This is pretty much your savior for stitching together panoramas.
5 Auto-Blend Layers
Edit > Auto-blend Layers
Like Auto-Align, this feature is probably most useful in photography situations. When stitching together a panorama, it will attempt to match and blend the color across all of your layers to make sure your stitch looks seamless.
6 Vertical + Horizontal Centering (and other alignment)
Layer > Align > (options)...
This one is great when mocking up a new website design. This will allow you to align things vertically and horizontally to the center, left, right and top. Make sure your text layer is higher in your layers palette than the one you want to align with. Click on both layers by control-clicking or shift-clicking.
6.5 Vertical + Horizontal Centering (to a selection)
Layer > Align to Selection > (options)...
If you don’t have another layer you want to align something to, you can make a section and align your object to the selection. Just make sure the layer you want to align is selected in the Layers palette before going to the Layer menu.
7 Straighten Crooked Photos
Unlike the other actions in this article, this one takes a few more steps. You’ll want to start with the Ruler tool (located under the Eyedropper [I]) and draw a line for your horizontal axis to be straightened. After drawing your line, go to Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary. Photoshop will have automatically entered the the angle in degrees needed to straighten your image, so just click OK. After running this you will have white areas in the corners, so be prepared to crop a bit.

1 Auto Color
Image > Adjustments > Auto Color or [Ctrl + Shift + B]
For those of us that are professionals in the color-correcting field, this is a great feature to sometimes fix the poor colors a digital camera can capture. This isn’t a perfect fix for all photos all the time, but it can usually get you pointed in the right direction.
2 Auto Levels
Image > Adjustments > Auto Levels or [Ctrl + Shift + L]
This is another quick way to do some minor color-correcting on your images. What this does is correct the black point and white point in your image automatically. It’s looking for the nearest-to-white color and setting that as the white point, then finding the nearest-to-black.
3 Auto Contrast
Image > Adjustments > Auto Contrast or [Ctrl + Alt + Shift + L]
Auto contrast is another quick adjustment for Photoshop to automatically color correct your image. You usually don’t need to use this with Auto Levels, but sometimes it helps for images that look a bit more washed-out than you’d like.
4 Auto-Align Layers
Edit > Auto-Align Layers
This feature is pretty cool as it attempts to align the content on your layers as close as Photoshop can figure out. When you run this command you’ll get a set of options as to how you want Photoshop to try to align. You’ll need to have your layers selected in the Layers palette by Ctrl-clicking or Shift-clicking on the layers. This is pretty much your savior for stitching together panoramas.
5 Auto-Blend Layers
Edit > Auto-blend Layers
Like Auto-Align, this feature is probably most useful in photography situations. When stitching together a panorama, it will attempt to match and blend the color across all of your layers to make sure your stitch looks seamless.
6 Vertical + Horizontal Centering (and other alignment)
Layer > Align > (options)...
This one is great when mocking up a new website design. This will allow you to align things vertically and horizontally to the center, left, right and top. Make sure your text layer is higher in your layers palette than the one you want to align with. Click on both layers by control-clicking or shift-clicking.
6.5 Vertical + Horizontal Centering (to a selection)
Layer > Align to Selection > (options)...
If you don’t have another layer you want to align something to, you can make a section and align your object to the selection. Just make sure the layer you want to align is selected in the Layers palette before going to the Layer menu.
7 Straighten Crooked Photos
Unlike the other actions in this article, this one takes a few more steps. You’ll want to start with the Ruler tool (located under the Eyedropper [I]) and draw a line for your horizontal axis to be straightened. After drawing your line, go to Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary. Photoshop will have automatically entered the the angle in degrees needed to straighten your image, so just click OK. After running this you will have white areas in the corners, so be prepared to crop a bit.
Labels: Photoshop Facts, Tips
Friday, October 8, 2010
Windows Vista Snipping Tool Tips And Tricks
Click the Vista Orb, type snipping in the Start Search text box and hit ENTER key will call up the Snipping Tool program – the tiny and useful screen capture program designed for XP Tablet edition which is now also available in Windows Vista Ultimate edition.
If you don’t find this program, most likely it’s not comes with your Vista edition. The Tablet PC utilities are only available in Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Business, or Windows Vista Ultimate.
If you couldn’t find the Snipping Tool program in Windows Vista Home Premium or above, the Tablet PC Optional Components might have been disabled or removed.
How to restore Snipping Tool in Windows Vista?
1. Click the Vista Orb, type Program in the Start Search text box and click Programs And Features link the Program list,
2. Click the Turn Windows Features On Or Off link in the Programs And Features window,
3. If the UAC is not turned off or tweaked, click OK to acknowledge the UAC dialog box for administrative privilege elevation prompt.
4. Locate and tick the check-box of “Tablet PC Optional Components” in the Windows Features dialog box. Click OK all the way to close the open windows / dialog boxes – the Snipping Tool program should be available now on those Vista editions.
Though the Snipping Tool is specifically designed for Tablet PC or UMPC, it’s fine to use with Desktop or Laptop computer too, except difficulty of snipping irregular shape with mouse movements. Otherwise, you could “cut” a perfect shape using stylus.
Overall, Snipping Tool is still much attractive than using PRINT-SCREEN button!
For example, you don’t have to PRINT SCREEN, paste to MS Paint and then only “cut” the selected area for documentation purpose. With Snipping Tool, all these can be done in one place and less hassle – even able to snip a pop-up Context menu!
How to snip a screen-shot of Windows Context menu with Vista Snipping Tool?
1. Open Snipping Tool by
Click the Vista Start button (Vista Orb), All Programs, Accessories, Snipping Tool.
Click the Vista Orb, type snipping and click Snipping Tool shortcut in the Program list.
Press a user-defined shortcut key of Snipping Tool.
2. Press ESC key to disable Snipping Tool screen capture function and put the program to idle mode,
3. Open the Context menu that you want to capture,
4. Press CTRL + PRINT-SCREEN shortcut key to freeze the Windows or Desktop and re-activate screen capture function of the inactive Snipping Tool.
If you’re snipping a screen-shot of web page in web browser, the URL might appears below the snip when it’s saved to hard disk. However, you may turn it off in Snipping Tool Options dialog box – click the Option button to bring up Snipping Tool Options dialog box.
Similarly, the Snipping Tool Options dialog box allows you to change color of the ink that’s used to capture snips or totally remove the ink.
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