Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
This post is subtitled Undos that Do and Those that Don’t
If you’re using Excel 2003 or earlier, you have a big problem with the Undo command, you see much of the time, it plain doesn’t work.
Curious? Try this: open an Excel file, make some changes to it (minor however, you won’t be able to undo these however much you think you can). Check the Undo button – it is enabled. Save the file. Now check the Undo button again. Yikes, it’s now disabled. You see, after you save a file in Excel 2003, all the Undo steps are removed – no more Undo. It pays to know this is how it works.
In Excel 2007, things are much better, and the Undo retains the changes even after you have saved the file. Much nicer behavior.
Labels: Excel 2003, Excel 2007, Undo
Categories:Uncategorized
posted by Helen Bradley @ 5:39 pmNo Comments links to this post
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
You’ll have seen preview images when you open a file in Word. If you choose File > Open and, from the Views option list you choose Preview, you will see either a small image of the full page or some of the text on the page. All this begs the question of what determines what you see?
The full page preview is an option when you save a file in Word. To configure it, choose File > Properties > Summary tab and enable the Save Preview Picture checkbox. Now, when you save the file it will have a preview image saved with it which will show in the preview area.
To ensure the Properties dialog appears everytime you save a file the first time so you can configure the Save Preview Picture option, choose Tools > Options > Save tab and enable the checkbox for Prompt for Document Properties.
Labels: Document properties, Microsoft Word, preview image
Categories:Uncategorized
posted by Helen Bradley @ 9:56 pmNo Comments links to this post
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
I’m sure it’s happened to you just as it has to me. You copy and paste some text in from the web or an email message and it comes in with leading spaces – on evey line. There are lots of ways to remove the problem starting with hitting the delete key way too many times. Stop already!
There is, however one very smart way to do it without getting a repetitive strain injury. Select the lines of text and press Control + E to center the text. With the text still selected press Control + L to left align it and voila! the spaces are gone.
Labels: Microsoft Word, Removing leading spaces, web text
Categories:Uncategorized
posted by Helen Bradley @ 5:35 am17 Comments links to this post
Thursday, November 22nd, 2007
I like to look at what users type into Google when they land on my blog. Today, someone wanted to create a monochromatic swatch from a monochromatic image. I don’t have explicit instructions for this, so I thought it a good concept to consider.
To do this, first convert your image to monochrome by choosing Image > Mode > Greyscale and click to Discard the color. If the image doesn’t show the variety of greys you want, use a Levels adjustment to alter the tonal range in your image.
Now choose Image > Mode > Indexed color and then Image > Mode > Color Table. Here is your custom swatch sourced from your image. Simply click Save to save the color table.
Now, you don’t have to make a monochrome swatch. Say you need some lush greens for a project. Grab an image that shows the greens you like. Choose Image > Mode > Indexed Color and, for now, select the defaults and click Ok. Now choose Image > Mode > Color Table and you have a color table created from your image with your lovely greens and you can save them to use any time. If you get too many other colors in the swatch, crop the image to just the green area before making the conversion. Save the Color Table but don’t save the image and you’ll find no photos have been harmed in the process of creating your own custom color swatch.
To add the color table as a swatch, display the Swatches palette (Window, Swatches) click the menu and choose Load Swatches. From the Files of type list choose Color Table (*.act) and then browse to find your saved file and open it.
Labels: color swatch, custom swatch, indexed color, monochrome
Categories:Uncategorized
posted by Helen Bradley @ 3:06 amNo Comments links to this post
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
Picture this, you have a line of type in Word with a phone number in it. But… when ever you type it the first part of the phone number goes on one line and the next part scrolls around to the next line. It just won’t ‘stick’ all together.
What you need is a hard space. This is some thing that looks like a space, prints like a space but sticks things together. To use it, remove the space that is between the two pieces you want to stick together then press Control + Shift + Space Bar and you have your hard space.
Word also has a sticky/hard hyphen. It shows between two words but never splits words across the end of a line. Same thing – Control + Shift + Hyphen.
Labels: hard hyphen, hard space, Microsoft Word
Categories:Uncategorized
posted by Helen Bradley @ 1:09 am1 Comment links to this post
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
This was one of my favourite shots of the Paris metro stations. It was a throw away shot – I just took it walking past because I loved the bikes around it and there weren’t many people around.
I dumped most of the color in the photo as it just looked so good when you look at the blacks and whites in it.
