keyboard shortcuts

6 Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts For Illustrator Users

| George Coghill

photoshop-cs3-iconHere are a few handy keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop for those of you out there like me who spend an inordinate amount of time in the Creative Suite primarily using Illustrator. These are not keyboard shortcuts that you can use in Illustrator, but rather are keyboard shortcuts providing methods of doing things in Photoshop that you are used to doing in Illustrator that at first it might seem isn’t possible, like click directly on an object to select it, drag to a new layer, etc.

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Video: Photoshop CS4 Spring-Loaded Keys

| George Coghill

Another brief video in my instructional series introducing some great new features in Photoshop CS4 for artists, cartoonists, illustrators and anyone else who sketches or draws using Photoshop.

This video features the excellent new Spring-Loaded Keys feature that allows you to access a tool temporarily by holding down the key for that tool, similar to using the Spacebar for the Hand tool – only for every tool in Photoshop now.

Photoshop Cheatsheets and Reference Cards: Free Downloads

| George Coghill

Great resource for Adobe Photoshop users — reference cards for quick overviews of Photoshop’s interface, specific and often-used tools.

Includes links to versions for Photoshop CS3 and CS4 as well as both Macintosh and Windows versions.

Some of the “cards” are actually links to Adobe’s own online help (which is where the default Help in CS4 apps now takes you). But the rest of the cards look helpful in learning or referencing common tools such as the Pen tool, the Marquee tool, and the Brush tool. Worth a look and a download for the reference cards that suit your workflow. Sure to enhance your productivity.

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Creative Suite CS4: Custom Keyboard Shortcut Woes

| George Coghill

Just a quick tip for those out there getting ready to upgrade to the new Adobe Creative Suite CS4: I discovered after the upgrade that CS3 customized keyboard shortcut files do not transition into CS4.

This is a huge bummer, as there is no easy way that I know of to display what you have changed compared to the default set. I can only speak for Photoshop CS4, Illustrator CS4 and InDesign CS4 as I do not use the rest of the programs in the Design Premium suite enough to customize keyboard shortcuts.

I can’t recall if this is the case with previous Creative Suite upgrades as well or if this is a CS4-only situation.

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Default Folder X – Essential Mac Productivity Utility Software

| George Coghill

Default Folder Mac utility software for open & save dialog boxes - screenshotDefault Folder X is one of those shareware utility applications that seem pretty handy while you are demoing, but until you use another Mac without Default Folder installed (or the demo runs out), you don’t realize exactly how perfect the software actually is.

I constantly run across these “714 Absolutely Essential Mac Applications” blog posts that always leave this one out. And I think the only reason is that the author is unaware of it’s existence. There’s no other explanation. Half of the time the apps I see on those lists are so-so anyways.

So what is this so-called “Default Folder” anyways? In short, it’s a way for you to access — from the Open/Save dialog windows — not only commonly used folders, but also recently used folders and open Finder windows, all with (mostly) user-defined keyboard shortcuts.

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OS X Tip: Move Windows In The Background Without Activating Them

| George Coghill

Here’s a quick tip for you Mac OS X users out there: you can move any window behind the currently active window (also known as the window that has “focus”) without activating it/bringing it to the front.

This one’s real simple: hold down the Command (Apple) key, and then click on the background window’s title bar area (as you normally would) and voilà – you’re moving the window in the background. You can even grab the scroll bar and move it if you have access to it.

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Adobe Pen Tool Cheatsheet: Free Download

| George Coghill

Adobe Pen Tool 3×5 index card Cheatsheet preview imageHere’s a cool little idea from the geniuses at CreativeTechs.com: “cheatsheets” for Adobe software that are designed to print on a 3×5 index card, complete with space reserved to punch holes for a binder. Designed with the GTD/Hipster PDA crowd in mind. And they’re free!

This link is to the PDF cheatsheet for the Adobe pen tool, since most (or all) of it’s features work the same across the Creative Suite. A real cool visual reference guide, and just one in a series of cheatsheets for Adobe apps as well as other computer and Mac related info that you just sometimes need at your fingertips.

Looks like they are just starting out with these, so be sure to subcribe to the RSS feed and collect ’em all!