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July 2006 1) New Polaroid Brush Set 2) Scratch Disk Articles 3) Save Time With Batch Processing 4) Number Keys Tip 5) Kenya ----------------------------------------------------- New Polaroid Brush Set ----------------------------------------------------- First up, this month welcomes a slightly different kind of brush set to the site. My new Polaroid Brush Set can be found here: http://www.easyelements.com/photoshop-polaroid-brush.html This brush set enables you to quickly and easily convert your existing images into these stylized Polaroid forms, which are great for use in photo albums and other craft projects! ----------------------------------------------------- Scratch Disk Articles ----------------------------------------------------- For those interested in the technical side of Photoshop, I've written a set of articles on Photoshop Scratch Disks. They're written in a way that avoids too much technical jargon, so you don't have to be a computer genius to enjoy finding out about this 'behind the scenes' feature! Firstly, discover what scratch disks actually are here: http://www.easyelements.com/scratch-disk.html Once you know a little about the background, find out about the most common scratch disk problem, the "Scratch Disk is Full" error message. Read about the cause and the solution here: http://www.easyelements.com/scratch-disk-is-full.html Finally, if you're interested in how the physical RAM is used by Photoshop, and why/when scratch disks are required, read my article on Photoshop Memory here: http://www.easyelements.com/photoshop-memory.html ----------------------------------------------------- Save Time With Batch Processing ----------------------------------------------------- Think about some of those tedious tasks that we all have to do occasionally. Renaming 101 files, or resizing loads of images. There is an easier way! Find out a little about the simple Batch Processing feature in Photoshop, and how to use it to avoid these boring jobs! http://www.easyelements.com/photoshop-batch-processing.html ----------------------------------------------------- Number Keys Tip ----------------------------------------------------- Many of the tools in Photoshop have an option which is expressed as a percentage. Take a look at the 'Opacity' value for the Pencil, Brush, or Paint Bucket Tools, the 'Strength' of the Blur Tool, or the 'Exposure' of the Dodge and Burn Tools as just a few examples. Now these are often values that you might wish to alter frequently and quickly while using the tool. Photoshop provides a quick way to do this, using the number pad! Firstly, check that 'Num Lock' is enabled on your keyboard. If it is not, this tip won't work. Go ahead and enable it if necessary. Next, simply select one of the tools, and type in a number on the num-pad. For example, type in 75, and watch the value quickly change to 75! In fact, if you want a multiple of ten, it's even easier. If you just hit the 6 key, Photoshop assumes you want a value of 60, and so on. This can make jobs where you're using a tool many times in slightly different amounts much quicker. ----------------------------------------------------- Kenya ----------------------------------------------------- It's only a few days now until I leave for Kenya, where I will be spending a month delivering supplies and helping with aid work. I'm going with a group of about 25 other young people that I know. Obviously I won't be able to add any other pages to the site while I'm out there, but when I return I'll be working full-time on the site for the whole month of September! There are already new site sections in development, and new features which I plan to launch then, so watch out! ----------------------------------------------------- That's it for this issue! I hope YOU found YOUR newsletter useful! Please do contact me with any requests for the August edition of Elements Express, as all these requests go into the making of my next newsletter. Any other comments or requests for this newsletter? Just let me know via my contact page here: http://www.easyelements.com/contact.html Until next time! Kind Regards, Robert Redwood. |
