Lessons
Class Introduction
02:09 2Not-so-obvious Automation: Presets
10:10 3Keyboard Shortcuts
10:15 4Adjustment Layer Presets
04:17 5Brush Presets
04:42 6Recording an Action (Refresher)
14:14 7Conditional Actions
05:53 8One-step Actions
05:01Lesson Info
Not-so-obvious Automation: Presets
presets. A lot of people who use light room presets are second nature because we use presets all the time to apply some effect. Presets and Photoshopped are also really important, just not as obvious. In fact, one type of preset. I talk about all the time. It's called a tool preset. I don't even know when it came out in force off. I want to say it was like Photoshopped five, not CS five, but like five but yet a very small percentage of people I talked to even know they exist, let alone use them and think about this for a second. So I'm going to do something in Photoshopped like add some type to this image. So I go to my type tool personally. The first thing I usually do when I'm going to do something with the tool is look up in the options bar to see what my settings are. So that means if I'm doing type, I think about typeface and style and size and alignment and color, and very often I'm doing work where I want things to have a consistent look and feel. So I'm switching between this l...
ook of type and then this other look of type. So every time I go to use the type tool, I'm having to manually a try to remember but be enter all those settings in. So instead what a tool preset does is it remembers those things for you. So then you can just switch between tools and be ready to use it instead of delaying while you say, OK, let me think about this. What was the setting? So if you look right in the top left hand corner here of the toolbar, there's what looks like a tool icon. But that's not only what it is in fact in and sort of interesting interface option. Adobe. The little tiny training, tiny pointing arrow is actually a menu of choices. So if you look at that and think, Oh, that's just reminding me I'm using the type tool that's only part of its function. The other one is a menu. So I'm gonna go here and show you that I use these lots. You can see I have a lot of type tool presets. So what do these mean? What it means is I'm working on a project and I wanna have almost like in se page layout software UK like character styles and paragraph styles. You can do that in photo shop, too, but I find this often is just a lot easier where I want to create a certain look. So I'm just gonna take my type, tool and type Anything doesn't matter. This is just to set myself up to say how I wanted to look. So this point, I choose settings like again typeface style. Let's just make this 150 make it a line left and maybe white. So clearly, I don't want that wording on there because someone in Sweden might be insulted right now. I don't know. I mean, it could be, but that's just me to setting up a particular look. And instead of me trying to remember or what I used to do many years ago had a pad right down facet regular, 150 like right, all those things down. Now what I do is come over here to this pull down menu, and if you didn't already know in Adobe, anytime you see the little turning page icon, that's the button for new. So if I click that it says I'm gonna make you a new tool preset, and it prompts me this with some name, but it's highlighted, expecting me to name it, cause I would hardly recommend you. Do not call it horizontal type to a one because the whole point of this is for you later on to go. Oh, that's what that ISS And if they're all just called pre set one preset to that's really not gonna help you. It always defaults to the name of the tool. But when you look on the left hand side there, you can see it's showing me all of these air type tool presets of the big letter T beside them. So having the name of the tool in there to me makes no sense. So I would call it something like Facet regular 1 50 I use little coach for myself, like a line left white. Anything you want now you can choose a name that's descriptive like this or what it's for like you could call this high school senior header or, you know, some whatever makes sense to you. That's the bottom line. So I click OK, and now that's added to my list. So just to demonstrate if I now pick completely different settings and now you can see when I go to click on my type tool, it remembers the last setting I just use, which was something else. Now I have such a bad short term memory. I know it was facet regular, but that's about all I remember. So instead of me trying to remember that and the key to this is remember these air called presets. So that mean reminds me I should click on it pre using the tool words don't use the tool and then go to use the preset. It's too late. This is intended when you before you start. So take a look at the options bar. It's got weirdo font, name, size, everything else. And I go to this pull down menu and I say There's the one I just made. It changes that bang. I'm ready to start typing because all that information is in there now, and I want to use a different one. I go to that pull down list, I say, I want this one for this. Look over here and I've got something very