Have you ever plucked an image from the web and tried to edit it in Photoshop only to find annoying problems? It’s probably a .gif in Indexed color mode. For this quick example I’m using the MediaTemple ad in my sidebar, which happes to be an indexed .gif.

When trying to edit an indexed color image in Photoshop, certain adjustments are disabled, as you can see below.

The quickest way to tell what you’re dealing with is to glance at the Layers palette. You’ll see right away if it’s an indexed color image.

All you need to do in order to edit your image is simply change the color mode to RGB, and all of the annoying disabled features return.

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Not to long ago, Adobe released a free app for the iPhone called Photoshop.com Mobile. It’s obviously and image editor, but it’s usefulness comes from tying directly into your Photoshop.com account. The app is limited to some basic editing features, but I must say, it’s quite nice for a first try.

You can choose a photo or take a photo to start editing.

The app has some simple, but nice features including color effects, crop, rotate, image effects, sketch and more. When your done, you can save or upload directly to your free Photoshop.com account for easy retrieval from any internet connected computer. Furthermore, users can connect to their Photoshop.com account and have access to their entire Photoshop.com library directly from the iPhone.

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If you have multiple computers, and you use both of them quite frequently (like myself), then you understand that syncing 2 computers is a never-ending battle. Syncing files is hard enough, but I want to share a workflow tip with everyone that will make your lives easier when switching back-and-forth between machines. I want to show you how to sync all your Photoshop Presets (Brushes, Actions, etc.) on multiple computers. This will speed up your design workflow, and increase productivity. For example, you download and install a new set of brushes in Photoshop on your laptop, then you get home, and the new brushes have already been downloaded and installed on your desktop. (Note: you can do this for Illustrator, InDesign, etc. I’m just using PS as an example.)

1. First, you need some kind of “Syncing” service.

I use MobileMe, but there are plenty of options out there for PC users to sync fies between computers. Once you have that, upload your ~Applications/Adobe Photoshop CSX/Presets folder to your file syning service.

2. Create an Alias to Your Presets

I believe, for PC users, the correct term is “Shortcut,” so simply create an Alias or Shortcut to your newly uploaded “Presets” folder.

3. Replace your “Presets” folder/s with the Alias

On both of your machines, either move or delete the existing ~Applications/Adobe Photoshop CSX/Presets folders and replace them with the alias, or shortcut you created.

4. Done!

Now, all you have to do is wait for everything to sync, and your all set. Now that you’ve set this up, if you make changes to your Presets (add or delete Brushes, create new actions, etc.) the changes will be identical on both your machines. No more leaving a Photoshop brush set on a home computer and no more downloading everything twice :) (just to give a couple examples)

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Here’s round 2 of the Ask BB series. Some of these questions came in via email, and others via twitter (@bittbox), so If you have a question, let me know. When I get enough questions that I can answer, you might see your question here next time around :) Thanks to everyone for sending in your questions. Let’s get started.

1) Amy asks:

How do you save a pattern in Illy, so that you can use again and again in different Illy files? I know how to save a pattern for use in the file I created it in, but I’m looking to be able to pull up a palette of my created patterns in files other than the one the original pattern was created in.

Answer:

In your swatches palette, go to “Save Swatch Library as AI…”

Name your new library, and make sure to save it in your Illustrator CSX > Presets > Swatches folder.

Now, no matter what document you have open, you can load your custom (in this case pattern) swatches by going to Open Swatch Library, and choosing your file from the list.

2) dbslone asks:

How to create a dotted line along a path in either Illy or PS?

Answer:

I already have a tutorial on how to do this is Photoshop, so I’ll show you an easy way to do it in Illustrator.

There is more than one way to do this, but I like to use a pattern brush. First, draw a circle on the artboard, and from the Brushes palette, select “New Brush.”

Select “New Pattern Brush” and hit OK.

You can always come back and change these settings later by double clicking on the brush from the Brushes palette, but for now the only 2 settings you need to worry about are spacing and colorization method. Set the spacing to 50% and the colorization method to “Tints.” (Tins is so you can change the color of the brush later if you need to.) Then click OK.

Now you can apply your new pattern brush to any path and get a nice dotted line. (You may need to adjust your stroke size, depending on how big of a dot you drew) Then you can go back in and adjust the spacing as needed.

3) Kaje asks:

I read your tip about pixelated brushes, but was wondering if there was a quick fix for pixelated fonts? Sometimes I will type in some text and the font, no matter what it is looks pixelated, so I have to go to the drop down and select “reset character”. Am I doing something wrong? It is quite annoying to have to reset each time this happens.

