Friday, November 2nd, 2012

Trevor’s Quick Photoshop Tip – Shortcut key to your Photoshop Preferences

It’s a good idea to configure your Photoshop preferences so the program works as you want it to. So, after installing Photoshop check your preferences and change any that you need to set by pressing the shortcut keystroke Ctrl + K on a PC and Command + K on a Mac. Bonus tip – it works with Illustrator too!

Helen Bradley

Wednesday, October 31st, 2012

Trevor’s Quick Illustrator Tip – Quick Close

Photo by: salssa via sxc.hu

You can close the current document you are working on to clean up your work area, by pressing Ctrl + W on a PC and Command + W on a Mac. If you haven’t saved the image you’ll be prompted to do so before it closes.

Helen Bradley

Friday, October 26th, 2012

Trevor’s Quick Photoshop tip – Zoom with your scroll wheel

 photo by: Cierpki via sxc.hu

Do you want to fluidly zoom in and out of your project with the scroll wheel of your mouse? Well you’re in luck because in Photoshop this can be activated in Preferences. To go to your General Preferences, press Ctrl + K on a PC and Command + K on a Mac and check the Zoom with Scroll Wheel checkbox and press OK. Now you can zoom in and out of your images using just your mouse.

Helen Bradley

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

Trevor’s Quick Illustrator Tip – Simple Zoom

Photo By: Joana Croft
It’s true you can press Ctrl + + and Ctrl + – to zoom in and out on a PC or Command + + and command – on a Mac, but I find this tricky to do on a small keyboard such as the one on my laptop. If you have a mouse with a scroll wheel you can hold the Alt key and scroll up to zoom in or scroll down to zoom out. This works no matter which tool is selected at the time. The tool you were working with gets targeted again when you release the Alt key. I find this an easier way to zoom in and out when I am working on an image.

Helen Bradley

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012

Trevor’s Quick Word Tip – Setting your Preferences

It’s generally a great idea to go through Word and set it up for your own personal working style.  Head to the preference area by clicking File > Options (Office button > Word Options in Word 2007) and click Advanced. Here you can set preferences for Editing, Printing, Display and so on to make Word work the way you want it to.

Helen Bradley

Friday, October 19th, 2012

Trevor’s Illustrator Tip – Controlling the Pen Tool

Photo by: Harpreet Padam

Having trouble working with the Pen tool?  When it takes off and draws yet another curved line after a curve when you want a straight segment, the fix is surprisingly easy. Hold the Alt key and click on the last anchor point. The line will be set to a point rather than a curve so you can make a straight line after your curve.The bonus? This works in Photoshop too. The double bonus? In Illustrator CS6 you don’t even have to use the Alt key – it’s smart enough to know that you want to change the line type when you click on the last point.

Helen Bradley

Wednesday, October 17th, 2012

Trevor’s Photoshop tip of the Week – Working with Multiple Layers

(Image by: Helen Bradley)

Working with lots of layers and a cluttered Layers palette?  Find the layer that has the content you want to work with by targeting the Move Tool. Right click on a PC or Ctrl + Click on a Mac over the area that contains the content to work with.  A list of all the layers under the cursor will appear – to select one, click on it in the list..

Helen Bradley

Tuesday, October 16th, 2012

Trevor’s Quick Word Tip – Remove unwanted formatting

If you are having second thoughts about the look of your document you can remove the formatting. Select the text that you want to strip of its formatting and and press Ctrl + Space Bar to remove its formatting. If you press Ctrl + Shift + N you’ll apply the default Normal style to the selected text.

Helen Bradley

Wednesday, October 10th, 2012

Trevor’s Photoshop tip of the Week – Save for the Web

(photo by: roxinasz via www.sxc.hu )

Want to share your image with the world? To save an image for the web, choose File > Save for Web & Devices… , choose the file type, set the quality level, set the image size and save it. Your image will look great and it won’t slow down your website.

Helen Bradley

Tuesday, October 9th, 2012

Trevor’s Quick Excel Tip – Date and Time

To enter the current date and time into a worksheet cell type =NOW() to display both the date and time based on the regional options that are set for your copy of Windows.  If you want the date and not the time, type =TODAY(). These formulas update themselves every time Excel is opened, the worksheet is recalculated or if it is printed.  If you need to enter the current date or time so it is fixed and so it won’t change, press press Ctrl + ; for the date or Ctrl + Shift + ; for the time.

Helen Bradley

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