BEN WILMORE - FOREMOST PHOTOSHOP TRAINERS

Who's This 'Ben' Guy?

A senior engineer from NASA once said that this man gave the best technical seminar he ever attended. That same year a computer-phobic who had been struggling with Photoshop for years proclaimed that “He takes the Boogie Man out of Photoshop!” This seems to be Ben Willmore’s special gift; he has an uncanny ability to connect with users of every level and mindset; whether it’s first-timers taking their first sniff of Photoshop, or razor-sharp nerds and nerdettes who are on the fast track to technical illumination. The common echo that Ben leaves in his wake seems to be “Aha! I finally GET Photoshop!”

To date, Ben has personally taught over 50,000 Photoshop users on three continents. His descriptions of Curves and Channels are thought to be the best in the industry and his breakthrough teaching style of “not-just-how-but-why,” has made him the in-house instructor of choice for companies such as Mercedes Benz, Adobe Systems, America Online, the U.S. Airforce, Lexis Nexis and Fisher-Price Toys. His award-winning, best-selling book, Adobe Photoshop Studio Techniques is said to be “Arguably, one of the best Photoshop books ever written.” by Photoshop User’s publisher, Jim Workman. He is co-author (with Jack Davis) of another best-seller, How to Wow: Photoshop for Photographers, as well as another bestseller, Up to Speed: Photoshop CS2.

He continues to be a featured speaker at publishing conferences and events worldwide, including Photoshop World, American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), Professional Photographers of America (PPA), Photo Marketing Association (PMA) and the Royal Photographic Society of England. He’s an inductee in the Photoshop Hall of Fame, a member of the Dream Team for NAPP and writes for numerous digital imaging and photography publications, including a monthly column for Photoshop User magazine. His reputation as the “expert’s expert” prompted NAPP’s president, Scott Kelby, to say, “When we get stuck, we call Ben!”

His home office is on the main deck of a 40-foot touring bus, which is command central for Ben's ongoing adventures as a Photoshop nomad and digital photographer. While Ben is rolling down the road, he stays connected through his blog, www.WhereIsBen.com.

Photosoph Tips By Ben Wilmore

When coming up with these tips,

I try not to repeat myself, but

right now I want to turn back the Time Machine and revisit some of
those can't-live-without-'em tips that can make an enormous
difference to your work in Photoshop. These are the ones I use every
other minute of every day I work in Photoshop. You might have heard
some of them before, but if there's a single one that you don't use
on a daily basis then being reminded of it can really speed up your
work. So, in no particular order, here are the old reliables:

When working with any of the painting or retouching tools, you can
use the bracket keys (][) to change the size of your brush. Or, if
you'd rather change how soft the edge of the brush is, then add the
Shift key and you'll be changing the Hardness setting of your brush
in 25% increments. Or, if you'd rather access the brush presets
palette, then Ctrl-click (Mac) or Right-click (Win) on your image
while any painting or retouching tool is active.

To change the opacity of the currently active tool, use the number
keys on your keyboard. Pressing 1 will give you 10%, 3 gives you
30%, 23 will give you 23%, 0 will give you 100% and so on. And if
you happen to be in the Move tool while using the number keys,
you'll be changing the opacity of the currently active layer. You
can even add the Shift key to change the Flow setting of your brush
or the Fill Opacity setting of the active layer if you're in the
Move tool.

To reset your foreground and background colors to their default
colors (black and white), type D, and to swap them, type X. I use
those all the time when I'm painting on a Layer Mask.

When I need to scroll around my images, I hold the Spacebar, which
temporarily gives me the Hand tool. You can also add the Command key
(Mac), or Ctrl key (Win) which will temporarily activate the Zoom
tool so you can click and drag across the area you'd like to zoom
into. To zoom out, just hold down the Command key (Mac) or Ctrl key
(Win) and then press the Minus key (-).

I don't like to have to constantly look at the Layers palette to
change which layer is active, so I instead type V to get to the Move
tool and then Command-click (Mac) or Ctrl-click (Win) on my image.
That will make Photoshop look for the top-most layer that contains
information below your cursor and it will make it active. Or, if I
need to dig a little deeper and make a lower layer active, I'll
Ctrl-click (Mac), or Right-click (Win) when the Move tool is active
and it will present me with a list of all the layers that contain
information below my cursor.

I often need to fill an area with a color, especially when working
on Layer Masks. You can type Option-Delete (Mac), or Alt-Backspace
(Win) to fill with your foreground color, or Command-Delete (Mac),
or Ctrl-Backspace (Win) to fill with your background color. Or, if
you'd rather access the Edit>Fill dialog box, then type Shift-Delete
(Mac), or Shift-Backspace (Win).

When working with numbers in Photoshop (type sizes, scaling
percentages, adjustment settings, etc.), I often click on the number
and then use the up and down arrow keys to increase or decrease the
setting. Adding Shift to the arrow keys will change the number in
larger increments.