I duplicated the background layer and turned the top layer into a black and white using the new Photoshop Black and White adjustment layer which lets you select which direction to take each colour into. It’s way more sophisticated than anything we’ve had in the past. Then I adjusted the opacity of the layer a little to show some of the colors from the layer underneath. The result is an almost ethereal photo. I’ve put it on a white tee shirt at CafePress in my store if you like it and want to wear it.
Labels: adjustment layers, black and white, Metro, Paris
Categories:Uncategorized
posted by Helen Bradley @ 12:33 amNo Comments links to this post
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
Ok, here’s the dilemma. You have two images open in Photoshop and you want to add one image as a layer mask into the other.
One solution is to copy the first image, then switch to the second. Click the layer mask and switch to the Channels palette. The layer mask appears as a channel. Select the channel’s visibility icon to make it visible, select the channel to make it active, and click Edit, Paste. Deselect its visibility, reselect the RGB channel to make that one active, switch back to your Layers palette and the pasted selection is in your layer mask. This solution has the advantage that the copied/pasted piece doesn’t have to be the same size as the layer mask.
The alternate solution if the two images are the same size, is to use Apply Image. Select the target layer mask, choose Image, Apply Image and, as the Source, select the image to copy from, the layer to copy and click Ok. Now the selected layer (or the merged source) is pasted into the Layer Mask.
Two alternatives, the second is easier to use but it does require two same size images.
Labels: Apply Image, layer mask, Photoshop CS3
Categories:Uncategorized
posted by Helen Bradley @ 12:21 am2 Comments links to this post
Monday, November 19th, 2007
Sometimes an Excel chart will look better if your series overlap – this might be the case when you are comparing data from two years and where you want to show how the values have increased from one year to the next.
To make your series overlap in Excel 2007, select one series, right click and choose Format Data Series. Click the Series Options and decrease the Gap Width (it closes the chart up nicely) and incease the Series Overlap. Set the Series Overlap to around 60% and the Gap Width to around 30% for a good result. This is particularly useful when you are using images in place of colors for the bars of your chart but works in almost any situation.
Labels: charts, Excel 2007, gap width, overlap, series
Categories:Uncategorized
posted by Helen Bradley @ 11:46 pm1 Comment links to this post
Monday, November 19th, 2007
I was looking for an image to put on a t-shirt for a friend for Christmas. Let’s say, he’s a bit out there and pretty just won’t cut it.
I had two good photos of this graffiti covered wall so the Photoshop Automate > Photomerge tool put them together into a panorama. I used the clone and copy and paste to put back the missing bits as it was shot from a moving boat – a far cry from the ideal for shooting a panorama.
Color fix was an issue. I needed a channel to blend back into the image to boost the color and contrast. Problem was, the red killed the blue and the blue killed the red. Solution was to use both.
Duplicate the background layer twice. Select the first copy, choose Image > Apply Image and apply the red channel to the image. Then use the second copy and apply the blue channel to the image. Use the lighten blend mode on the top layer to blend the two together. You can use a Layer mask on the top layer if necessary to bring back detail from the layer underneath.
The grunge details are an image/edge from a set of grunge images from Graphic Authority applied as a layer mask with a black background layer put behind everything.
Labels: Apply Image, edge effects, graffiti, Paris
Categories:Uncategorized
posted by Helen Bradley @ 5:58 pmNo Comments links to this post
Saturday, November 17th, 2007
Ok, here’s the dilemna. You have two images open in Photoshop and you want to add one image as a layer mask into the other.
One solution is to copy the first image, then switch to the second. Click the layer mask and switch to the Channels palette. The layer mask appears as a channel. Select the channel’s visibility icon to make it visible, select the channel to make it active, and click Edit, Paste. Deselect its visiblity, reselect the RGB channel to make that one active, switch back to your Layers palette and the pasted selection is in your layer mask. This solution has the advantage that the copied/pasted piece doesn’t have to be the same size as the layer mask.
The alternate solution if the two images are the same size, is to use Apply Image. Select the target layer mask, choose Image, Apply Image and, as the Source, select the image to copy from, the layer to copy and click Ok. Now the selected layer (or the merged source) is pasted into the Layer Mask.
Two alternatives, the second is easier to use but it does require two same size images.
Labels: Apply Image, layer mask, Phtoshop CS3
Categories:Uncategorized
posted by Helen Bradley @ 6:38 amNo Comments links to this post
