want to drop below the baseline. Here is an example: In creating these tutorials I thought of these basic things that you might or might not know. Chances are, if you are having trouble with a tutorial something on this page will help you figure out why. I will be adding to these as I go along. There are 4 parts, general tips, text tips, tool tips , and channels and layers tips. These are very basic. If you think of anything I left out, email me and let me know. Some of these tips are reader suggested.
General tips.
1. make the file sizes larger than you want them and reduce the size after you are finished. Especially for text effects as some effects will not work on small or thin text.
2. To save your files for the web, they will need to be Jpg or Gif. Jpg is best when there are alot of colors and gif is best when there are large areas of the same color. If you will be working with a file more than once, save a copy in native Photoshop format..then you can open it and reopen it for editing, and also keep all the layers and channels in tact. To save as gif or Jpg, layers must be flattened.
1. Jpg is a lossy compression format which simply means that it loses some data during compression..I save most of my files as Jpgs at a quality of 3 or 4, medium setting. In Photoshop, this much compression isn't going to ruin your graphic. It isn't advisable to open a jpg and edit it and resave it because it looses more data each time it is compressed as jpg. I have heard various opinions' on this, some say it is worse than others. Some say if you save it at the same "level" you opened it at, it doesn't hurt it. (Like if you saved it at 3 the first time, don't save it as 2 or 4.) I like Jpg's and seem to get the best results from them in Photoshop (not in every program though. This isn't my opinion, just stuff I have learned from one source or another. If you find it to be incorrect or have another opinion, I would love to hear it :)
2 Gifs have to be reduced from RGB to indexed color, (Choose image/mode indexed) which means 256 colors at best. When you save a gif in Photoshop, you will be given choices as to how to save it. Adaptive is the most versatile, and it will give you a default of 256 colors, or 8 bit color. You can change this to anything you want, but you can see definite differences in gifs saved at 8 bits and 4 bits. If you have large areas of one color and no gradients, etc., saving at 16 colors or 32 colors may be your best option because this will lower the file size quite a bit. Books have been written on this subject, so I cant go into it any further here..I"ll give you some recommendations for reading more about it.
3. To Reduce file sizes:
1. Crop as close to the file as you can.
2. keep the jpg setting down to 3, and uncheck save paths.
3. uncheck the option 'save thumbnail" when saving for the web as jpg. If you save as PSD, you can save the thumbnail for convenience, but it will add a few kb to your file sizes, I can save a button as jpg at 1 kb, that same button saved as jpg with the thumbnail is 5 kb..when you are dealing with web graphics 3 or 4 kb does made a difference.
1. holding down shift will constrain the tools to a straight line, the paintbrush,
the smear tool, the gradient tool and the eraser, the pencil tool, etc.
The ellipse and rectangle tools can also be constrained to perfect circles and squares by holding down the shift key.
2. holding down the shift key while using the magic wand or any selection tool
will ADD TO the selection, .. holding the ALT key (or option on a Mac) will
subtract from the selection.
3. To add arrowheads to the end or beginning of a line, double click the line tool and then select arrowheads from the options menu.
4. If you want the paintbrush cursor to have the shape of the brush you are using, to to file>preferences>displays and cursors and set the painting cursors to brush size.
Version 5 text tips:
1. Any text that you type is still editable until you render the layer. You must render the layer before applying any filters or effects to the text. To render the text, right click on the 'T' in the layers palette, and select 'render layer' from the menu.
2. You can also change the color of text in the text dialog box by clicking on the color square in the dialog box.
3. To adjust the spacing between letters, use tracking. Try 100 to increase the space between them, and try -100 to make them closer together. If that is too much, adjust it from there. You have to type the text and then select it before you can type in the tracking box.
4. To edit text in the text dialog box, select the text you have typed, then change the font, or size. You can type 2 different sizes or fonts in one dialog box if you wish.
5. Version 5 lets you drop
the baseline of a letter. If you want your first letter to be larger and drop
below the others, select the first letter and increase the size , and put a
-5 in the baseline box. Be sure to select only the letter you
want to drop below the baseline. Here is an example:
These tips apply to version 4 and 5.
1. Text will always be placed on it's own layer by default.
2. Always make sure when typing text , that anti-aliased is checked.
3. Text will be typed in the foreground color that is selected.
4. If you are working with large text, uncheck the 'size' box, then all of the text you type will be visible in the text preview box at a very small size.
5. When filling text with a pattern or color, make sure preserve transparency is checked in the layers pallet. This serves the same function as selecting the text on the same layer..the only thing that can be affected when preserve transparency is checked is the text. Not the area around it.
6. When using a blur, or a drop shadow filter (such as eye candy) or any of the other you will have to uncheck preserve transparency, because the effects are applied to the pixels outside the text, which cant be effected if preserve transparency is checked.
1. An RGB image has 3 channels. Red, blue and green. Photoshop allows you to save a selection or part of an image as an alpha channel. To some people this sounds intimidating, but channels can be used for simple selections as well as more difficult tasks. Here are a few basic things that may help you with channels and layers.
1. You can save a selection as a channel if you want to reload the selection several times during the creation of an image. This is most helpful with difficult selections, but in some of these tutorials it is used for simple selections as well.
2. Saving selections as channels makes it easier to add them together or subtract them from one another, making a completely new selection that would have been difficult to make otherwise.
3. Channels make the selection permanent, at least until you delete it. You can save an image with the channels intact as a PSD file. (Photoshop's native format)
4. Channels can be duplicated and painted on, filled with gradients and modified in other ways to create interesting effects.
5. You can load a channel as a selection by choosing select>load selection>channel whatever. You can do this as many times as you like..
6. If you have text or an object on a layer, the pixels surrounding the text or object are transparent pixels. You can only modify the pixels outside of the object or text by turning off preserve transparency. If preserve transparency is on, only the text on the layer will be affected by fills or filters.
7. You can make a layer into a selection to save as a permanent channel by choosing select>load selection>layer 1 transparency, and then saving that selection as a new channel. If you just want to use the selection once and don't want to save it as a channel, you can load the layer as long as it isnt flattened.
8. Photoshop 5 has layer effects. These are drop shadows, glows and bevels that can be added to anything that is on a layer. These are very convenient. To access the layer effects, right click any layer and choose effects from the menu.
a]. layer effects can be changed , altered or removed until the image is flattened, so that you can try them out to see how they look.
b], layer effects can be copied and pasted from one layer to another.
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