Photoshop's palettes often get in my way, and when they do I press
Tab to hide my palettes. If you ever find that that doesn't work,
then first make sure you're not in the middle of something (like an
adjustment or filter dialog box) and also make sure you're not
working on a number (like in a palette). In both of those cases, you
can press Return (Mac) or Enter (Win) to commit to the change
(adjustment, number or whatever it was you were working on) and then
the Tab key should work to hide your palettes. I also like my image
to dominate my screen, so I usually type F once or twice to get to
one of the full screen modes where my image can slide behind all the
palettes and fill my screen. If you're in the second screen mode,
where the menu bar is hidden, try typing Shift-F to toggle the
visibility of the menu bar.

I often type Command-H (Mac), or Ctrl-H (Win) to hide something
(selection edges, text highlighting, slices for the web, guides,
etc.). And when I'm dragging something that starts to snap to things
I don't want it to (like dragging a guide near the edge of an
image), I'll hold the Ctrl key after I press the mouse button, which
temporarily turns off snapping.

There are literally hundreds of tips and shortcuts that I use every
week, but the ones I covered in this message are the core ones that
I use constantly. They are so ingrained in the way I work that I
don't have to think about them, and once you've used them a few
times, they should easily become second nature to you.

-Ben Willmore
read more tips from him at digitalmastery.com

Ben's Extra-Strenth Photoshop Tips (03/17/03)

Ben's Extra-Strenth Photoshop Tips (03/17/03)
The Extra-Strength Tips for the Clients and Friends of Ben Willmore
(www.digitalmastery.com):

You guys haven't gotten any ImageReady tips from me in over six
months, so this installment will be dedicated to those of you who
create web graphics. But don't worry, even if you only do print
work, you'll find interesting things you can do to amaze and delight
your friends and enemies! Just in case you don't know, Photoshop
comes bundled with ImageReady, and all you have to do to switch
between the two is to click on the bottom-most icon at the bottom of
Photoshop's tool palette.

First the fun stuff, because I'm feeling frisky. With Image Ready
open, choose About ImageReady from either the ImageReady, File or
Help menu depending on what flavor of operating system you're using.
You should get the standard 'about box'. Click anywhere within that
screen to make it disappear and then take a look at the top of your
tool palette. Try holding Option (Mac), or Alt (Win) and clicking on
the big icon that stretches all the way across the top of the tool
palette and what do you see? That's right, it's a rubber ducky! And
now that you've done that, choose About ImageReady one more time to
get a little surprise. Now, before you click to make it go away, try
holding Command (Mac), or Ctrl (Win) and clicking anywhere within
the blue area... what do ya get? More rubber duckies!! (add shift
when clicking to clean all the ducks) And just when you thought that
this ridiculousness had reached its high point, create a new empty
document with a transparent background and then type D U C K E R B O
A R D (without the spaces and lowercase... well, then why did you
type it that way Ben!). You can type it a second time to get things
back to normal.

Ok, now that we've got some of silliness out of the way, I feel like
being productive, so here comes some real tips:

If you use the four tabs that show up at the top of each document a
lot (Original, Optimized, 2-up & 4-up), then you might want to try
typing Command-Y (Mac), or Ctrl-Y (Win) instead of clicking tabs.
Each time you type that shortcut, it will cycle to the next tab.
Want to have a second window full of optimized images (2 up, 4 up ,
etc.), then just drag the tab that is active to an open part of your
screen and bingo! You've got a new window.

Are you used to choosing Image>Duplicate to create an identical
document? Well, why not hold Option (Mac), or Alt (Win) and drag the
Original tab from the top of your image into an empty part of your
screen. That's all ya gotta do to get a dupe.

If you're still using web safe colors (I'm not, but then again I'm
lazy), then try this one on for size: Click your foreground color,
pick any color and then look for the Color Cube icon in the upper
right of the color picker. Clicking on that icon will give you a web
safe color. But did you know that you can click, hold down the mouse
button and then drag around that cube icon (in an imaginary circle
surrounding the cube) to get a total of eight different web safe
colors that are similar to the color you started with?

Ok, after all that excitement, I'm getting a little tired and think
it's time for my hourly nap. Before I snooze out, here's one last
ImageReady tip: When you've got an animation created and you'd like
to check out all the individual frames one at a time, try holding
Option (Mac), or Alt (Win) (making sure you're not in the Move tool)
and then and using the left and right arrow keys to cycle through
the animation one frame at a time. You can add shift to go to the
first or last frame. And if you really want to be glued to your
keyboard, try typing Shift-Spacebar to play or pause the animation.

Oh, and thanks to those of you who took the time to fill out my
survey last week. If you didn't get a chance to, you can still visit
www.digitalmastery.com/survey to give it a whirl.

-Ben Willmore

Copywrite from : The Extra-Strength Tips for the Clients and Friends of Ben Willmore
www.digitalmastery.com