[gadster]

I thought this might be a good place to share tips and shortcuts for people in the design and prepress industries.

My tip for the day: In Photoshop, set up an action that 1) converts to CMYK, 2) sets resolution to 300 ppi (without resample) and 3) saves as tiff. This is useful to use after color balancing images from the web or digital cameras for use in print jobs. The idea being � fix up the image then hit the Function key assigned to the action. This will save you hours.

[gadster]

Say you want to check a particular part of a page (eg: footer) in Quark. Zoom in on that part and use <option Page Down> to scroll through the pages. You may need to do it twice for facing pages.

[gadster]

I got more � any takers?

[RedStar]

yea, keep it coming.

[gadster]

Originally posted by RedStar:
yea, keep it coming.

Thanks for your interest. I was actually hoping I could get some tips here too.

Tip: command | (just above the return key) in Quark functions as an 'indent here' character. Quick and dirty bullet point usefulness. Amongst other things.

Mods, could this be a sticky if it garners enough support?

[skalie]

Tip: When working in Flash, and especially when working with other designers, make a swatch file using the color mixer (add swatch) and the color mixer panel. (clear colors/ save colors, replace colors)

This will make up a .clr file of the colours in your project to be loaded and messed with at will.

[ghost_flash]

Nice tips! This should be a sticky.

[gadster]

Originally posted by skalie:
A sheet of sandpaper makes a cheap and effective substitute for costly maps when visiting the Sahara desert.

While I appreciate the humour, keep it off my wave, could ya? There is nothing stopping you from making a joke thread, but maybe the Lounge'd be a better place for that.

Anyway, here's another one. In Photoshop, in the levels dialog, if you hold down the option key while dragging the input slider (the top one) you get to see where the white starts and the black starts (depending on which end of the sliders you're slidin'). Very useful, if you've been searching for highlights (or shadows) by eye, or other means. Only works in rgb and grayscale but.

[DeathMan]

In ImageReady, it would be smart to set up your own settings in the export to HTML dialogue, and save them, so you can easily choose them. Go one step further by replacing the Default settings with your own. I do the following:

tags all lowercase
attributes all lowercase
always quote attributes
always include alt attribute for images
image spacers: never
table height and width: never
image height and width: always

This is best if you're doing XHTML transitional layouts as described by Zeldman. However, if you plan on removing the spacers, you may want to include td width/height, cause things get funky if you don't.

[chris.p]

in Quark,

apple, alt, control+ shift clicking selects a box below the one you are selecting, and cycles through the layers.

apple + , brings up the alignment panel (might be an obvious one, but a guy at work asked me about this today- he'ed never seen it before. And been in the biz for 7 years)

Photoshop

tab- remove palettes
shift+ or shift- different layer types

Illustrator
alt drag (use shift too to constrain) duplicate object
alt + tranform (rotate, stretch, drag, etc) duplicate and do the tranformation

after the above, apple-d to repeat (great for patterns, etc)

these are just the one I use day to day, and there is plenty more- sorry if theses are a bit obvious.

[art_director]

in pasteup room:


don't use spray mount, it'll eventually give you cancer. that or make you stick to someone you don't like.

[MaxPower]

A few versions ago i had run across a shortcut for merging photoshop layers into a single duplicate layer via a keyboard modifier and a click+drag. I thought 'wow. useless but cool' and promptly forgot it. Now I could really use it and can't remember the shortcut!

Anybody know what I am talking about and care to enlighten us?

MaxPower

[RedStar]

Originally posted by art_director:
in pasteup room:


don't use spray mount, it'll eventually give you cancer. that or make you stick to someone you don't like.

with what shall we mount with then?

[Aric]

Originally posted by MaxPower:
A few versions ago i had run across a shortcut for merging photoshop layers into a single duplicate layer via a keyboard modifier and a click+drag. I thought 'wow. useless but cool' and promptly forgot it. Now I could really use it and can't remember the shortcut!

