3. Customizing the Way You Work

Introduction

No description of Adobe Photoshop would be complete without that well-known, but little utilized area called Preferences. Photoshop preferences serve several purposes. They help customize the program to your particular designing style, and they help you utilize available computer resources to increase the overall performance of the program.

By modifying File Handling preferences, such as appending a file extension on the file, or being asked when saving a layered TIFF file, you can streamline the file saving process. In addition, you can change the way your cursors look. For example, do you want your paintbrush to look like a paintbrush when you paint, do you prefer a precision crosshair or the actual brush size shape, or the shape with a crosshair?

As you use Photoshop, you’ll come to realize the importance of working with units and rulers. Precision is the name of the game when you are working with images. What about the color of your guides, grids, and slices? No big deal, you say. Well, if you’ve ever tried viewing a blue guide against a blue-sky image, you know exactly why guide color is important. By working through preferences such as Image Cache, Scratch Disks, and RAM (Random Access Memory), speed increases of up to 20% can be achieved.

In addition, customizing the program helps make you more comfortable, and studies show that the more comfortable you are as a designer, the better your designs. Plus, being comfortable allows you to work faster, and that means you’ll accomplish more in the same amount of time. What does setting up preferences do for you? They make Photoshop run faster (up to 20%), you work more efficiently, and your designs are better. That’s a pretty good combination. Photoshop doesn’t give you Preferences to confuse you, but to give you choices, and those choices give you control.

Optimizing Photoshop

Photoshop is a powerful program, and as such, requires a tremendous amount of computing power. When working on large documents, a poorly optimized Photoshop program will mean longer processing times for your files. That’s the bad news if you have a deadline to meet. The good news is that Photoshop can be configured to run more efficiently. To optimize Photoshop, click the Edit (Win) or Photoshop (Mac) menu, point to Preferences, and then click Performance. The Performance preferences dialog box contains options that will help maximize the performance of Photoshop.

History States

History States control the number of undos available. In fact, you can have up to 1,000 undos (ever wonder who would make so many mistakes that they would need 1,000 undos?). Unfortunately, increasing the number of History States will ultimately increase the amount of RAM Photoshop uses to manage the History panel. Assigning more RAM to manage History means less memory for Photoshop to perform other operations, and will reduce the performance of the program. If you are experiencing problems with slow performance, lowering the number of History States frees up more RAM, and permits Photoshop to operate more efficiently.

Scratch Disk

When your computer doesn’t have enough RAM to perform an operation, Photoshop uses free space on any available drive, known as a Scratch Disk. Photoshop requires 5 times the working size of the file in contiguous hard drive space. For example, if the working size of your file is 100 MB, you will need 500 MB of contiguous hard drive space, or you will receive an error message: Out of Scratch Disk Space (I hate it when that happens). Using additional hard drives gives Photoshop the ability to divide the processing load and increase performance. Photoshop detects and displays all available internal disks in the Preferences dialog box. Scratch disks must be physically attached to your computer (avoid networks and removable media, such as zip drives, or rewriteable CDs or DVDs). For maximum speed, avoid USB, and use 4- or 6-pin FireWire drives. Benchmark tests show FireWire drives provide up to a 20% speed improvement when used as Scratch Disks. Think of saving one hour out of every five, or one full day out of every five. That’s not too bad. For best results, select a scratch disk on a different drive than the one used for virtual memory or any large files you’re editing.

Memory & Image Cache

Photoshop functions in RAM (actually all applications work within RAM). To run efficiently, Photoshop requires 5 times the working size of the open document in available memory (some tests indicate 6 to 8 times). Strictly speaking, the more RAM you can assign to Photoshop, the more efficiently the program operates, especially when opening large documents.

RAM usage is determined by the working size of the document, not its open size. As you work on a document, you will eventually add additional layers to separate and control elements of the image. As you add these new layers, the working size of the file increases.

Setting General Preferences

Photoshop’s General preferences help you configure some of the more common features of the program. Image interpolation settings, as well as the History log, are set up in General preferences. Other options, such as beeping when an operation is finished, auto-updating open documents, and using the Shift key for tool switching, can all be turned on or off in the Options area. The History Log lets you save all the History States performed on a particular document. For example, when you open an image, all the adjustments and actions performed are saved in a text file. This gives you access to valuable information, and lets you reproduce the steps performed on one image to correct another.

Work with General Options

Modifying File Handling Preferences

Sooner or later, you’ll have to save the file (document) you’ve created in Photoshop. The final output of any document is contained within a specific file format such as TIFF, EPS, JPEG, or BMP. In fact, Photoshop lets you save files using over 15 different formats. The File Handling preferences provide several options that modify what information is saved with a file. Image previews are typically very small, adding very little to the file size of the saved document. Once saved you may want to open, print, and possibly even modify the document using other image-editing applications. The File compatibility options help you save a file that will be transportable to other applications.

