PTotD

Dust and ashes on my head! Woe! Woe! But at least I'll get caught up. Eventually...

Tip # 107. The keyboard shortcut to quickly switch from white to black (Really, to switch the foreground color to the background color) is the letter ‘X’. So I never bother worrying about remembering whether I need black or white when I am working with a mask. I just hit X and grab the other one, without looking at which is in use.

Tip # 108. Keyboard shortcuts will help you keep track of where you are working in Photoshop. If you have to move your mouse to a menu, you will watch the cursor and not be looking at your image. Then you’ll have to find where you were working in your image all over again. This sounds like no big deal, but after a long session of using menus, you will be tired of it. Often you have to drill down through flyouts to get to where you want. Skip that. Learn and use keyboard shortcuts and your touch typing skills will keep your eyes on your project.

Tip #109. Here’s a fun one. Start with some neutral color background layout. Take a huge brush. Turn on the grid (Command or Control and ‘) and zoom in until each ¼” square of the grid is large and easy to see. Click once to use the Brush like a stamp. (Or you could use the Stamp tool….) Press X to flip to brushing with white, move your cursor slightly on the diagonal, but stay in the same grid square! Then brush once with White. What you see when you go back to regular size is a thing that looks a bit like a paper cutout, with a black shadow behind it. Use History to undo brush strokes, change the black to a gray and try again. Try this with different brushes. In short, this is just one way to play.