Welcome back to another very exciting tutorial here at the PhotoshopTrainingChannel.com.
My name is Jesus Ramirez and you can find me on Instagram @JRfromPTC.
In this tutorial, I'm going to show you 3 techniques to help you work faster in Photoshop.
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Okay, let’s get started.
One of the things that you can do in Photoshop to speed up your workflow is look at the fine
details that you’re working with, as well as the overall image at the same time.
You can do so by opening the same document in two windows.
Let me show you how it works.
We have this portrait here and we can work with the Spot Healing Brush tool.
We can click on Sample All Layers.
And we’re going to create a new layer to work none destructively, then we’re going
to zoom in, then we can start removing blemishes just by painting.
And after you make a few adjustments, you can zoom out, so you can see what the overall
image looks like.
You can also fit the image to screen by double tapping at the Hand tool.
And those changes look good so I can zoom back in and continue working on the image.
As you can see this takes a little time, it’s not a whole bunch of time but it does takes
some time.
So what you can do is open this image in two windows and you can look at a zoom in version
and a version at 100%.
To do so, you can go into Window-Arrange, at the very bottom, you’re going to see
an option that reads New Window for, then the name of the file.
In this case, Portrait.psd and that’s going to open up a second tab with the same document.
Then you can either put them side by side or one on top of the other.
If you’re working with two monitors, you can click and drag this one out to the second
monitor.
I do have two monitors, however, for the recording you can’t see my second monitor so we’re
going to work with a single monitor.
But what you can do is go into Window-Arrange-2- up Vertical.
You have them side by side.
So now you can work with the details of an image but also see the 100% view of the image.
So I can double tap on the zoom tool to view the image at 100%.
I can continue working with the Spot Healing brush tool and watch that as I remove blemishes,
they’re going to automatically update on this 100% view version.
As you can see, I’m removing the blemishes and I can work with the fine detail and also
see the full version of the image.
And that helps you work a little bit faster because you don’t have to zoom in and out
to see the changes that you’re making with your image.
Also, two extra tips, you probably know that by holding the Spacebar you can pan on the
image.
But if you hold Shift and the Spacebar, you can pan both images at the same time.
If you’re using the zoom tool, you can, of course, zoom in or Hold Alt / Option on
the Mac, zoom out, and if you hold Shift and Alt, you can zoom out out of both images.
And if you just hold Shift, you can zoom in on both images.
But in this case, we want to zoom in on one image and not be zoomed in in the other.
And this is one of those techniques that after you see it for the first time, you see the
value in it and you’ll probably keep on using it.
So let me know in the comments if you found this technique useful and you plan on incorporating
it into your workflow.
In this example, I’m going to show you how you can work faster by using Actions.
You’re probably thinking of using Actions as a way of creating complex effects by simply
clicking one button.
But that’s not how we’re going to use Actions in this example.
I like to use Actions to simplify repetitive tasks.
These tasks may not take a long time but if you add up the time that you spend applying
them then it turns into a lot of waste of time.
So let me show you what I mean by that.
I’m going to go into Window-Actions, and you can see my Actions right here.
And what I’m going to do is I’m going to click and drag the Actions Panel to the
side and then click and drag it on to the edge of the panels there, you can see that
blue vertical line, then release and now your Actions are docked to the side of the panels.
I can click on the Fly out Menu and select Button Mode.
This allows me to just tap on one of these buttons to apply an Action.
And these are some of the Actions that I use, and they’re not complex Actions but they
do save some time.
I’ll show you hpw some of these work, have Actions to change the interface color.
So for example, Light Interface, Dark Interface, Gray Interface.
Now, that doesn’t seem like much but if I needed to change the Interface just so I
could see an image better, the other way of doing it is by pressing Ctrl K, going into
Interface and selecting the Interface Color, and pressing OK.
That takes a few seconds and it may not be much, but, again, when you’re working fast
at Photoshop, you just want to be able to tap a button and make things happen.
So it’s better to spend 1 second than 5 seconds.
And again, if you add up those 5 seconds over a project that’s several hours long, now
you’re saving yourself minutes.
Another one that I use often is I do a lot of compositing work, so often I create layers
and sometimes I don’t put anything in them, so I have this Action here that just deletes
all the empty layers.
And that is simply a script that is under File-Script-Delete All Empty Layers.
