78 Ways to Make Software Do More

Adobe Elements 4 & Photoshop CS2

A picture is worth 10,000 clicks--if you're trying to make something look just right in Photoshop (or even its little sibling, Photoshop Elements). Herein, ways to keep the clicks to a minimum.

Faster Elements

Though Elements is pretty swift, it could be swifter. When it loads, turn off the Welcome screen and shave about 10 to 20 seconds off the startup time. At the bottom left of the startup screen, click the Start Up In drop-down, choose Editor, and close the Welcome screen. Two other time-savers: Press <Ctrl>-J to duplicate the current layer, and press <Ctrl>-<Alt>-<Shift>-E to copy everything you see in the current image to a new layer. These two tricks let you keep your corrections and continue working without flattening the image.

Balance Your Colors

Elements lacks a Color Balance feature (something Photoshop has had for years). But fear not, Photoshop maven Richard Lynch says: Use Elements' Levels dialog box instead. Open the image and select Enhance, Adjust Lighting, Levels (or press <Ctrl>-L). Select Red, Green, or Blue from the Channel drop-down, and then move the gray slider immediately below the graph. The Red channel balances red and cyan; the Green channel, green and magenta; and the Blue channel, blue and yellow.

Do Curves in Elements

Photoshop Elements also lacks a Photoshop-like Curve Adjustment Layer tool for making color and tonal corrections. But Photoshop pros Ted Padova and Don Mason (authors of "Color Correction for Digital Photographers Only") have created a great little workaround. Ask a Photoshop CS2 pal to open a new blank file (sized to 100 by 100 pixels, at 72 pixels per inch, with Color Mode set to RGB) and to create a new layer with a set of six Curve adjustments--darken, lighten, darken with more contrast, lighten with more contrast, darken with less contrast, and lighten with less contrast--and save each individually as a PSD file. In Elements, open the image you're working on, and then the PSD file (which will appear blank) with the desired Curve corrections. Select first Windows, Images, Tile (so you can see both) and then Windows, Layers. To apply the Curve correction, click the PSD file, and then click the little curve icon to the right in the Layers palette, and drag it onto your image. Drop it, and the correction is magically applied. Want to increase the intensity? Drag and drop the curve icon again.

Automate Photoshop CS2

The ability to record and play back steps makes Actions a powerful, time-saving tool, especially since actions can be assigned to function-key combinations. Say you want to access some tool presets without opening the Tool Preset palette. Press <Alt>-<F9> to open the Actions palette, click the Create new set button (the tiny folder icon) on the palette, and name the set. Then click the Create new action button next to it, name the action, assign a function-key combination (for example, <Shift>-<F2>) to it, and click the Record button. Walk through the steps, click the square Stop button on the palette, and close the palette. The next time you want to select that tool preset, just press <Shift>-<F2>. One caveat: Adobe's implementation is a little uneven. If one keyboard combo doesn't work, try another!

Instant Web Photo Galleries

If you want to share pictures but lack the skills to create a Web site of your images, rest easy. Photoshop CS2 can create a dozen different photo galleries for you in a flash. Select File, Automate, Web Photo Gallery, pick a template from the Styles drop-down, select Banner From the Options drop-down, and in the Site Name field enter a title; then select the folder holding the images you want to use, size them, and pick a destination folder to hold the generated HTML and other files. Click OK, and Photoshop processes your images and generates the Web pages.

Make Sharp, Small PDFs

To create a sharp PDF of a scanned image with a tiny file size, don't "print" the image from Photoshop to PDF, or save it as a Photoshop PDF. Instead, save it in Photoshop as an EPS file. Then select Image, Mode, CMYK. Save the image again as an EPS file, under a different name. Exit Photoshop, load Acrobat Distiller, and then open this second EPS file. When it's finished, you will have a sharp, small PDF.

Lock 'em Up Tight

Want to lock down your images so that only people with the password can see them? You could use a compression utility that incorporates encryption--or you could use Photoshop CS2. Save the image as a Photoshop PDF. After you click Save, the Save Adobe PDF dialog appears. Click Security on the left, and check the Require a password to open the document box on the right. Type a password in the Document Open Password field, and click the Save PDF button. You'll be asked to confirm the password. That's it: Now your image is locked up tight with 128-bit encryption.

Change Tool Presets on the Fly

Photoshop's tools are often used for multiple purposes, which means constantly changing settings as you move from one task to another. The solution: Tool Presets. To create a preset, select a tool (such as the Art History Brush), set the options for it (brush size, mode, opacity, and the like), open the Tool Presets palette (Window, Tool Presets), and click the tiny Create new tool preset icon on the bottom-right of the palette. Once you've saved the preset, you can change the tool's nature by clicking the preset on the palette or by pressing a keystroke combination you assigned to the preset as an action.