I am forever in your debt hahaha.

1234567890 in photoshop changes the opacity of your brush. I use this all day.

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god yes! I agree... worst part is I know how to use it, and I always forget its there.

Magnetic tool for the win

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

holy crap... I just tried that brush opacity thing... sweet merciful wow!!! So so good!

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

Yea I use it everyday.

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Please support us and post a [Link to www.digitalartsfront.com] on your website.

its the little things that amaze me. I mean WOW i should have known they had a shortcut for that. I have to use that now!!! Mine was the right click when transforming and discovering the warp and perspective transformation tools in PS....the little things

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Yeah agreed... Its something we all go "DAMNIT WHY DIDNT I KNOW THAT!" - It seems so logical now its there - i mean if there is the fadeback shortcut then there would have to be a way to change opacity.

By the way... fadeback also changed my life when retouching. For those who havent heard me rant about how amazing that shortcut is... ctrl+shift+f - fades back your last photoshop brush stroke and allows changing of blending modes as well.

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

what's the Magnetic Lasso? ??
my fav. tool in photoshop so far - the Magic Wand (don't know if that's what you meant)
in 3dsMax, the QuickSlice and in general the whole damn Edit Poly rollout! i had hell struggling with Edit Mesh and its buggy cut tools, then discovered Edit Poly and ive never gone back to Edit Mesh even once. Brilliant stuff.

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Cogito, Ergo Sum

the magnetic lassoo is way cooler than magic wand, it sort of just clings itself to edges making cutting out hard to cut out objects really quick.

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

yeah its hard to pick a favourite tool that changed my life but if I had to choose various areas.

1. In max the whole of vray was like choir boys singing across the valley when it comes to rendering.

2. Edit poly, specifically shift extrude (sorely missing from maya) and the edge loop, edge ring tools.

3. Photoshop ctlr click to convert a channel to a selection. then ctrl s to use that channel as a layer mask. use that all the time.

4. In fusion, channel booleans are honey dipped. beats after effects and combustions options by a mile.

5. Just discovered the joys of a real video editing program, namely Avid express pro. it shits all over premier from a very great height.

6. Syntheyes is the easiest most user friendly tracking software I have tried.

7. Rayfire for breaking up meshes is frakking awesome.

8. And most recently I have started really learning Maya, and in maya there is a huge abundance of awesome stuff. the most awesome discovery so far is the set driven Key. when you want to bend a program to your will maya really does have something on the competition.

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Theres something better than Premier? I have used both premier and final cut pro. Honestly I know I should prefer final cut pro but premier seems to work better for me. Is there any trials of avid around?

Holy crap, thanks for the photoshop tip, Thats one i never knew about thats going to come in so damned handy

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

I hate avid, but that is just me.

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what do you dislike about avid? Its pretty frakking hardcore, hard to learn but after I watched a few youtube how to videos I'm finding it so much more powerfull than anything else so far. and then when I plugged in my DV camera and I found that I could just edit directly from the tape without capturing anything, all in realtime with no slow down I was sold. Not to mention 3 point edits and proper export options. I'd say its worth learning from the look of it.

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Ok maybe I should have another look at it then.

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Hey dude can you do a tute on masks and channel selections at somepoint because I dont know that stuff.

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oh my theres a few tricvks that are going to open up your workd a stack

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

I feel like the kid who does not know what sex is in pre school

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its okay, I was that kid too. Don't worry. we wil be the cool kisd soon enough

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

Sorry guys that shortcut "ctrl+s" for reveal selection was a custom one of mine. normally its save file. but the control click works then just make a short cut for reveal selection. alt+shift+ctrl+K then under layer mask make a shortcut for add reveal selection.

In a nutshell you add a layer mask to any layer then alt click into it to paint a black and white mask.
you can add layers masks by going to layer>add layer mask>reveal all. the black parts will be transparent with reveal all.
if you go to the channels tab and control click on the thumbnail you will be making a selection of the 8bit channel then you can
use the option reveal selection instead of reveal all from the menu or make a shortcut. usefull for creating masks from alpha channels when you bring in a max render or for making alpha channels for text layers. for instance. if you create a text layer then rasterize it, control click the text then go into channels and hit the "save selection as channel" button you create an alpha for the text. that also works when you have a drop shadow on the text because it will select the soft edge and transparency in the selection.

Another good shortcut is shift+ctrl+c for copy merged. press ctrl+a to select all, then shift+ctrl+c to copy everything you can see in your image not just the active layer.

Another one I always use is when you scan in an image and you need it to be straight. use the measure tool to draw along a known straight edge, then go to image>rotate canvas> abitrary then hit ok and it automatically straightens out the image based on the angle you created between the measure tool and the canvas edge.

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yea that rotate is rad. Thanks for this man you are still a teacher at heart

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No worries man. Yeah I have just been at this Maya course all week and it reminded me of teaching the max courses. Its so weird being a student again.

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Oh man you are finally learning maya. Yea dude seriously man you were one of the best teachers ive had man.