I also like using Actions to center things.
I’m going to create an Ellipse, the color really doesn’t matter, and I have this Action
that centers things on the canvas.
I’m going to tap it and it just centers that Ellipse on a canvas both vertically and
horizontally.
I also have an Action that centers things to a Selection.
So I have that selection there and I can click on Center in selection and there it goes.
So, again, not too complex but it does save you some time in the long run.
I’m going to press Ctrl D / Command D to Deselect, and they also have an Action that
creates guide from an active layer.
So I’m going to tap on that Action and there it is.
If you Exit the Button Mode and go back into the Actions, you can double click to the side
of the Action, for example Center on Canvas, and you can assign a function key.
So that keyboard shortcut F2 will apply the action.
You can do F2, you can add a Shift key if you want, or the Control command key.
I’m not going to do that but the option is there if you need it.
I’m going to quickly show you how to create an Action so you can create Actions for the
things that you need.
In the Actions Panel, just click on this New Action button and you have a New Action, you
can call it whatever you want.
We’re just going to call it Action 1 now and we can rename it in a moment.
I’m going to click on Record, and I’m going to press Ctrl K / Command K on the Mac
and that’s going to open up the Preferences Panel.
And I’m going to go into Workspace and there’s this option here, Auto-Collapse Iconic Panels.
It’s off by default and sometimes it can be useful.
So we’re going to create an Action so that we can quickly enable it when we need it.
So I’m going to click on that, press OK and then click on the stop button.
And I’m going to just double tap on the Action 1 label and call it Collapse On.
Now we are going to create a Collapse Off.
So I’m going to create a New Action, and this time I’ll name it from here.
Click on Record.
Once again, Ctrl K /Command K on the Mac, we are going to go into the Workspace Panel
and disable the Auto-Collapse and press OK.
And I’m going to stop this Action.
Now we have these two Actions.
I’m going to go back into the Button Mode and here they are at the bottom, Collapse
on, Collapse Off.
So I’m going to click on ON, just so you can see how that works.
Sometimes you maybe working with an Adjustment layer, like Curves for example, and you might
want to turn on the Histogram panel and I’ll collapse the Actions panel so that you can
see how that works.
So you have the Histogram panel and you may want to make an Adjustment on to this image.
If I click and drag on the Curves, the Histogram disappears.
So you may want to keep an eye in the Histogram but it keeps collapsing so with the Actions
panel you can just select Collapse Off, enable the Histogram and if you make adjustments
the Histogram is there.
So you can see how the Histogram moves, you can do the same thing for the Info panel or
any one of these other panels.
In other cases, the panel may not be necessary so maybe you’re working with the brushes
panel, you make your Adjustments, you create a New Layer.
And if you’re painting, the panel may get on the way so you can change the settings
to Collapse On.
So you can make your changes to your brush, when you start painting the panel disappears.
If you need it again, you can open it up, make your adjustments, when you start painting,
it disappears.
So this is just a quick technique that you can use to create Actions to save you a few
minutes or a few seconds but they can add up to a lot of time in the long run.
Do you have any time saving Actions of your own?
Let me know on the comments below.
And finally, we’re going to talk about the Efficiency Indicator.
There’s a little known indicator that tells you about the efficiency of Photoshop.
If you click on this right pointing arrow and select Efficiency, you’re going to see
the word “efficiency” with a number.
If the number is under 100% that means that you are using the Scratch disk or the Harddrive
for more memory and Photoshop slows down.
In most situations, this means that you probably need more RAM in your computer.
But there’s a couple of things that you can do without adding any more RAM to your
actual computer that can help the performance.
Number one, make sure that you’re not running any other programs.
Close all your other applications.
You can even try allocating more RAM to Photoshop.
You can do so by pressing Ctrl K / Command K on the Mac, under Performance, there’s
this Memory Usage section, this is how much Memory or how much RAM Photoshop is using.
In my case, I’m using 41,642 Megabytes which is roughly 41 Gigabytes.
So I can click and drag this over to the right to allocate more Memory into Photoshop.
Usually, you don’t want to go up to 100%.
In most cases, the highest you want to go is around 85% but if that still doesn’t
get your Efficiency up to 100 then you will need more RAM in your computer.
Let me know what you think about these three techniques.
Are you going to use any of them?
Do you have any more of your own?
Let me know in the comments down below.
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