PSW EST: 1972

* PhotoSnowdonia Workshops *

and the

Zone 8 Photographic Society EST: 1977

PRESIDENT: Bruce Alexander Carter, FZPS . . . . FIRST & PAST PRESIDENT: Kenneth A Nelson, Hon.FZPS

 

INFORMATION

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For all enquiries

Updated: Monday 22 May, 2006 21:39 (Webpage updated but not content)

SOME HINTS FOR PHOTOSHOP USERS

(NOTE: This has been extensively updated and available only to members, with a wide range of other technical information leaflets, on the Members Only Forum. Articles will not be updated any more on this website)

 

THE MOST IMPORTANT ACCESSORY, BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING IN PHOTOSHOP, IS A NOTEBOOK! PHOTOSHOP REMEMBERS WHAT YOU DID OR SET LAST TIME, SO IF YOU DO NOT RECORD WHAT IT WAS BEFORE YOU ALTERED ANYTHING, YOU MAY HAVE TO RE-INSTALL TO GET BACK BASIC RECOMMENDED (DEFAULT) SETTINGS!

RECOMMENDATION: As at November 2001, prices for memory on current and recent computers, using SDRAM modules, is very inexpensive. Buy NOW to seriously upgrade your computing! Addendum: Although memory has risen (March 2002) it is still a bargain buy and definitely the best and least expensive way to upgrade your computer. However ..... if using Win 98, remember that it cannot normally function if more than 512MB is installed.

The Main Set-Up is important and most of this comes in the *FILE/PREFERENCES/GENERAL item (in later PhotoShop versions, it is under the EDIT menu item) (in case you are very new to computing, by this we mean clicking on the MENU item FILE (on the top left of the Photoshop screen) then when the drop-down menu appears, scroll down to the item PREFERENCES, then click on MAIN on the secondary menu that appears to the side). When you click on GENERAL, you will get a dialogue box covering the GENERAL settings. To get to the next settings box, just click on the NEXT button. This way you can scroll through all the settings option boxes, which are shown with comments below. * Preferences in PhotoShop 6 and 6.01 are under the EDIT menu. There are a few changes, like the Brushes are now under the top menu but otherwise, it is mostly the same and hardly affects those using PhotoShop for equivalent darkroom work! JPEG compression values now go from 0 to 12, compared to previous 0 to 10. For saving files, just use the lowest level that still claims to be in the HIGH quality bracket!

The main points to set are as follows (the box title is shown underlined):-

GENERAL - Leave this as set by Photoshop

SAVING FILES - Leave this as set (unless you know what you are doing!)

DISPLAY & CURSORS - Check (click to put dot in circle alongside the item) BRUSH SIZE and PRECISE. When you do this, you will find when you use the Dodge Tool (It lightens when you hold down the left mouse button and darkens if you hold down the ALT key whilst then holding down the left mouse button) you will get a nice circle showing where you are working -much easier than guessing. (Note this circle will disappear if the CAPS LOCK light is alight on your keyboard). You can make larger circles by clicking on the right pointing solid arrow to the right of the Brush Tool Box to reveal a drop-down menu, then selecting NEW BRUSH to show a dialogue box in which you can type-in a new brush size. Try one at 250. You can create several different brush sizes and note that in the lower part of that box, you will see a diagram, in which you can click on the handles to change the shape of the brush and also click on an arrow, to drag the shape to any angle you wish. Try making several - some vertical, some horizontal and others at angles. This also makes for easier working when using the Rubber Stamp tool as you can also select different brush sizes and shapes you have created. Don't be tempted to whizz about or your memory could disappear - rapidly. This is where the RAMDef-XT memory manager utility (see Links page) is essential to avoid crashes,

TRANSPARENCY & GAMUT - Leave this as set

UNITS & RULERS - Just select inch or cm units to choice

GUIDES & GRID - Leave this as set

PLUG-INS & SCRATCH DISK - This is more complicated! If (a BIG "IF") your computer has been set-up properly for Photoshop, you would have a separate drive (or more likely a separate "Logical Drive") devoted solely for use by Photoshop as an area where it can store images as you work on them. For example, I have a (logical) drive of 1.8 Gb purely for use as a scratch disk by Photoshop. This is an area on a large hard drive sectioned off so the computer thinks it is a separate hard disk drive; it is formed by partitioning the large disk into separate areas, then making those areas Logical Drives - the computer will then see them as separate disks in their own right. By having a large scratch disk only for use by Photoshop, you make life much simpler and PS works more efficiently and certainly more quickly! If you have not got this facility, you will need to ensure your Drive C (if that's all you have got) is kept tidy by running a Disk Defragmenter utility - you should find one via START/PROGRAMMES/ACCESSORIES/ SYSTEM-TOOLS/ DISK DEFRAGMENTER. This will free up areas on your hard disk by collecting bits of files scattered about all over the place, thus leaving nice larger free areas for use by Photoshop!

However - BEWARE! We have found that whilst this worked fine under Windows 95, using under Windows 98 has resulted in having to re-install Win-98 and all programmes several times (until the reason was discovered) due many errors in all sorts of different programmes that were not present before the defragmenter was run! Our advice (if you only have one large drive C) is get a smaller second hard disk fitted (Small today means about 3.2 Gb or 4.3 Gb - now when I consider I used only 40 Mb for about seven years . . . . .!) and get that split into three partitions and thus three drives. Designate one for Photoshop to use as its Primary Scratch Disk (about 1.8 Gb), one for Windows to use as its Swap Disk (= Virtual Memory - about 400 Mb) and the third keep for trying out programmes. If you cannot do this, get someone who can to install and configure it for you. You would then simply alter the settings in this box to point to the drive.

The Windows swap disk settings should be set via the Device Manager facility - we cannot go into this here but anyone familiar with Windows settings should be able to do this for you if you do not know how to set about this task. A well set-up computer for digital imaging - and computing generally - would have its HDD partitioned with logical drives to suit specific requirements. Sadly, they usually come as one large, totally inefficient Drive C only, that ends up a nightmare of inefficiency, wasted space and usually "Scratch Disk Full" error messages! (One possible other solution is latest "Partition Magic" programme)

MEMORY & IMAGE CACHE - If you have 64 Mb of RAM in your computer, change the default (Default = what Photoshop is set to when installed) setting for Memory Use by Photoshop to 70% instead of the 50% Default value. If you have 128 Mb or more, set this to 75-85%. Note that whilst there is a dramatic speed increase upgrading from 64 Mb to 128 Mb, going from 128 Mb to 256 Mb or more is hardly worth the cost. Photoshop uses the Scratch Disk extensively, so most waiting time is not down to too little Memory or a slow processor but more to how fast it can write to and retrieve from the Scratch Disk on the HDD. Read our article covering settings for the Epson 1200/750 about how to close Photoshop, after saving the image file you have worked on, to free the Scratch Disk before printing. THIS IS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT if you only have one drive (e.g.: "C") as the Scratch Disk - if not cleared by saving your image file then closing