Answer:

I’m not 100% sure if this is your exact problem, but I’m quessing that your antialiasing setting is set to “None.”

To fix this, simply change your antialiasing setting in the Character palette to “Sharp” or “Crisp.” Then save your workspace by going to Window > Workspaces > Save Workspace. This way Photoshop will remember that you changed the setting and you won’t have to change it manually every time.

Your type should now be nice and sharp.

4) malarts asks:

I’ve had a unique Illustrator problem lately…every now and then the “Send To Back” command stops working, under the Object >Arrange menu… Any idea as to why?

Answer:

Actually I have 2 ideas. Maybe one of them can help…

A) The “Send to Back” command only sends an object to the back of whatever layer it’s on. So if you send an object to the back and it’s not on the bottom layer, you’re still gonna have stuff underneath it.

B) An object that’s inside a “Group” only goes to the back of the group.

1) iheartrendering asks:

What is the “make it awesome” keyboard shortcut? I found it once, and it rocked my world. But now it seems to hide from me.

Answer:

Hmmm… not sure about that one one, but have you tried “Make My Logo Bigger Cream?” If you hurry, they’ll throw in some “Whitespace Eliminator” for free.

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This is a quick Photoshop tip for the layers palette for rasterizing shape layers combining layer effects at the same time.

Rasterize Shape Layer + Layer Effects in Photoshop from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

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This question has come in through various channels recently, so I thought I’d do a write up on a quick fix. If you’ve ever wondered why your brushes look “pixelated,” there’s a perfectly good explanation. Photoshop isn’t broken, you aren’t missing a setting, and you probably got here because you like keyboard shortcuts.

You probably think you’re crazy because you hit “B,” the keyboard shortcut for the Brush tool, and all your brushes still look like crap. This is probably because your not actually selecting the brush tool. The keyboard shortcut for the Pencil tool is also, you guessed it, “B.” When the pencil tool is selected, all the brushes will appear pixelated. Take a look at your tools and make sure you actually have the Brush tool selected. Hold down on the Pencil tool to select the Brush tool.

That’s it! You were just a victim of your own productivity (Evil Twin Keyboard Shortcuts). You can always change the keyboard shortcut for the Pencil tool to prevent future attacks :)

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This is my first Question/Answer post here at BittBox, and I plan on doing this more often. All of these questions came in from twitter, so if you have a Photoshop or Illy question you need answered, you can leave a comment here, or send me a tweet. I’ll save all the questions that come in and try to answer as many as I can. To kick things off I have some answers below, just remember, I can’t answer every single question that comes in because of 2 fundamental reasons: 1) I may not know the answer, or 2) I may not understand what you were asking. Ok, lets try to de-mystify Illy and PS a little, shall we? Thanks for everyone who send in the tweets :)

1) SuperLame Asks:

Any good plugins for AI to make choosing fonts more visual, like flash?

Answer:

As far as plugins go, I haven’t been able to find one that does what you want, however, there is one Illustartor quirk to ba aware of. If you choose your fonts from the top toolbar you’ll get a plain list of fonts. But if you choose fonts from the Character palette itself, you get a small visual preview, similar to the way Flash works. And if you have an extra $100, this software might be what you need.

VS.

2) deluzione asks:

How do I convert and illy doc from 72dpi to 300?

Answer:

Good question. This is one of those settings that you would think you should be able to find under “Document Setup,” since it’s a setting you choose every time you create a “new” document. However, our friends at Adobe thought it should be in a different place. You’ll find the “Document Raster Effects Settings” under the “Effects” menu.

Just change your setting to 300dpi, and click OK.

3) GrandmasterB asks:

I’ve tried to use Object > Expand… to make a uniform space around text after creating outline, but it doesn’t seem to work…why?

Answer:

Your on the right track, but that’s not what “Expand” was meant for. The command your looking for is “Offset Path.” We can achieve the results you want in 3 easy steps:

1. Type > Create Outlines.

2. Go to Object > Path > Offset Path.

3. Check the preview box and enter a value for the amount you want to offset. (use a negative number to offset inside instead of outside).

4) katzw asks:

What is the correct way to save custom brushes so that others can download and use them? EPS files don’t seem to work. Thanks :)

Answer:

I assume you mean Illustrator brushes, so I’ll try and answer this as best I can. When you save Illustrator brushes, illustrator outputs an .AI file. It’s not a normal AI file, but a “Brush Library.” All you have to do is place that AI file into …Illustrator CSX > Presets > Brushes, and you’ll be able to load the brushes via the Brushes Palette.