Work with File Handling Options

Working with Interface Preferences

Working with the Interface preferences gives you control over whether Photoshop displays or hides user interface features. You can display some user interface elements in color. For example, you can show the Application icon in color or grayscale, show channels in color, or show selected menu items in user-defined colors. Interface preferences also allow you to show descriptive labels when your cursor is placed over an option, automatically collapse icon panels when you click away, and remember panel locations for the next use. You can also change the size of the text font on the Options bar, panels, and tool tips.

Work with Interface Options

Working with Cursors Preferences

We communicate with Photoshop using various devices, such as a drawing tablet, mouse, touch screen, track pad, or keyboard. Photoshop communicates with us using visual cues, the most prominent one being the shape of the cursor. For example, when a cursor looks like an I-beam, this typically means it’s time to enter text, or when the cursor looks like a magnifying glass, clicking on the image expands the view size. Working with the Cursors preferences gives you control over how Photoshop communicates with you.

Work with Cursors Options

Controlling Transparency & Gamut Preferences

The Transparency & Gamut preferences control how Photoshop displays transparent areas of a document (commonly called the checker-board), as well as the color and opacity of areas of an image that fall outside of the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black) color mode. It’s important to understand that transparency in Photoshop does not always translate into transparency after you save the file. For example, the JPEG format is used primarily for images saved for the Internet, and does not support transparency. When you save the file, Photoshop will fill the transparent areas of the image with a matte color (the default is white). In addition, the Gamut Warning may be activated because a monitor displays color information using RGB, and has more available saturation values than a CMYK document. Using a different ink or spot colors can sometimes fix an out-of-gamut color. For transparency it’s important to remember that unless you’re printing the document directly in Photoshop, it’s the format you choose that determines if the transparent areas will be saved, and the Gamut Warning is there to warn you of any areas that may not print the way you expect.

Control Transparency & Gamut Options

Working with Units & Rulers

While changing the measurable units and rulers do not affect output quality, they do help to measure information in a document consistent with the specific output device. Ruler Units give you precise information on the width and height of the active document. The Column Size measurements provide information that Photoshop needs to create documents with columns, such as newspapers, magazines, brochures, etc. The New Document Preset Resolutions area lets you select specific resolution values when creating new documents. Insert the values you’ll use most often in the creation of a new Photoshop document.

Work with Units & Rulers Options

Working with Guides, Grid & Slices

The Guides, Grid & Slices preferences help keep a multi-layered document in proper order. For example, using Guides can help you line up buttons on a web interface, or make sure specific design elements are precisely placed within the document window. The Guides option lets you select the color and style of the guides placed within a Photoshop document. Guides are placed within the image by dragging them from the horizontal or vertical Ruler bars in the active document. The Grid options let you decide on a color, style, and layout for Photoshop’s grid system. The Slices option defines the visible color of a slice, and whether Photoshop displays a number value for each slice.

Work with Guides, Grid & Slices Options

Select the Grid options you want to use:

  Color.Select a default color for displaying grids.

  Style.Select a default style (Lines, Dashed Lines, or Dots) for displaying the grid.

  Gridline Every.Enter a value for how often the grid lines appear within the active document.

  Subdivisions.Enter a value for how many subdivisions (lines) appear between each main gridline.

Select the Slices options you want to use:

  Line Color.Select a default line color for displaying document slices.

  Show Slice Numbers.Select the check box to display a number for each slice in the upper left corner of the slice.

Selecting Plug-Ins

The Plug-ins preferences give you the ability to organize your plug-ins by saving them in one or more folders. These additional folders are typically used to hold third-party plug-ins. When selected, plug-ins contained within the folder will be available from Photoshop’s Filter menu. Organizing your plug-ins into folders helps keep your projects focused and reduces the clutter of plug-ins when you select them from the Filter menu.

Work with Plug-Ins Options

Selecting Scratch Disks

The Performance preferences are available to help you get the best performance out of your computer by letting you choose one or more hard drives for scratch operations. When your computer doesn’t have enough RAM to perform an operation, Photoshop uses free space on any available drive, known as a Scratch Disk. Photoshop runs faster when you divide the Scratch Disk workload. Scratch operations are performed on your hard drive and take place when Photoshop is using one of its many filters and adjustments. Photoshop detects and displays all available disks in the Performance preferences dialog box, where you can select the disks you want to use. By assigning additional hard drives to the task, you speed up Photoshop’s overall performance. Scratch Disk changes take effect the next time you start Photoshop.

Work with Scratch Disks Options

Allocating Memory & Image Cache

The Memory Usage and History & Cache preferences give you control over how much RAM is assigned to Photoshop, and how much memory is allocated to screen redraws (Image Cache). Photoshop, being a high-performance application, requires a fairly large amount of RAM. Adjusting these options can help increase Photoshop’s overall speed performance. Photoshop uses many operations that affect RAM: History States, Undo, Clipboard, and Cache. When you modify the Memory Usage settings, you are increasing or decreasing the amount of RAM Photoshop uses for various tasks. Experimentation is the key here. Try different settings and record Photoshop’s performance. By fine-tuning Photoshop’s engine, you increase its overall speed, and you’ll get more design miles to the gallon.

