With the Zoom tool selected, checking Zoom All Windows (in the Options bar) will zoom all open documents at one time. If you don’t want the option on constantly, simple use the Shift key to temporarily toggle on/off the Zoom all Windows feature while zooming.
A new, quick way to move to another part of the image is with the new Birds-Eye View – select any tool, hold down the “H” key (to temporarily select the Hand tool) to “crash”-zoom in on an area. Reposition the rectangle to zoom in to another area, and release the Hand tool to zoom in on that area. In PSCS4, if you zoom in above 600%, a new Pixel Grid is displayed on top of the image (toggle Pixel View under View > Show Pixel Grid).
Photoshop CS4 can display images much faster depending on the system’s hardware-accelerated display and Open GL capabilities. In addition, the on-screen jaggies that you use to see at uneven zoom levels like 33.3% are now rendered smooth. Hooking into the Open GL capabilities also allows PSCS4 users to select the Zoom tool and click and hold in the image the to zoom in continuously. Add the Option to zoom out. Sweet!
PS CS4 supports ”Flick Panning”. While using the Hand tool to move left, right, up or down in an image (click, drag and hold for legacy behavior). Flick Panning does require Open GL and can be toggled off in the Preferences / General. While in the Preferences be sure to try Zoomed Click Point to Center which centers the location of the cursor click point to the center of the screen. And don’t forget, Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) + spacebar will temporarily give you the Zoom Out tool while another tool is selected while Command (Mac) / Control (Win) + spacebar will temporarily give you the Zoom In tool while another tool is selected.
Learn how the new GPU Acceleration in Photoshop CS4 greatly enhances your productivity as Julieanne Kost talks about this great new time saving feature in this video tutorial (GPU Acceleration in Photoshop CS4).
In Photoshop CS4 we’ve added the shortcut Cmd (Mac) / Ctrl (Win) + 1 to set the zoom level to 100% (also known as Actual Pixels). This brings PSCS4 into alignment with other Creative Suite Applications such as Illustrator, InDesign, and Flash. If the shortcut doesn’t feel right, you can customize it to your liking using the Keyboard shortcut editor (Edit/Keyboard Shortcuts). Or, you can double click on the Zoom tool to display the image at 100%. In addition, the old standby’s will still work – Command (Mac) / Control (Win) “+” (plus) will zoom in, Command (Mac) / Control (Win) “-” (minus) will zoom out.
The forward slash key (/) toggles on and off the Shield (the shading of the area outside of the crop) while using the Crop tool.
To use the dimensions of one image to crop another, select the document with the desired crop (width, height, and resolution) and click the “Front Image” button in the Options bar (this will enter the height, width and resolution for the document). Then, switch to the document that needs to be cropped and use the Crop tool to make your selection. The aspect ratio will be constrained while dragging the crop and, when applied, the image will be resized to the desired width, height and resolution.
While using the Crop tool, tapping the return/enter key will automatically highlight the Width in the Options bar and allow you to enter an amount. Tab to move to the Height and Resolution fields.
To use the Crop tool to add canvas to your image, drag out a crop and release the mouse. Then, drag the crop handles outside of the image area and apply the crop. The area outside of the image will be added to the canvas. Note: to add transparency around the image (instead of filling the added space with the background color) convert the Background into a layer by selecting Layer > New > Layer From Background (or by double clicking on the word Background in the Layers panel).
In this video tutorial (What’s New in Bridge CS4), Julieanne Kost shows you how easy it is to trim valuable time off of your workflow with the new advancements in Adobe Bridge CS4.
To cancel a crop, tap the escape key. To apply the crop, tap the enter key, double click inside of the crop bounding box, or choose another tool from the tool bar (this last method requires an additional dialog box in order to tell Photoshop to crop or not).
In Photoshop CS4, we’ve changed the way that you close Panels – right mouse click (Ctrl-click on Mac with a single-button mouse) on the tab and select Close or Close Tab Group. If you pull a panel out of it’s tabbed group and float it freely, then a close button (x) appear – simply click to close.
If you tap the Tab key (to hide the panels), they will be automatically revealed when positioning the cursor at the edge of the monitor (similar to a roll-over effect). To toggle off this feature, choose Preferences / Interface / Auto-Show Hidden Panels.
To free up more screen real estate in Photoshop CS3, we introduced collapsible “iconic” panels. However, they remained open after clicking on them. Now, in Photoshop CS4, you can choose to collapse the panels automatically by right clicking on the panel tab, or by selecting the Preferences > Interface > Auto-Collapse Iconic Panels. Basically, you show the panel (by clicking on the icon), pick you options, and when you click anywhere outside of the panel, it will automatically collapse.
And one last tip: the Tool bar can be relocated and even “docked” to the panels on the right side of the screen. Click-drag the grabber handle at the top of the the tools, and when you see the solid blue line next to your panels on the right, release the cursor to “dock” the panel. Or, if you prefer, you can move any of the panels to the left side and dock then with the tool box. You can also relocate the Options bar for example you may want it at the bottom of the monitor or on a secondary monitor.
If you’re upgrading for PS CS3, you will notice that we are now back to only 3 screen modes. Toggle between them using the Application Bar or by taping the F key. Add the Shift key to reverse direction. In PSCS4, when you enter full screen mode, your panels are automatically hidden so that you don’t have to remember to tap the tab key if you want to present your image on a black screen.
To change the background color in any of the Standard and Full screen modes (the area displayed around your image) and/or to turn off any drop shadow or stroked borders around you image, select Preferences / Interface and customize Color, Line and Drop Shadow. FYI – the old “secret shortcut” to change the color in the Full Screen modes still works – select your desired color as the foreground swatch and Shift-click in the background area with the Paint Bucket.
The Arrange Documents feature (in the Application Bar) is a fast and flexible way to display multiple documents at once. The first row of icons will “Consolidate All” open documents in Tabs and “Tile all Images in Grid” or “Tile All Images Horizontally or Vertically”. The second set of icons become available as multiple images are opened to provide a variety of layouts (from 1-6 images). In addition, instead of having to go to the Window / Arrange menu to search for display options, you can use the Arrange Document icon to choose to Float all Windows, Create a New Window (not a new file, but a secondary view of a single file), zoom to Actual Pixels and Fit on Screen and choose to Match Zoom, Mach Location and Match Zoom and Location. Note: when working with multiple images, use the Zoom All Windows or Scroll All Windows (in the Options bar) to zoom and pan all images in tandem (holding the Shift key temporarily toggles these options).
So great, we have all of these options for navigating multiple documents. However as I started working, I found that I primarily needed to toggle between seeing one image and seeing all images (tiled in my workspace). To eliminate wasting valuable time looking through menus or trying to find icons, I made my own Keyboard shortcuts! I choose Window / Workspace / Keyboard Shortcut & Menus. Under the “Shortcuts for Application Menus” I selected Window and found “Tile” and “Consolidate to Tabs” I added my own shortcuts that made sense to me (Shift + Command + T for Tabs and Shift + Command + R for Consolidate to Tabs – or, in my mind, “Return to primary image”).