Hope that helps, guys:) Remember, you can send me questions via twitter whenever you want. The more questions, the better!

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Last month I published a set of Photoshop brushes called “Destroyed Heraldry” and there were a lot of requests for me to explain how I made them. So here it is, the destroyed heraldry tutorial. It is actually a lot simpler than you might think. It shouldn’t take long, so lets get started…

1. Start with some ink.

Start out by scanning a messy ink splotch (or find one around the web) and open it in Photoshop.

2. Levels

Hit Command/Control + L, or go to Image > Adjustments > Levels, and move the right slider to the left until the whites are pure white. You can tell by looking at the info palette (F8) as you hover over the white areas. While you have the Levels palette open, when you move the mouse around it turns into the eyedropper tool and reads out the values in the info palette. Anyway, get the whites all the way to white and hit ok.

2. Heraldry

Find some heraldry or scan some in from a book, and do the same thing as above. Make sure the whites are pure white by using the Levels palette. If you don’t have a book to scan, you can also use a vector. Just open it in Photoshop and put it on a layer above the ink.

Select your heraldry and copy/paste or drag it to your document.

Put it on a layer above the ink.

Now, change the “Layer Mode” of your heraldry to Multiply. This makes all of the pure white pixels invisible, eliminating the need to clip anything out.

3. New Fill Layer

Add a new layer underneath your two current layers.

Fill it with white by going to Edit > Fill or Shift + F5. You can also hit Shift + Delete.

4. Layer Masks

Select your ink layer, and add a layer mask by clicking on the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the layers palette.

Do the same for the heraldry layer.

5. Start Masking

Ok, now what we are going to do is use the brush tool, and some grungy texture brushes to ‘mask’ parts of both the ink layer and the heraldry layer to make them look like they were blended together a little nore naturally.

You can download and install my grungy texture brushes, or use your own. Now select the brush tool and a grungy brush you wish to use.

Start with the ink layer. Select the “Layer Mask,” not the layer itself and make sure your foreground color is set to black. Go back and forth between the 2 layer masks and keep stamping out parts of the images with your grungy brush/s until you are happy with the results.

As you stamp out parts of both layers with the grungy brushes, you’ll notice the 2 images becoming a little more happily blended together in a nice grungy fashion :)

And Keep going until you’re happy with what you see. That’s it. That is the process I used to create my “Destroyed Heraldry” brushes. I hope you enjoyed the tutorial :)

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This one was hard to title, but it’s just a quick workflow tip to save you time. Instead of having to type in demensions and DPI every time you create a new document, you can use a series of keyboard shortcuts to force Photoshop to make a carbon copy of the current document settings. Have a watch :)

Creating New Documents Faster from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

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This is a very simple Photoshop tip about creating Arrow shapes super fast and easily. This isn’t the only way to do it, but could come in handy for bloggers and tutorial writers. Have a look and see what you think :)

Quick Arrows in Photoshop from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

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I have a time saver for you folks. I have a keyboard shortcut I’d like to share it with you. I could have done this with screenshots, but I’m playing around with video these days, so here it is, my first video tutorial. I hope is saves you some time :)

Hidden “Reset” Button in Photoshop Adjustment Palettes from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

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I guess this could also be categorized as a workflow tip, but it’s good to know, no matter what you want to call it. I’d like to take a second to show you about Photoshop’s (and Illustrator’s) “Button Mode” in the actions palette. If you aren’t familiar with actions, they are customizable tasks that save you time and make you more productive by eliminating redundant tasks. I haven’t written an article on Actions themselves yet, but here is a nice one I found on the web.

Actions save you time, yes, but you might notice when you create them that Photoshop gives you the option to designate a keyboard shortcut to run the Action. While this is a good thing, I actually prefer to use “Button Mode” for all of my actions. I do this because of 2 reasons. 1) I have so many hot keys set up that I wste too much time trying to come up with keyboard shortcuts that aren’t set up for another task already, and 2) I don’t have to remember all the exotic hotkeys for actions that I constantly edit and/or delete.

With button mode, you can activate an action with a single click. Here’s how to enable button mode:

Click on the palette options in the upper right to enable Button Mode. It may be in a different place on the list for other versions of Photoshop. (CS3 shown here). Note – Illustrator also has button mode.

