Indiana University: IT Training Tips Blog

If you have attended IT Training workshops in Photoshop and still want to learn more, sign up for our monthly webinars, entitled “Photoshop CS6 Extras.” These sessions are free to anyone–and the best news is, we will be posting recordings of them here.

Here is what we have so far:

Disappearing act   2/1/2013: Learn to extract one person from a group of people and make the absence look seamless. Learn how to add a new background to the image of the extracted person.

Change that foreground/background 2/22/2013: Learn four new ways to change a background–even around fine, blowing hair– and learn two new ways to add and modify a foreground item so it blends in perfectly. With Layer Comps, you can experiment with many versions of an edited image.

Create a 2001-style HAL computer – 3/22/2013: Create the whole thing: red eye and shiny surface.

Have you ever tried to set a single Ruler Guide across a two-page spread in InDesign– and been frustrated in the effort?  A Ruler Guide that extends across a spread is called a Spread Guide. To create one, set the view so you can see the Pasteboard and then drag the guide out across the pasteboard instead of across the printable area. Viola–it extends all the way across the spread. If you are zoomed in, hold the Ctrl key while you drag.

To place a copy of a Ruler Guide or Spread Guide on other pages, point to the guide and right-click when you see the cursor change. In the right-click menu, choose Copy. On following pages, from the Menu bar, choose Edit, and Paste in Place.

Remember also that you can only see Ruler and Spread Guides in Normal view.

Are there tasks you find yourself doing again and again in Photoshop? To spare yourself some time and exasperation, you can create a Photoshop Droplet. The Droplet is a little application consisting of a set of Photoshop tasks that  you create and which sits on your desktop. You run the application by dragging a file on top of the Droplet icon.

Here’s how to create a Photoshop Droplet:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-create-droplets-in-photoshop-cs6.html

For more complex chores, you can also create Photoshop Actions and run them on batches of files.

First, create an Action:

http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/post-processing-articles/100-free-photoshop-actions-and-how-to-make-your-own/ (This set of instructions includes some free predefined actions for optional download)

Then, run your action on a batch of files:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-batch-process-actions-in-photoshop-cs6.html

A contact sheet is a grid of thumbnail images that may be used for a lot of things: yearbooks, calendars–anything in which you would like to post a thematic group of pictures. Adobe offers this automated function in some of its Creative Suite applications and in Lightroom.

In InDesign, creating a contact sheet is an easy process.

1. From the Menu bar, choose File, then Place.
2. Select multiple images by Ctrl-clicking or Shift-clicking. If you want to include captions with your images, check Create Static Captions.
   
3. Click Open.
4. On the InDesign page, start dragging. You will see a grid forming as you drag.
   - Press the arrow keys to set the number of rows and columns you want.
   - To change the spacing between frames, press Page Up or Page Down or hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) while pressing the arrow keys.
   You will see a preview result of your keypresses onscreen as you work.
5. Release the mouse button to place the grid of images.
6. At this point, you can replace captions and resize at will.

If you are ready to break out of the PowerPoint mold and infuse rich design features with multimedia into your slide shows, create an interactive InDesign document for your next presentation. Adobe InDesign offers Presentation mode with buttons, transitions, and all interactive bells and whistles.

You can watch how to to do it here:

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-and-your-voice/creating-your-personal-brand-episode-creating-a-slide-presentation/

And you can check out all the features with written step-by-step how-to’s here:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/indesign/cs/using/WS328f5ee33f08f77d1e63e3d120f2667a4c-7ffe.html

An Ad Hoc Video Conference at IU is a videoconference connection you establish on the fly with a central multimedia server. You identify your conference code using four numbers of your own choice and then adding “22″ to the beginning, and distributing that information to people whom you want to join.

Users can join your conference in three ways: using point-to-point videoconference equipment (such as that found in conference rooms); using UniCom with an optional web cam; and by calling in via telephone. All methods may be used simultaneously in a conference.

For instructions and more information, see:

http://kb.iu.edu/data/ause.html

There are myriad ways to remove red eye from a photograph.

First, see how to use the Red Eye tool in Photoshop:
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-get-rid-of-red-eye-in-photoshop-cs6.html

While this technique works, I tend to use methods other than the Red Eye tool because a) it can result in overkill, and b) the tool actually changes existing pixels– and I almost always use nondestructive editing in Photoshop. On the rare occasions that I use the Red Eye tool, I first select the pupils and copy them to a new layer before using the tool.

If this tool is unsatisfactory–as in the case of animals–here are some other ways to remove red eye:

• You can use the regular Brush tool with a Color blend mode. Make sure that the foreground/background colors are set to the default black/white. (To set default with a keyboard shortcut, press the D key.)

• To keep it nondestructive, I would advise a modified approach to the same Blend Mode process above: add a new layer and set its blend mode to Color, then use the brush in normal mode on the new layer. Again, foreground/background colors must be set to default.

• You can use the Color Replacement tool with a black foreground.  This tool is in the Brush tool family; press and hold Brush to activate it. Note that the higher Tolerance settings in the Options panel will result in stronger effects.

What about animals? The Photoshop Red Eye tool responds to only the color of reflections in human eyes–so that particular tool won’t work on animals. Following is a terrific article that includes animals plus a couple of other methods–including the Sponge tool, which is one of my favorites.

• Other ways to fix red eye: http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=988  .
  This article offers a terrific way to achieve luminous eyes, too!

Do you use keyboard shortcuts to activate tools in InDesign?

If so, you  know that just typing the letter that appears in parentheses when you hold the pointer over any tool (called the tool tip) works nicely — except if you are currently working with the Type tool. In that case, when you press any key you simply type the letter. This can be frustrating if you are trying to work quickly and efficiently.

To quickly switch to another tool when the type tool is active, press the Escape key and then type the letter of the tool you want to activate. If you want to switch to the Hand tool, press Alt with the h key.

 
Adobe Photoshop CS5 offers a new feature called Puppet Warp that allows you to slenderize, uplift, or transform anything in an image. By stretching, squeezing, and twirling pixels around anchor points, you can alter things in any way you can imagine. Here’s how:

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Did you know that with the Eyedropper tool in InDesign  you can pick up text specifications –including font face, size, tracking, color, and paragraph settings - and apply them to multiple text areas? It works much like the Format Painter  in Microsoft Word.

When applying the Eyedropper tool to text, you can either: a) highlight the text that has the appearance you want to copy and then apply the characteristics elsewhere, or b) select the text to which you want to apply new formatting, and then point to a piece of text that has the desired appearance. Each is done a little differently. Here’s how you do it:

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