Most photo editing software provides an array of shortcuts for quickly completing certain tasks. Obviously a professional photographer with a large amount of photo editing work to do can save time and money by using shortcuts. What may not be obvious is the value of shortcuts to users who are trying to learn their photo software.
You only get better at using software by using it. If you don’t have allot of time to use it though. You should really try to make the most of your time by creating shortcuts. By spending this little bit of time setting up your shortcuts now, you will save countless hours of doing the same action over and over again.
Assignment Details
Do some research (on the internet, in your photo software’s on-line help, books, etc..) and find a shortcut for a task that you regularly perform. Tryout the shortcut and if you like it, post it here. Be sure to post:
What the shortcut does
The program that the shortcut is for
How to use the shortcut (what keys to press, right click, etc...)
As an option you might post the non-shortcut method of performing the same function.
For now, feel free to post as many shortcuts as you like. If there are enough of them, I’ll create a compendium of them and sell them on ebay. I mean give them away
Ok, so this shortcut may not be for photographic software, but I stumbled upon it while using photoshop.
What the shortcut does is allow you to send e-mail in the form of an html web page. The only problem is, it (as far as I know) only works for macs. :( *See bottom.
While using photoshop I was inverting a bunch of pictures, and speeding along. The shortcut for this is (on a mac) command+I. Somehow I accidently clicked on safari without noticing, and hit command+I. At first all that happened, was the picture didn’t invert, and I was confused (I still didn’t realize I had clicked on safari). After a second, mail opened, and created a new e-mail in the form of the web page I was on.
*I just found out that this may work for PC’s if you use the safari web browser.
Welcome to the forum!
Could you please summarize your post so other can use it for quick reference? Maybe include a practical application for using this? I will tell you it’s not platform dependant, but DEFINATELY not that easy to do on a PC.
This is really a great one IMO since you won’t find stuff like that in any publication. I’m glad you goofed up!
In Illustrator I’m always using the “place” command so I can create illustrations. There’s no shortcut key though..
The Program is Illustrator. (can be used in all Adobe apps though)
All you need to do is press F10 and it brings up the prompt.
Normally you would need to go to File>Place
Even though this is simple. When you add up the time and mouse movement. It really pays off!
Don’t forget to check that little box in the bottom left that says “template” if you do that, all kinds of coolness is avilable to you!
If you like that, I have a ton of them for Illustrator. I’ll space them out though so I don’t log jam this thread w/ my posts.
Sounds like a good reason to write up a tut on how to create actions. Allot of oppl have no idea about them and waste hours of time on repetative tasks..
Setting up actions is a definite lifesaver. Ok.. this one is not so much a shortcut key as a short cut method I just stumbled on yesterday.
Program is Adobe Illustrator
Platform is PC
When creating crop areas, if you have the document/art board set to the dimensions you want your final piece in, you can just go to Object>Crop Area>Make and it will automatically make the crop area the same size and position of the art board.
Until I figured this out, I’ve been using the rectangle tool, clicking once on the screen, inputting the dimensions, setting the align palette to align to artboard and using it to center it up… then selecting the rectangle and doing Object>Crop Area> Make
This saves me a ton of time when I’m doing book illustrations and I set the artboard to what I need my final size to be anyway.
This shortcut works for PCs and in Photoshop. Double click the grey area (not the workspace grey area though) to open a file that you had previously saved.
true… but that requires way too much effort.. lol… I’m half asleep today as it is.. My lovely little son kept waking up crying for some unknown reason all night last night until I finally just let him crawl in bed with us around 3… and I got up at 4 to go to work… the joys of parenthood.. ;O)
Sounds like a good reason to write up a tut on how to create actions. Allot of oppl have no idea about them and waste hours of time on repetative tasks..
no pressure though
Sounds like a good idea, more tuts mean more hits, i didn’t expect to get such a good response from my first two, over 2000 clicks from a single site, and actions are such a help, il write a basic on how to make one, and maybe one or two on the most tedious of tasks, suggestions are welcome as well :D