And now you have button mode. The only thing I don’t like about button mode is the fact that you have to disable it in order to edit, record, or change an action, but It save me lots of clicks in the long run.

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Many of you might remember my Free High-Res Grungy Paper Textures I gave away a while back. I had a lot of requests for a tutorial on how I actually made those textures, so I here we are. Fire up good ‘ol Photoshop, have a scanner handy, and let’s dive in, shall we :)

Step 1: Scan

Get a natural-brown-colored piece of paper (or brown paper bag), give it a good crinkle, then flatten it back out and scan it in. After you scan, take your image into Photoshop, where we’ll be the rest of the tutorial. After you get your image into Photoshop, you should have something similar to below.

If you don’t have a scanner click here to download the image I’m using from Flickr if you’d still like to follow along.

Step 2: Add Texture

First, we’re going to add a little texture to the paper itself. With your image layer selected, go to Filter > Texture > Texturizer.

Select “Canvas” from the drop down menu, set the scale to around 100, and the depth between 2 and 4, then Click OK.

You should now see something like below: (full size close-up)

Now we have a canvas-like texture, but it only goes in one direction. I like to get the grain going both horizontally as well as vertical, so go to Image > Rotate Canvas > 90° CW to rotate your image.

Now that your image is on it’s side, we’re going to apply the texture again, this will give us the grain going in both directions. So go back to Filter > Texture > Texturizer, and apply the same filter again, or just key Command + F (Control + F, PC) to repeat the filter.

Now that we have our texture in both directions, let’s rotate our canvas back so it’s vertical again Image > Rotate Canvas > 90° CCW. (Or you can leave it horizontal if you need to, doesn’t matter.)

Step 3: New Layer

Now it’s time to start grunging it up. Make a new layer on top of your paper texture, and fill (Edit > Fill) it with a color: (hex) #451300. Here’s an image you can download if you’d like to just use the eyedropper tool:

After you fill your layer, take it’s opacity to around 70%

You should be able to see your paper texture peeking through.

Now change the layer mode to “Soft Light.”

When you change the layer mode, it will lighten up quite a bit, but will be noticeably darker than the original texture below:

Step 4: Erase

We’re going to use a high resolution brush to ‘erase’ parts of our new layer and leave the corners a little grungy. For this, I like to use my Hi Res Splatter Brushes.

After you get these brushes installed, select the Eraser tool, then select one of the brushes in the High Res Splatter set as your tip shape.

In the Photoshop Toolbar (top left), set the Opacity of your Eraser to 70%, and the Flow to 60%

Now, with the splatter brush tip eraser, start chipping away (erasing) at your top layer, leaving the corners looking ’stained’ or dirty. Concentrate on the middle section while erasing. (more advanced users should erase the layer mask for a non-destructive way to get the same results)

And you should end up with something like this:

Step 5: Repeat

That’s a start, but we need it to get quite a bit grungier before we call it quits. Make a new Layer (on top) and fill it with the color below. (hex) #371C11. Set the layer opacity to 90%, and the layer mode to Multiply.

After you do all this, repeat the last part of Step 4. Use the eraser, and a High Res Splatter brush tip to erase until you get something like this:

Step 6: Repeat Again

That’s a step closer, but we’re not done yet. Make another new Layer (on top) and fill it with the blue color below. (hex) #0078A4. Set the layer opacity to 65%, and the layer mode to Soft Light.

The only thing we’re going to do different this time is change the Opacity and Flow of the Eraser tool to 30%

After you do all this, repeat the last part of Step 4. Use the eraser, and a High Res Splatter brush tip to erase until you get something like this: (You might notice how tha blue layer makes the other 2 layers quite a bit darker. It’s subtle, but noticeable)

Step 7: Add Some Details

If you want to add a little extra to your grungy paper, you can always spice things up with some cool Photoshop brushes. Download Botched Ornaments and SS-Handwriting brush sets and install/load them.

Create a new layer for your brushes, set the layer mode to Multiply, layer opacity to about 50%, and select one of the Botched Ornaments brushes. Set the foreground color to (Hex) #A43A00.

This part is really up to you but I just put a botched ornament in the bottom left corner, and the top right. Here’s a close-up:

Now lets add some old-fashioned handwriting, shall we. Make a new layer, set the layer mode to Multiply, layer opacity to about 48%, and set the foreground color to (Hex) #5E4316. Now Load the SS-Handwriting brushes and select a brush to use.

