Creative Tip: Use Photoshop's Background Eraser Tool.

If you find yourself needing to quickly remove the background from an image in Photoshop, take a moment to play with the background eraser tool. (Click-and-hold on the eraser in Photoshop's tool pallet to choose this tool).

The background eraser samples the color in the center of the brush. It deletes that color and softens the edges so that color halos are not visible if the foreground object is later pasted into another image.

Bonus: Watch this tip in a special Video QuickTip.

Source: This tip inspired by a quick Photoshop coaching session with Robin Pederson, in-house graphic designer at MultiCare (a CreativeTechs priority support member). Photo from Ed Lowe Photography.

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Tech Tip: Access hidden Mac OS X features w/ Cocktail.

Cocktail ($12 shareware) is a general purpose utility for Mac OS X 10.2 or newer. The application gives access to hidden Mac OS X settings that are normally only accessible through terminal commands.

The Mac OS X settings Cocktail allows you to address are arranged in five basic categories: Disks, System, Files, Network, Interface. There is also a handy scheduling feature that can be set to run standard maintenance routines on your system -- including the ability to regularly repair disk permissions.

http://www.macosxcocktail.com

Source: CreativeTechs consultant Jasson Lewellen.

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Class Notes: Fonts & Mac OS X 2006.

Last week Craig Swanson reprised his popular Fonts & Mac OS X talk for students at Seattle's Cornish College of the Arts.

Here is a link to the PDF of the presentation, which includes specifics on some of the details covered:

Source: CreativeTechs's Craig Swanson speaks regularly at the School of Visual Concepts, and at other Seattle-area design focused associations.

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Share tips and win music! Each week we're giving away a pair of $15 iTunes cards to a randomly chosen new Seattle-area subscriber PLUS the friend who referred them. Pass this newsletter along using the "Forward to a Friend!" link at the bottom and tell your friend to give you credit when they sign up! Last week's winners: New QuickTips subscribers from last week's font talk: Susan Ward, tech support for Cornish's design department; plus students Jasmine Woo and Nicole Stanton.

QuickTips is a free weekly e-newsletter from CreativeTechs, Inc. 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

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