different. Very too small. You can't even see it, but you get the idea. So the cool thing about presets is that it saves you time, and also there's really no downside to them. They're just little tiny files that don't take up any room in photo shop that just say these are the settings for this particular tool. So any tool in Photoshopped that has settings that you might change on ongoing basis, the way I look at it is if I'm using some tool and realize that's the third time. In the last five minutes I've changed between two different settings. I'm gonna make a tool preset for them and then just switch between presets instead of changing pull down menus, everything myself. Now, some tools have more options, and others, like the brush tool, has lots of options in it. Others, like the move to a really has very few, so there might be reason to have any presets, but it could be a simple or as complicated as you want, but what it means is these are Photoshopped. Presets not tied to this document tied the photo shop, so any document I open if I want that exact same look of type. I know it's now built into my system. I don't to do anything for that to happen, so it may not seem like a lot. But if you think the number of times where you click on a tool, go up to the options bar, pull down a menu, pick that change that, you know, do a whole series of settings instead. Just do it as 11 time. Then it's done. Now the couple things that confuse people about tool presets is I had to turn on this little check box as current tool only because, you know, using the type tool. At first, it shows me every single tool preset that I have, which is a little distracting when I'm only working on one tool. So personally, I like to have this turned on. So as soon as I switched to a different tool, it shows me here are the presets that are available for that tool. Photoshopped ships with some presets provided for you. And these presets are good examples of the kind of things you can make with presets. That was my polite way of saying that the presets they give you are perhaps not the most practical thing you have ever seen. For example, there is I've actually deleted now. But one of the presets that comes with photo shop is called fill with bubbles pattern because you know, how many times a day do you want to fill something with bubbles? And so, thankfully, they have a preset for that exact purpose, which is awesome. So don't use that a whole lot. But the other part of the tool presets is once you've made a bunch of these were different tools. This is really an interesting way toe work more efficiently because normally what I do. So I'm working with a type tool. Then I said, Okay, now I need to switch to the paint brush. So I come over the paintbrush and I click on that. Then I choose the settings for that. But over here I have another tool presets panel. If you don't see this one has found under the window menu and hear what I like to dio is turn off current tool on lee. So now this is interesting way to choose the tool you want to use with the preset you want to use. So for example, I'm currently on the brush tool, and now I think I need to add some more type. And I added in this particular look, So when I click on this tool preset, it switches to the type tool and enters in all that information for me. So for some people, this has become interesting way. Instead of worrying about the toolbox at all, they simply click on the appropriate tool preset, and it picks the tool for you and imprison the information in the options bar. And the other nice thing about these is their ever changing, so that you're working on some project. Oh, I should add three more than add three more. And if you have a tool preset that says, you know this typeface at 120 points and now you want to be 150 then just changed 150 from now. But at least part of that work is done for you. So using that, compared to the alternative expression to me, this is much faster in the alternate me every single time going click on a tool going change some settings, do some work. Oh, back to that other one. Here's another example. All the time when I'm using the clone stamp tool, I'm switching between dark and mode and light mode and at a lower percentage. And I realized how many times as I'm retouching, do I go back to this menu and change it so instead? Now I just have a couple of presets that are darken. Lighten normal. By the way. That's not a bad idea to make a preset, which is just normal, because if you've changed every setting and your tool, I just want to kind of get back to normal operations on a bad idea. To make one tool priest. That's just kind of like standard, if you will, so that way you can get back to it very quickly. So for most people, this is an ongoing process. But if you spend a bit of time once or twice now, you have this built in method just to save you Time. Every time you're working with tools
Ratings and Reviews
Emily Bristor
Dave Cross really knows his stuff, and his knowledge is up to date. I didn't know there's a Photoshop "mail-merge" kind of capability - now I know how to use it! He gives clear instructions on how to save time in Photoshop in various ways. I highly recommend this course.