I just put a little handwriting in a couple different places. Here’s another close-up:

Done!

Here’s the final result folks. Click on the image to download it via Flickr if you’d like to add it to your stock folder :) I hope you enjoyed the tutorial.

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I want to share a very useful tip with all of you who have ever wanted to throw your computer across the room because of Photoshop for one reason or another. It’s inevitable, every once in a blue moon, software can just make your day a living hell for no obvious reason. It can be anything from the Layers palette won’t show up, to menu items grayed out when they shouldn’t be. I want to show you a quick way to put your problems behind you without having to re-install Photoshop.

Last week, I was Photoshopping and I noticed that (screenshot below) all of my brushes looked pixelated. not only did they looked pixelated in the Brushes palette, but even when I used the brushes, they even drew like the document was in bitmap mode, but of course it wasn’t. I tried everything under the sun to fix it, and I even called a few good designer friends of mine and they had never heard of such a thing. This is a recreation of what my brushes palette looked like:

When it should have looked like this:

And this is what the brush looked like when I used it:

When it should have looked like this:

After some discussion with colleagues, we decided that it wouldn’t hurt to try and delete the Photoshop Preferences file from my system and see if that works. Well I’m not exactly sure where to even find that file or if it’s a hidden file or not, so I did some searching. I came across a thread in the Adobe forums that was a godsend.

(*Works for Photoshop 6x and newer!) All you have to do to delete your settings and start fresh is 1) Close Photoshop, and 2) Hold Command + Option + Shift (Control + Alt + Shift, PC) while you restart Photoshop. This brings up a dialogue box where you can choose to delete your settings file, no need to search through your system folders to find it.

After I did this, my Brushes palette was back to normal. Who woulda thunk it! Now, this little shortcut may not fix every glitch you run into, but it’s a butload faster than re-installing, so It’s worth a shot if Photoshop is acting up on you :)

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I’m pretty sure this is new to CS3 (please chime in if you have CS2, because I don’t) but you can now open jpegs with Photoshop’s Camera Raw plug-in. Camera Raw is essentially what the name suggests, a RAW image processor, built into Photoshop. CS3 now allows us to open jpegs in this neat little editor. You might ask yourself: “Why would I need to use Camera Raw? Why not just edit the image in Photoshop itself?” Well, maybe you don’t want to use Camera Raw, but it’s nice to know you have the option. Especially if you take a lot of pictures in jpeg format (or your camera doesn’t shoot RAW) and you just want to tweak your images without having to apply tons of adjustment layers to get what you want.

Click on Images to enlarge

To enable Camera Raw for jpegs, open preferences (Command/Control + K) and navigate to the File Handling section. Check the box next to “Prefer Adobe Camera Raw for JPEG files.” Notice that it says “Prefer.” For reasons unknown to me, Camera Raw won’t open every jpeg you ask it to. Don’t ask me why.

Now that you have your image open in Camera Raw, tweak away with ease. It’s like all of Photoshop’s adjustment options morphed into a slider, and now reside in a sidebar so you can tweak on the fly. Give it a try, and poke around your options.

One of my favorite features of Camera Raw is the “Lens Vignetting.” Play with 2 sliders and get a vignette in seconds, instead of having to fill a layer with black and then start masking to reveal the image. ( vignetting is the darkening of the corners on an image. Typically gives the photo an ‘older’ feel. Wikipedia info on vignetting if your interested >>) Once you’re done adjusting your image, click “Open Image” and you’ll be back in Photoshop.

Like I said earlier, you may or may not want/need to use Camera Raw for jpegs, its just nice to know your options ;)

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If you haven’t heard of Mondrianum yet, it’s a neat little (shareware) plugin for Photoshop (Mac only) that adds Adobe’s Kuler color combinations to the Apple color picker. It doesn’t just work in Photoshop. After installing Mondrainum, it works system-wide with any Mac app that uses the Apple color picker, like iLife, iWork, etc. Granted, most Photoshoppers probably don’t prefer the Apple color picker over Adobe’s, but if you are ever in need of a little color inspiration with the help from Kuler, it can come in handy. I’ll show you how to get it working in Photoshop.

1. Download Mondrianum and install it. (copy the folder to Applications > Photoshop > Plugins)

2. In Photoshop, go to the Preferences > General. (Command + K)

The very first option in this pane is the color picker dropdown menu. Select “Apple” then close preferences. (click OK)

3. Double click on your foreground color to bring up the color picker, and you should now see the Apple color picker instead of the Adobe picker we’re all used to.

