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A few Photoshop Questions


Lee Mac

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OK, I don't frequent this forum too much, but I do have a few Photoshop questions that I am dying to get answered, as they have been bugging me lately.

 

These are maybe pretty "noobish", but I don't use Photoshop all too often...

 

OK, let me first say that I am using Photoshop CS2 (if that makes a difference at all).

 

  • Is there any way to PAN in photoshop? I really want Photoshop to be more like AutoCAD and be able to pan around an image using the mouse. It annoys me when I am editing the edges of the image that I cannot pan so that the edge of the image is in the middle of the screen.

  • When drawing shapes such as Circles, Ellipses, lines in Photoshop, is there a way to change such things as colour/lineweight/maybe add a shadow to them? Or do you have to use the blending options for the whole layer? (I can't even get this to work for it...!)

  • Is there a way to create the "edge effects" that I see some of you guys use when posting snippets of images, like this:

 

or this that done
manually
? And how is the
shadow
added? - is that through the blending options for the layer?

 

 

Thank you for you time guys, you know its appreciated. :)

 

Cheers,

 

Lee

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To Pan, just hold down the Spacebar. This will temporarily enable Panning. Once you let go of the Spacebar, you will be returned to whatever tool you were using.

 

Yes, you can modify any part of your document at any time with selections, masks, channels, etc. Good layer management is also important. And yes, blending options do effect the entire layer.

 

There are many tutorials online that cover that "Torn Edge" look. Here's one: http://www.photoshoplab.com/ripped-and-torn-edges-and-stuff.html. You can add a drop shadow in the blending options.

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Many thanks Rod, I shall look into that tutorial.

 

With regards to the spacebar, I'm surprised I hadn't found that!...thanks for pointing that out. However, I have noticed that I still can't edit the very edge of my image in the center of the screen, and I somtimes have to move my toolbars around to get at parts of the image, as I can't pan past the image extents. Is there any way around this?

 

Thanks,

 

Lee

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The torn edges shown in the thread you point to were actually made using Snagit which I use a lot for screen capture when writing tutorials. However, the same or similar effects can be created in Photoshop either manually or using a Filter.

 

You can Pan in a Photoshop image using spacebar as Rod has suggested but there is also a Pan tool (hand icon) on the toolbar.

 

It isn't possible to pan such that the edge of an image appears in the centre of the screen so what I tend to do is to drag the window to increase the size, giving a descent margin around the image.

 

The best way to draw circles and ellipses is to use "Stroke". Start by making an elliptical selection with the elliptical marquee tool (hold Shift for a circle). Then create a new layer. Select a suitable foreground colour. Menu Edit>Stroke. Set width and placement and OK. The ellipse is created around your selection and because it's on a new layer, it can be moved in relation to the background image for accurate positioning. Also, you can add a drop-shadow effect by clicking the Layer Effects button on the Layers palette. So the result is something like this:

 

short02.png

 

Hope this helps.

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Excellent advice David, thanks :)

 

Its a shame that cannot pan further than the edge, perhaps something for the Adobe wishlist.

 

Thanks for the advice about the torn edges, I shall give that a go and report back :thumbsup:

 

Lee

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  • 7 months later...

Lee if you want to be able to pan with the edge of the image in the middle of the screen then go to View>Screen Mode>Full Screen Mode with Menu Bars. That way you can do exactly what you want. 8)

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  • 8 months later...

Adding strokes is really easy if you use the layer styles dialog box. Double click on your layer and you'll see a wide variety of things to choose from. See screenshots:

Layer Style.jpg

Layer Style_2.jpg

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Sorry I haven't checked back to this thread in a while, so I've only just seen these two replies :oops:

 

Lee if you want to be able to pan with the edge of the image in the middle of the screen then go to View>Screen Mode>Full Screen Mode with Menu Bars. That way you can do exactly what you want. 8)

 

Finally! That panning problem has been annoying me for ages - your full screen idea makes things much easier. Thanks for that!

 

Adding strokes is really easy if you use the layer styles dialog box. Double click on your layer and you'll see a wide variety of things to choose from.

 

Thanks BBankston - I usually go to Edit >> Stroke, but thanks for demonstrating another way to approach it :)

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The spacebar is a lot easier, but you can also activate it by hitting the "H" (for hand) key and it will switch to PS's version of pan. This is just the old way I remember from using back in PS7.

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