CreativeTechs QuickTips #209 Week of July 21, 2008

Creative Tip: Discover Copy Merged in Photoshop.

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There is something immensely satisfying about discovering a Photoshop feature that's been sitting in front of you for years. The Copy Merged command has been waiting patiently in Photoshop's edit menu for well over a decade. Yet I've missed it all that time. A quick poll of Seattle Photoshop production artists tells me I'm not the only one who missed this gem.

If you're working on a multi-layer Photoshop document and want to copy a portion of the combined image into another document, simply choose Edit > Copy Merged (command-shift-C) to copy a flattened version of your selection. You can paste anywhere — including a new file if you like.

Source: This tip was featured on James Dempsey's terrific The Graphic Mac blog. To illustrate this technique, we used an image from last week: Prototype Packaging using Photoshop Smart Objects.

Tech Tip: Instantly Darken your Mac's Monitor.

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Here is a nice, quick one. If you’re working on an (ahem!) important confidential document and someone walks into the room who shouldn't see your screen, you can instantly darken your Mac's screen by pressing ctrl-shift-eject. To turn the brightness back to where it was, press any key or move the mouse.

Source: This tip comes from a post on the Small Dog Electronics Barkings Blog.

Upcoming Training: Online Webinars and Seattle Workshops.

Upcoming Seattle-area Workshops:

Wednesday, July 30 - Blog Your Studio.
Tuesday, August 5 - Font Management in Mac OS X.

Upcoming Online Webinars:

Wednesday, August 6 - Google for Graphic Designers.
Wednesday, August 13 - Creating Interactive PDFs.
Wednesday, August 20 - HTML Email Newsletters.
Wednesday, August 27 - Prepress with PDFs.

Your referrals wanted! Referrals from our clients and readers are what keeps CreativeTechs healthy and in business. As a small thank-you, every week we send a Free Mini-Workshop Pass to new Seattle-area subscribers, plus the friend or colleague who referred them:


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CreativeTechs QuickTips is a free weekly newsletter for creative professionals who use Macs. Each week we publish a fresh mix of left-brain and right-brain tips based on our real world experience supporting hundreds of creative teams in the greater Seattle area. For a complete archive of previous tips, visit www.creativetechs.com/tips

For IT Professionals supporting Mac users, visit Make Mac Work. This weekly technical blog focuses on IT issues facing Macs in Enterprise environments. It is written by CreativeTechs' lead enterprise engineer, Jordan Bojar. For an archive of previous topics, visit www.makemacwork.com

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