Julieanne Kost's Blog

Clicking on the Full Screen Mode icon (to the right of the Preview option) will display Camera Raw in Full Screen Mode. Better yet, pressing “F” will also toggle Normal / Full Screen Modes in Camera Raw!

“P” toggles the Preview on/off (to quickly compare before and after). However, it only toggles on and off the preview for the active panel (Basic, Tone Curve etc). In order to toggle all changes made in all panels, select the Presets or Snapshot’s panel and tap “P”.

“V” toggles Hide/Show Adjustment Brush pins and/or the tool Overlay for Graduated Filter, Spot Removal and Red Eye Removal tools.

Although I prefer the interactively and simplicity of the Adjustments panel in PSCS4, sometimes I add adjustment layers the “old fashion way” – by Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) -clicking the Adjustment Layer icon on the Layers panel. This method displays the New Layer dialog box which allows for a variety of options including naming layers, color coding of layers and the selection of “blend modes” and opacity.

To make a document the same size as another open document, while in the Image Size or Canvas Size dialog box, select the other open document from the bottom of the Window menu (PS will automatically fill in the values).

When working with the Adjustments panel, holding the backslash key, displays a temporary preview of the unadjusted state of a document.  (It’s like unchecking the Preview check box temporarily – so you have to have made a change to the adjustment for this to work.)  Because of the need to distinguish a tap from a hold, there’s a slight delay before the results of the hold behavior become visible.

To hide the text (or any image information on a layer) but keep the layer style effects visible (a drop shadow for example), decrease the Fill amount on the Layers panel. Note: decreasing the Opacity amount will decrease the layer information as well as any Layer Styles applied.

In this video tutorial  (Top 10 Little-Known Features in Photoshop CS4), Julienne Kost covers the top 10 little-known features in Photoshop CS4 that can make a huge difference in the way you work.

While you can’t change the default style settings that appear in the Layer Styles dialog (although I have to mention how happy I am to see that the default Stroke color is black in PSCS4!), you can set them up the way you prefer, and then save them via the New Style button (on the right of the New Style dialog). You can see these styles in the Layer Style dialog (click the word “Style” in the upper left), and they are easily accessible at all times via the Styles panel.

To change the default Angle and Altitude for the Global Light feature (which several of the styles use), close all documents, then select Layer > Layer Style > Global Light and make your desired changes. These new setting will become your new defaults.

When working with complex layers with multiple layer styles applied, select Layer > Layer Styles > Hide All Effects to speed up performance. This option is also available via Control Mac) / right mouse (Win) -click the “fx” icon on the layer with the style (in the Layers panel).

There are several ways to copy and paste Layer Styles from one layer to another, but my favorite is to copy and paste via the context sensitive menu. Control (Mac) / right mouse (Win) -click the “fx” icon on the layer with the style (in the Layers panel) and select Copy Layer Style from the context sensitive menu. Then, select the layer(s) that need the layer style applied (in the Layers panel) and control (Mac) / right mouse (Win) -click in the layer (to the right of the name area will work just fine) and select Paste Layer Style. Control (Mac) / right mouse (Win) -click the “fx” icon to use the context sensitive menu to delete a layer style (select Clear Layer Style).

To move an effect (Layer Style) to another layer, drag the “fx” icon from one layer to another. Or, click the disclosure icon to reveal the individual effects and drag a single effect (by clicking on the name of the effect) or the entire effect (by dragging the word “Effects”).
To copy an effect (Layer Style) to another layer, Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) -drag the “fx” icon from one layer to another. Or, click the disclosure icon to reveal the effects and drag a single effect (by clicking on the name of the effect) or the entire effect (by dragging the word “Effects”).

When layer styles are applied to a layer, the “effects” icon (fx) appears “collapsed” saving room in the Layers panel. To reveal the individual effects, click on the disclosure triangle next to the “fx” icon. To choose to expand/collapse Layer Styles as they’re added, from the Layers panel flyout menu, select Panel Options and choose to/not to Expand New Effects.

When using the Graduated filter Shift -dragging constrains the Graduated Filter to 15 degree angles. When finished refining the controls for one graduated Filter, tapping “N” commits the current Graduated Filter adjustment and targets the New option (as oppose to Editing the current adjustment). The “N” key also works with the Adjustment Brush.