Allocate Memory & Image Cache Options

Enter the percentage of RAM used in the Let Photoshop Use box.

Photoshop needs about 5 times the size of the open document of unused RAM to operate efficiently.

GPU Settings (New!). If you have a video card installed with a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), the name of your video card will appear under Detected Video Card. Check Enable OpenGL Drawing (GL stands for Graphics Library) to make the enhanced speed and smoothness of CS4 graphic rendering and navigation available to you.

Click OK.

Working with Type

Although Photoshop is not by definition a typesetting application, such as Adobe InDesign, it does have some very powerful type features. For example, Adobe Photoshop allows you to output PostScript text to a printer with a PostScript option. This way you will not need to place Photoshop images into type-intensive applications, such as InDesign or Illustrator, just to create a few lines of text. In addition, Photoshop’s type menu lets you see fonts exactly as they will print or display. For designers who use a lot of fonts, this WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) font menu is a timesaver. You can use Type preferences to help you select the type and font options you want to use.

Work with Type Options

Click OK.

Managing Libraries with the Preset Manager

The Preset Manager gives you one place to manage brushes, swatches, gradients, styles, patterns, contours, custom shapes, and preset tools. The Preset Manager can be used to change the current set of preset items and create new libraries of customized sets. Once a library is loaded in the Preset Manager, you can access the library’s items in all locations where the preset is available. Changes made in the Preset Manager are global and are applied every time you open Photoshop. When you save a new preset, the name appears in the dialog box for the specific option you selected.

Create a New Preset

Customizing the Workspace

The Photoshop workspace consists of a document surrounded by an Application frame (Mac only), Application bar, Options bar, toolbox, and over 20 floating panels, including new 3D, Adjustments, Masks, and Notes panels (New!). Depending on how you work, your workspace may reflect any combination of the above. For example, when you work with text, you would need the Character and Paragraph panels, but you might not need the Styles or Histogram panel. To work efficiently, each job requires a specific organization of the workspace. Rather than making you redesign your workspace every time you begin a new project, Photoshop gives you ways to create and save your own customized workspaces.

Create a Customized Workspace

Delete a Customized Workspace

Defining Shortcut Keys

A wise man once wrote “time is money,” and Photoshop is a program that can consume a lot of time. That’s why the Photoshop application uses keyboard shortcuts. Keyboard Shortcuts, as their name implies, let you perform tasks in a shorter period of time. For example, if you want to open a new document in Photoshop, you can click the File menu, and then click New, or you can abandon the mouse and press Ctrl+N (Win) or (Mac) to use shortcut keys. Using shortcut keys reduces the use of the mouse and speeds up operations. In fact, a recent study in the American Medical Journal suggested that the use of shortcut keys significantly cuts down on repetitive stress, and reduces instances of carpal tunnel syndrome. Photoshop raises the bar by not only giving you hundreds of possible shortcut keys, but also actually allowing you to define your own shortcuts.

Create a Keyboard Shortcut

Creating a Customized User Interface

Photoshop’s pull-down menus actually contain hundreds of options (yes, I did say hundreds). If you find navigating through menus a hassle, then Adobe has the answer to your problem with a customizable user interface. In Photoshop, you have the ability to choose what menu items appear on the pull-down menus and you can even colorize certain menu items for easier visibility. For example, if you’re curious about all the new features in Photoshop CS4, you can choose a drop-down menu system with all the new features highlighted. Photoshop includes nine predefined user interface sets, known as workspaces, just to get you started in the right direction. You can access these workspaces—such as Essentials, Basic, and What’s New in CS4—by using the Workspace menu (New!) on the Application bar or Workspace submenu on the Window menu.

Use a Predefined User Interface

Create a Customized User Interface

Using Drawing Tablets

When you design on a computer, you’re leaving the natural world of oil, watercolor, and canvas, for the electronic world of computer monitors and pixels (don’t worry, it’s a relatively painless transition). Without a doubt, there are many differences between traditional and digital design; however, it’s not necessary to abandon all aspects of the natural media world. For example, the computer mouse has always been a problem with designers who miss the feel and control of a brush in their hands. Fortunately, technology came to the rescue several years ago, with the invention of the drawing tablet. Drawing tablets combine a drawing surface and a brush-like drawing tool in the form of a pen. A designer picks up the pen and moves it across the drawing tablet surface. In turn, the drawing tablet interprets those movements as brush strokes. Not only does Photoshop fully support drawing tablet technology, it also interprets the particular drawing style of the designer. For example, pushing harder with the brush against the drawing tablet instructs Photoshop to create a wider stroke, or to apply more color. Drawing tablets have helped to translate the control of working with real art brushes on canvas, into the world of the digital designer. Of all the manufacturers, Wacom stands out as the leader in drawing tablet technology. Wacom returns the feel of designing with a brush to the digital designer’s world, and the software required to power the tablet works seamlessly with Photoshop and the Windows or Macintosh operating systems. To check out which tablet might be right for your needs, point your browser to www.wacom.com and check out the available options.