Anybody know what I am talking about and care to enlighten us?

MaxPower

not sure if this is the same thing you're talking about but if you have multiple layers and you want to merge all visible layers to one layer and at the same time keeping the layers untouched (except the layer that's selected), then select a layer, hold down the option key, and in the layers menu select merge visible. I didn't know what it was called but according to the history pallette, it's called Stamping.

man i suck at descriptions, just try it and you'll see what I'm talking about.

[ultra-V]

A few versions ago i had run across a shortcut for merging photoshop layers into a single duplicate layer via a keyboard modifier and a click+drag

Command-Option-Shift-N - Makes a new layer, then:
Command-Option-Shift-E - Merges all visible layers into the one you just made.

Quite useful if you are retouching. Make a layer like this before you start, then turn it off. Do your retouching/color balancing, etc. Then you can click the layer on and off to compare the changes you have made relative to where you started.

[MaxPower]

Aric, ultra-v
Thanks! That's exactly what I was looking for!

gadster
Thanks for the thread. Good Stuff&trade; in here.

[graphicpush]

Here's an InDesign tip:

To change the default colors in the Swatch palette, simply alter the palette with no documents open. Every new document you create from then on will have your preferred colors.

This comes in especially handy for me since I work at an inhouse group and almost every piece we create uses the coporate colors. No more manual CMYK value entries.

[chris.p]

Originally posted by graphicpush:
Here's an InDesign tip:

To change the default colors in the Swatch palette, simply alter the palette with no documents open. Every new document you create from then on will have your preferred colors.

This comes in especially handy for me since I work at an inhouse group and almost every piece we create uses the coporate colors. No more manual CMYK value entries.

This works for Quark too- and not just for colours. anything you set up without a document window open becomes set as your default prefs. I would image in extends beyond colours in Indesign too.

[graphicpush]

I would image in extends beyond colours in Indesign too.

You are correct. You can also set up the default typeface with all the size, leading, tracking, etc information. This is just something I learned a little bit ago, so I thought I'd share.

[chris.p]

There never seems to be a point where you finish learning these tricks- there is always something that I see that someone else takes for granted, and it amazes me- and saves a bit of time

[gadster]

If you want to change the formatting of a paragraph in Quark to be the same as the formatting of some other paragraph (ie: copy and paste actual formatting info) here's what you do: click in the par you want to change the formatting *of*, then shift option click in the paragraph you want to reformat *to*. Magic.

On a similar note, to remove formatting of text on the clipboard in Quark, click the desktop and press command-c (ie: copy nothing), when you paste that text back into quark, it will take on whatever the characteristics of the target text box are.

Keep 'em coming. It's all good.

[art_director]

Originally posted by RedStar:
with what shall we mount with then?

use some sort of cold mount. sure, it's slower and messier but it won't cause you to have children with three eyes.

[ghost_flash]

Here is an interjection of humor:

Tips for the day.

- Don't play the ponies.
- Never...... no...... always remember your references.



This concludes my (humorous) tip of the day.

[bluejam]

Originally posted by art_director:
use some sort of cold mount. sure, it's slower and messier but it won't cause you to have children with three eyes.

3M makes double-sided adhesive tapes and papers for mounting. There are also adhesive matboards available. Most good art supply and framing supply stores carry these items. Try Micheals. If you want longer lasting conservation mounts, use rice paper hinges. Very healthy alternatives.

[graphicpush]

Here is a quick tip that I just stumbled on the other day. In Photoshop 7 or CS, where you can have multi-nested layer folders, you can create multi-masked images. This is especially useful for gradient masks in images inside collages.

Apply your typical gradient mask to a layer. Create a folder and drop that in, and then add another mask to the folder. Drop that folder inside another folder, and create another mask in the top-most folder.

This allows for lots of masks without rendering the previous mask, or copying the image to test a new mask.

(Hope this makes sense.)