Click on the icon at the top on the far right to bring up the Mondrianum panel.

Now to use the panel you can simply click on the swatches at the bottom, or you can export an entire set of swatches to import to any Adobe app. To do this, click on the little arrow to the right of the color combo you like, and choose “Download as Adobe Swatch Exchange file.”

Now the export/download dialogue appears. Just click “Save File” and it will be saved in the same folder that your browser download files to.

To install, find your swatch file in your downloads folder, and move it to the adobe app you want to use it in > Presets > Swatches folder. Done! now you can load the swatches from the swatches panel in your Adobe app.

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There are tons of undocumented Photoshop shortcuts out there, lots of which can make our lives a lot easier if we only take advantage of them. I want to show you one that I use often. I would only assume that as designers, we would typically have our rulers turned on most of the time. (I’ve tested this as far back as CS1) To access your Photoshop preferences quickly, just double-click on a ruler! That’s it!

The preference pane will open in the “Units & Rulers” section, which makes sense:

For whatever reason, this does not work in Illustrator. Man, a little consistency would be nice . . .

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Have you ever had the creative juices flowing, your favorite music blaring, and selected your Photoshop brush, only to find that your cursor disappears and you can’t see the brush outline? Photoshoppers everywhere have endured this little annoyance for years. It’s really quite simple to avoid, but until you know why, it can be quite a thorn in your side.

So you have your brush selected and all you see is a cursor like the one in the screenshot above? All you need to do is deactivate the Caps Lock on your keyboard, and you should see your brush! What was happening is with Caps Lock on, you are enabling “Precise Cursors,” a feature that is also accessible from Preferences > Cursors.

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The day I discovered this little time saver, I rolled my eyes in shame thinking about how much of my life I’d wasted doing it the hard way. I want to share a neat little Photoshop productivity tip for faster folder creation in the Layers palette. The method varies between versions (because of shift select functionality added recently to the Adobe Suite) but I’ll show you how to do it in CS3 and CS1. I don’t have a copy of CS2, so hopefully the (you) readers can help us with that in the comments.

Keeping your Layers palette tidy can save you time. Lets make it a little easier (and quicker). Instead of Adding a new Folder and then dragging layers into it, there is a faster way to create a group. Like I said before, it differs between versions, so I’ll show you 2 different ways (CS3 & CS1).

Photoshop CS3:

In CS3, we are able to Shift + Select layers (as well as Command/Control + Select, which means your layers don’t have to be in consecutive order to do this trick). So, all you have to do is Shift + Select the Layers you would like to group into a folder, Drag them to the “Folder” or “New Group” icon, and your done. Photoshop will automatically place the layers into a new Group.

Photoshop CS1:

CS1 is slightly different, but not much more difficult. Select one of the layers you would like to be in your group, then “link” the other layers you want in your group, to the selected layer. Now Drag the selected layer to the “Folder” or “New Group” icon, and your done. Photoshop automatically puts the layer you Drag into a new Group, along with all layers ‘linked’ to that layer.

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Editing text in Photoshop can be a nuisance on the fly, but I have a quick productivity tip to make your life a little easier. There is really no need to use the Type/Text Tool to edit a text layer unless you only need to highlight part of the text, or a small part of a large body of text. If you deal with a lot of text layers in Photoshop that are, for example, a bullet point or a short sentence, or small paragraph, this is the tip for you.

To follow along, all you need to do is open any PSD you have lying around that has a bit of text in it. The reason for this tip is because you can quickly edit text without ever changing tools. Therefore you can edit a text layer, and when you’re done, you still have the same tool you had before editing, with no need to change back to the (black arrow) for example. It’s really fast and simple, here’s how:

1. Double click on the “T” icon

Double click on the “T” icon, (not the layer itself) of the text layer you want to edit in your Layers palette.

2. Bam! Your text is highlighted for editing!

Now your text will be highlighted and you can start typing to replace all of the text, OR I have another bonus tip below on what to do next.

3. Position the cursor

Once you have your text highlighted, you can hit the left arrow to place the cursor in front of the text:

or the right arrow to place the cursor behind all of your text:

Advantages:

The nice thing about this feature/tip is that you don’t have to go back and select another tool to keep working. You can simply click on a different layer and the tool you had selected before you edited your text will be reselected, or you can select any tool besides the text tool to keep your current layer selected and continue editing that same layer with a different tool. It may only save you 1-2 clicks, but over time, those clicks add up.

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