I recently upgraded to CS5 (finally), and just noticed this excellent and long-overdue button at the bottom of the Layer Styles window:
If you are ever using drop shadows, please set your default to “straight down” (90 degrees) and definitely no more than 50% opacity. Dark drop shadows are distracting. A good drop shadow is barely seen; it should pull your text off the background just a bit.
There are a couple of ways that icons in the app store get their corner radius screwed up:
- Fringed edges on the corners
- Incorrect border radius
This screencast shows you how to avoid both of these problems.
The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay Photoshop for Devs series, I show you how to apply multiple copies of a layer effect to single shape by duplicating the layer and setting the fill to zero.
Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.
- Blend multiple shapes, sizes and styles of gradient on a single shape
- Add a stroke
NOTE: I realized after recording this that the only reason you’d make a duplicate layer to set a stroke, as I did, would be if you already had a smaller stroke on the object. I’ve added this in to the PSD download to show how multiple strokes can be added using this method. Having the stroke on the main layer would cover the “halo/fringe” effect described in the screencast, eliminating the need to set the fatter stroke to ‘Center’. D’oh! - Knock out inner layer effects using a stroke set to 0% opacity.
The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay Photoshop for Devs series, I talk about using the layer masking technique described last week to paint a texture onto a drawing.
Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.
- Open a drawing and get it ready to be painted
- Add textures as individual layers
- Paint the mask to reveal the texture
- Use the dodge and burn tools to add shadows and highlights non-destructively
- Adjust texture colours
The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay Photoshop for Devs series, this one’s a short-but-sweet intro to using layer masks in Photoshop. Layer masks are used to hide areas of a layer without deleting any of the layer’s colour information. I always use layer masks rather than the erase tool. You never know when you’re going to want those pixels back.
Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.
- Erasing non-destructively with layer masks
- Fine-tuning layer masks with tools like Blur
- Making a selection from your mask
- CAUTION: make sure you’re editing the mask and not the layer
- Moving or copying masks from one layer to another
- Using vector masks and combining them with pixel masks
The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay Photoshop for Devs series, I’ve crammed in as many tips as I could about using layers in Photoshop.
Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.
- What am I clicking on? (or: why double-clicking on a layer seems to do something different every time)
- Create a new layer
- Move & select layers
- Transform layers
- Group layers
- Duplicate layers
- Duplicate layer effects
- Merge layers
- Fill layers with a colour
- Lock layers
- Layer opacity
- Layer blend modes
Do you save out multiple variations of a graphic by setting layer visibility? Ever wish there was a faster way to do that whenever that graphic needed to be updated?
The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay “Photoshop for Devs” series, I show you how to use Layer Comps to save layer visibility settings so can easily switch between visibility “states” for multiple layers (and even layer styles) at once. This saves you from having a separate document or layer group for each instance of your graphic, and makes your source PSD’s easier to update.
Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.
- Create broad layer comps to set overall visibility settings for multiple layers at once.
- Fine-tune your layer comps so that you have a comp for every instance of the graphic you are editing.
- Learn how adding and deleting layers affects layer comps.
Do you have skins or themes in your game? Do you arduously make changes to multiple Photoshop documents and save out new PNGs every time you make a change to a theme?
The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay “Photoshop for Devs” series, I show you how to make a master theme template for your games using a single Photoshop file, and export all the required images in a single step. This process can save you hours of annoying, repetitive work.
Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.
- Lay out your template file using shape layers and “placed” textures for resolution independence.
- Use Photoshop Slices to cut up the document and save out multiple PNG files.
- Create a new theme and save out a whole new batch of images in a few seconds.
- Use Adjustment Layers to quickly create colour variant themes.
The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay “Photoshop for Devs” series, we’re going to go into vector shapes in more detail. Vector shapes allow you to create graphics that can be scaled without losing detail.
Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.
- The basics: creating shapes.
- Selecting and moving points using the Path Selection Tool.
- Editing points (adding and removing points, converting points from corners to curves)
- Booleans (subtracting a shape from another, changing boolean settings after)
- Copy and paste shapes within a layer and from one layer to another
The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay “Photoshop for Devs” series, we’re going to talk about clipping masks in Photoshop and when to use them to make things easier.
Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.
Part 1:
- Place a photo in a Polaroid border, without having to crop it. Keep its full resolution so you can scale and rotate it as much as you want.
- Texture a chess board. Combine the texture layer with layer effects applied to the base layer.
Part 2:
- Add a reflection to windows in a building and change the colours with a clipped adjustment layer. Add art to a billboard shape with rounded corners and perspective.
- Create perfect silhouettes for your vector art. Mask multiple layers with a single base shape and apply layer effects to the entire group.
