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Top 10 Killer Adobe Photoshop Tips for Designers

By Lilian Chifley

Introduction

Ours is a visual world, and since the cave drawings to a selfie a young woman took five seconds ago, we keep pushing the boundaries of graphic depictions of the beauties and wonders of our world. Visual content is one of the most effective weapons in the world of marketing which is the reason why creative designers are wanted so much. In order to facilitate their work, graphic designers keep on looking for new ways to do things faster, easier, and more effective. The current article aims to help all aspiring designers in finding useful tips and tricks that will make their lives a whole lot easier.

Keyboard shortcuts

Time plays an important role for designers. Deadlines arrive faster than we would like so why not do anything that’s in our power to save as much as we can? Working with layers can be particularly time-consuming, so it’s a smart idea to learn as many Photoshop keyboard shortcuts to increase your productivity. The official software website holds a detailed list of every default keyboard shortcut you can use, along with the complete instructions and descriptions of their functions.

Use layers only when it’s really necessary

Arguably the most useful feature that Photoshop has in its pocket is the layers feature. It allows manipulation without the risk of ruining the rest of your work. However, it seems more likely that people have become accustomed to placing layers all the time, not only because they are insecure but rather because they now believe it is the way things are supposed to be done. This type of inherited behavior reminds me of a story about lab monkeys a friend of mine that works as an editor at a dissertation service UK once told me. The moral of the story is that we shouldn't do things simply because everyone else does them. Therefore, use layers only when necessary and you'll have fewer aspects of work to worry about, fewer clicks, and more time to handle other parts of your project.

Use grids

Position and size of different objects in a picture is of paramount importance for the overall appearance of your work. Using grids can help you manage the proportions of separate objects so they would seem more realistic in the end. It’s like a colleague of mine from top essay writing services used to say “Guidelines are a safety net that keeps us away from crashing when we stray”

Use snap

Sometimes every pixel of the photo is important and missing by only a bit can lead to a frustrating number of clicks on the Undo button. Using the Snap feature along with Grid can make your life so much easier. Just go to View-Snap to-Grid and you'll see how easy it is to manipulate objects without squinting and sniping for every pixel.

Organize layers

It’s not a mystery that loads of graphics get returned for additional work. When the project is complex and holds more layers than we could count, it’s important to have a way of accessing each layer without wasting too much time. The best way to organize your work is by organizing layers, saving them and naming them during the work process. This way, whenever we have to go back to a certain layer, we’ll have no problem finding exactly the one we need.

Keep it smart

Resizing logos and buttons that we import into software can sometimes be an issue, especially if we don’t think about resizing before the import. The reason for this is because the object gets rasterized which makes the resizing a problem. Therefore, it’s always a good idea to import buttons and logos as smart objects which would allow you to resize them later in the process.

Sharpen with high pass

When a client sends an image that's too blurry or the resolution is too low to use, there's only one thing you can do to try and fix it – sharpen the image. However, sharpening can do more harm than good in these types of situations, but there's a trick! Duplicate the layer, go to filter-others-high pass and choose Overlay blending mode. The image can appear too crispy and you can fix that by twitching the opacity of the Overlay.

Go deeper into the past

It can be a bit frustrating when you’re trying to undo a mistake you made thirty steps ago but you can’t reach that moment because of the limited number of steps in the History Panel. If you go to Preferences-Performance you can change the number of History states and increase it so you can always have enough steps back at your disposal.

Personal space

To unleash the full potential of your creativity it’s important to feel comfortable while working. The best way to make the most of your workspace is to personalize it so it would appear just the way you need it. Remove unneeded tools, add those that you use more often, customize colors, make your workspace work for you. As a writer, I worked with various agencies like mymathdone.com, australian assignment help, ultius review and many others and the one thing that was consistent was my working environment.

Avoid default

Powerful and intuitive as it is, Photoshop has one flaw, sort of saying. The default settings for many features and tools are just too crude to be used. When you’re manipulating your image, play around with settings, find the optimal level of blur, noise, or any other aspect of Photoshop instead of going with the default.

Conclusion

Your best weapon, as a designer, is your own creative mind. However, it’s useful to pick up a few tricks here and there in order to enhance your technique. We hope these tips will serve you well and help you scale your skillset and increase your volume of clients.