Photoshop cafe Newsletter

There have been several things going on at photoshopCAFE this month. I had a great time speaking to a full house at the San Diego County fair. Last week I was in Los Angeles at the LA Adobe users group, we had a great time and I love presenting in these groups when time allows, it's always good to mix with people who are passionate about Photoshop and all the things that you can do with it. Tomorrow I head to Malibu to train 350 High School yearbook staff from 30 schools, this should be a fun time, teenagers always have tons of energy.

My Flash book is finally finished an on the press right now. It will be available in the next couple of weeks. This is good news for 2 reasons. First, you can get your hands on this book soon (I have had tons of requests for a book on Flash, there will also be a DVD series). The second reason is that I will have a bit more time to work on the site and put up some new tutorials and updates.

Constrain me.
When you are using the marquee tools, shape tools and resizing objects, its always a bear to keep things in proportion. Make a habit of holding down the shift key while dragging and you will have perfect circles and squares, custom shapes will look how they should and resized objects will keep their proportions intact.

I know how much you love these Videos by the emails I receive almost everyday! Here is a letter I received from someone who ordered the entire collection:

"I'm already viewing the first video "Photoshop
and Dreamweaver integration" and have learnt more in 15 minutes than I have by pouring over books for the last three months, there is nothing like seeing it being done firsthand to learn quickly. Thank you again from a very happy customer!" Derek

CDs and DVD's, get them here

Save an addition 10% off Disks and Downloads for the month of August. Use CODE: PSNL8

Photoshop CAFE is the top story in the latest issue of Photoshop Creative magazine. They praise the layout of the site as well as the quality and affordable DVD's. see it here

Is it possible to get quality Royalty free stock photos for $3? Sure is, check out istockphoto - They also have Flash movies and Illustrator files.

Al Ward from Action FX has contributed a tutorial on creating stunning reflective, liquid type. Check it out here . Al is the official Actions guru for NAPP, author of a number of books including Photoshop for Right Brainers and he has tons of actions at his site ActionFX.com

Line em up
While moving things around the page, if you hold down the shift key, the objects will slide along an invisible line, thus keeping all the baselines aligned with their original positions. This is super useful while playing around with layouts with multiple layers

We have a new ad in Photoshop User Magazine. Keeps your eyes peeled for PhotoshopCAFE. We have just bought a years worth of full-page ads, so check them out each month. See it here

Softly does it
You may or may not know that you can adjust the size of your brushes by pressing the left or right bracket keys on your keyboard [ ]. (Secrets out now if you didn’t know.) By adding the shift key into the mix, you can now adjust the softness of you brushes by holding down Shift [ or ]. You will see the brush preview on the options bar change to reflect the current softness.

Check out my latest book. This one will teach Digital Photographers how to turn any photo into a masterpiece. Fix common problems with exposure, blur, noise, redeye etc. Take a common photo and enhance it, retouch, create borders, create actions to save time, make a web gallery, contact sheets and more. Learn the digital workflow of the pros in a beautiful full color book that's easy to understand and has tons of pictures to illustrate the text. Includes a CD Rom with all project files.

Straight talk from Dialog boxes
Have you ever played the beanbag game with dialog boxes? For example the Motion blur dialog box, you try to spin the angle until it is exactly 45 deg or 0 deg and it always ends up on 44 or 47, kind of reminds you of trying to put exactly $5 worth of gas into your car. Stop the madness! Hold down shift and the angles will be constrained to 15 deg increments.

Thanks for tuning into the CAFE Cup and remember: Create don't Steal! See you at the cafe