Lunacore Photoshop Blog

Sometimes we need to merge our layers in Photoshop. Most people are used to select in the menu Layer / Flatten Image or to select Layer / Merge Visible.
These are not perfect solutions, because you lose all layers and there is a risk that you will save your file in this current status with terrible consequences if you have no backup file.

There is a better way to flatten an image, which is called “Merge All Visible Layers”. It’s not available in any menu and can only be applied by using the following shortcut:

Windows: Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E
Mac : Command + Shift + Option + E

Merge All Visible Layers will merge all visible layers on the current layer so it’s advisable to execute the command on an empty layer.

In this third and last part where going to end with some suggestions from Adobe to improve performance:

Optimize performance in Photoshop (Mac OS)

Optimize performance in Photoshop (CS2 on Mac OS)

Optimize performance of Photoshop (CS on Windows)

Optimize performance of Photoshop (CS2 on Windows)

Memory allocation and usage (Photoshop CS)

Memory allocation and usage (Photoshop CS2)

Slow performance and screen redraw problems in Photoshop (CS2 on Windows)

Improve performance in Photoshop CS2 on computers with more than 1 GB RAM

Related articles:

Making Photoshop run faster
Making Photoshop run faster (part 2)

Wouldn’t you like to have a fast way to change the size of your canavas or image?
Just right click (Control+ click on the Mac) on the top bar of your document window.

Join Scott Kelby, Dave Cross and Matt Kloskowski for their 23rd episode of Adobe Photoshop TV and check out their newest tips and tricks and things to do:

- Smart Object and Camera RAW

- how to use Smart Objects to make your own templates

- creating a product shot for advertising

- Photoshop World gallery

We have a straight crack in the image below that we want to remove. The clone tool is a good choice to remove a line like this, but instead of going over the crack manually, let’s use a faster way.

Select the clone tool and make sure that the option Aligned is selected in the option bar and choose a size for our clone tool that’s slightly larger than the width of our crack. You can easily change the size of your brush by simply right clicking inside your document window (Control + click on the Mac). When you do this, make sure that you select a soft round brush (hardness = 0%)

Go to the top of the crack and mark the area beside it as the source of our clone tool by clicking on it while holding down the Alt key (Option key on the Mac) (A)

Position your mouse cursor at the top of the crack (B), hold down the shift key and click once, move the mouse cursor to the bottom of the crack (C) and click again and release the shift key.

So with a few clicks we were able to remove the complete crack. You might consider to clone a few extra random areas as a finishing touch (to avoid visibile patterns).

Note: retouching in a straight line also works with several other tools like the burn, dodge and sponge tool. Also remember that you can stroke a path with any of these tools.

Photoshop gurus David Blatner and Conrad Chavez are the authors of the book Adobe Photoshop CS/CS2 Breakthroughs.
Publisher Peachpit provides the visitors of their web site with a sample chapter of this book that deals with resolution.

It answers some of the most common questions people might have about resolution in the following subjects:

- Don’t Forget Your Resolutions
- Finding Out the File Resolution of an Image
- What’s the Effective Resolution?
- To Resample or Not to Resample. . .
- Going Bicubic
- Image Size vs. Canvas Size
- Resizing a Batch of Variously Sized Images

You can find the article here.

Scott Kelby, Dave Cross and Matt Kloskowski share in the 22nd episode of Photoshop TV:

- a cool creative panoramic technique
- how to use the Blend If sliders
- how to write an action and make the most of dialogue boxes

Some news that’s getting attention:

- Adobe rolls out the Lightroom Podcast
- Adobe announces the 2006 Adobe Design Achievement Awards
- MacLive Conference announces student scholarships and an early-bird special discount

Suggestions:

- Check out the Photoshop Soup2Nuts Conference at Great Lakes Digital.
- Dig through the new video tutorials at Layers magazine.
- Check out the upcoming seminars at PhotoshopSeminars.com

The following is a simple and straightforward Lunacore technique to add round corners to a photograph:

- Open picture
- Double click on the background layer
- Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) (Make sure that Paths is selected, see attachment)
- Adjust radius
- Draw the rounded rectangle
- Select in the menu: Layer/Add Vector Mask/Current Path
- Create a new layer beneath this layer that will serve as your background.

Photoshop Guys Scott Kelby and Dave Cross are your hosts in the 21st episode of Photoshop TV.

Some of the subjects of this week’s episode:

- ins and outs of working with guides and smart guides

- a multi-part tutorial on restoring old photos with with variations, the spot healing brush applying sepia tone and more

- how to convert color to greyscale in RAW

- new methods for converting to greyscale

- suggestion to have a look at Mordy Golding’s Illustrator Blog and Designorati

- last week’s prize winner and how to win this week’s prize

It can take a lot of time to load Photoshop if you use many plug-ins and they also use memory.

Now here’s a suggestion; put those plug-ins that you seldom use in a separate directory.
When you load Photoshop hold down Ctrl + Shift (Command + shift on the Mac); a window will pop-up asking you to select an additional plug-ins folder. Select your folder and click OK.

Photoshop will always use this additional plug-ins folder, until you:

- bring up the additional plug-ins folder window and select Cancel
- change the location of the additional plug-ins folder in the menu; Edit / Preferences / Plug-Ins & Scratch Disks…