Creative Tip: Shift-Click With Photoshop's Eyedropper.

Even with a well calibrated monitor, it is more precise to color correct using numerical values. This is especially true when correcting color casts in images with neutral gray areas, or when matching specific colors between multiple images.

Shift-click up to 4 areas of your image with Photoshop's eyedropper tool to identify color sample points you want to watch in the Info palette (Option-Shift to remove them). You can also add color samples this way from within any color correction dialog box such as Curves, Levels, or Hue/Saturation.

Source: Drawn from the "Color Correction by the Numbers" section in the book Photoshop CS3 Photographer's Handbook co-written by Luminous Works trainer and founder Steve Laskevitch (read the announcement below about our upcoming partnership with Luminous Works for Seattle-area workshops).

Tech Tip: Press ESC for a Pop-up Autocomplete List.

It's always fun to stumble across a little-known feature that's been around for years. When you're typing text in many OS X applications (Safari, TextEdit, Mail, etc), you can press ESC (F5 also works) for an pop-up list with words from the built in OS X dictionary.

Note: This trick only works in Cocoa apps. That includes most of Apple's built-in software, but unfortunately not in many Adobe or Microsoft applications.

Source: We've run into this tip on a number of blogs over the years, but when John Gruber of Daring Fireball singled it out as one of those great tips many Mac users don’t know, we knew it was time to include it in our collection.

Training: Online Webinars & Seattle Workshops.

Online Webinars — We posted a free 5-minute video clip from last week's virtual workshop on creating interactive PDFs. Here is our secret plan: We'll post the best clips from each week's webinar for everyone to enjoy; and those of you who want to participate in the full online workshops can sign-up below:

Wed, Aug 20 - HTML Email Newsletters. - Great!
Wed, Aug 27 - Prepress with PDFs.
Wed, Sep 3 - Photoshop: Color Correction Techniques.
Wed, Sep 10 - InDesign: Mastering Style Sheets.
Wed, Sep 17- Photoshop: Retouching Skin.

Seattle Workshops — This fall, CreativeTechs is partnering with Seattle's top Adobe Authorized Training Center, Luminous Works. We're working to provide a hybrid workshop/webinar environment: Seattle-area designers can attend in person, and our readers from around the world can participate remotely.

Our first mini-workshop is scheduled for September 23. We'll be discussing the how (and why) of building "Findable Flash Websites." Most Flash websites are largely invisible to Google. We'll show you how to test yours, and how to modify it if necessary so potential clients can find you in Google searches.

Stay tuned for additional developments. Lots of fun stuff coming!

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:

CreativeTechs Tips is a weekly newsletter for creative professionals who use Macs. It is written by CreativeTechs's founder, Craig Swanson. Each week we publish a fresh mix of left-brain and right-brain tips based on our real world experiences 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

Your referrals wanted! CreativeTechs relies on word-of-mouth introductions. If you know a Seattle-area creative team who might benefit from our unique expertise providing computer support for creative professionals, please introduce us. We are never too busy for your referrals. Email help@creativetechs.com, or call us at 206-682-4315.

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