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Please support us and post a [Link to www.digitalartsfront.com] on your website.

Thanks for saying so dude.

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wow...those are helpful. thanks dude

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Cogito, Ergo Sum

Masks and channels = god.

Ctrl Click is my best friend, and alpha channels are handy for when you need to save multiple selections.

Like when you have a selection it took ages to get right, then you're like I need to do XYZ to this selection, but not before I do PQR, but thats gonna make me lose the selection. Just save it to an alpha!

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Please support us and post a [Link to www.digitalartsfront.com] on your website.

--Matt

o0o0 now ive never done that before... do tell... howww?!

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

1. select something
2. hit up your channels panel
3. tap that save selection as channel
4. now you have an alpha channel that you can ctrl+click to load as a selection

you can have as many alpha channels as you want.

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Please support us and post a [Link to www.digitalartsfront.com] on your website.

--Matt

wow dude that's great!

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Cogito, Ergo Sum

Oh I also use adjustment layers like they're freaking coke!

And I paint masks for them with a tabby.

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Please support us and post a [Link to www.digitalartsfront.com] on your website.

--Matt

i agreeeeeee i cant get enough of ajustment layers!

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

I often use separate Levels layers for each object in a scene. And mask them. Allows me to adjust it for the colours and lighting of the object, instead of having that flat one-for-all effect.

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Please support us and post a [Link to www.digitalartsfront.com] on your website.

--Matt

i do the exact same thing, One thing i really love is the grouping feature, so i group everything together and then put a mask on the group. soo soooooo good. saves me so much time.

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

Wow there's so much photoshop stuff I don't know about,

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[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

yeah tell me about it... i find out fun new things every day and just go "oh fuck i wish i knew that before"

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

yeah you Photoshop nerds put up some tutorials for the rest of us.... some "inside" tips

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Cogito, Ergo Sum

workin on it yo! in the meantime google "you suck at photoshop" - honestly the funniest and best vedio tutorials you can get in photoshop.

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

lol hilarious shit and helpful!

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Cogito, Ergo Sum

[Link to www.youtube.com]

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Cogito, Ergo Sum

hahaha it had my housemates and I giggling for weeks! So good. It apparently won awards and shizz!

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

hahaha it had my housemates and I giggling for weeks! So good. It apparently won awards and shizz!

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

*ring of deception* lmao!

don't reach for the magic wand!

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Cogito, Ergo Sum

I dont know honestly... it is hard to pick just one... It was a bit of a mind fuck going from using paintshoppro for so many years and then comming over to photoshop...and at the time was amazed at all the cool different things you can do...so photoshop in general would be mine

Oh and learning how to fix it so my tablet used pressure sensitivty all the time with out me having to re-load an old picture... that so pissed me off....

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It is ok, I wouldn't talk to me either...

gah i still have the problem... your fix didnt work!

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

Hmmm well it worsk on xp im not sure if the same will work for vista...

I dont see why it shouldnt... the best way would be to delete the config first, load up css, make usre that your presure sensivity works, then change the file to read only... but if it doesnt work, means that vista and xp version work slightly different and you will have to find the file to do that with...

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It is ok, I wouldn't talk to me either...

gah ill give it another go when i remember to. I need to fix it somehow dam it!

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

Im assuming your still using cs3?? cause by what i hear they fixed the problem in cs4... But yeah, i know it works 100% in windows xp, it may not work on vista
Oh also, you dont use a mouse do you?? like ever?? because you maybe able to work around it by un-installing all your mice drivers and only using your tablet??

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It is ok, I wouldn't talk to me either...

yeah i do use my mouse heaps, just because the graphics tablet gets in the way of my keyboard when im typing, so i move it out the way, fun times.

I might have to get cs4 at some point. I saw Antheas version of it, but I cant justify upgrading just yet. It seems cool. No imediate features stand out to me though, only fixing of the graphics tablet. And so far I can cope with closing photoshop down every so often when the graphics tablet choses not to work.

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

Yeah nothing in CS4 seems like that big of a chane....unlike going from cs2 to 3 it all seemed really different....

I had a speical "load in case photoshop dont work" file that I had on hand anytime it went spazz on me >.<

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It is ok, I wouldn't talk to me either...

hahaha i have a few of those laying around. but I havent had any photoshop spazzes in a while. Except for an anoying freezing bug sometimes... but that may be because my computer is currently bug ridden to hell. fuck avg

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

Yeah photoshop has been kind to me as late... in fact after I got the new stuff she (my computer) has been running really well....*touch wood*

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It is ok, I wouldn't talk to me either...

yeah i do use my mouse heaps, just because the graphics tablet gets in the way of my keyboard when im typing, so i move it out the way, fun times.

I might have to get cs4 at some point. I saw Antheas version of it, but I cant justify upgrading just yet. It seems cool. No imediate features stand out to me though, only fixing of the graphics tablet. And so far I can cope with closing photoshop down every so often when the graphics tablet choses not to work.

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

When using the eraser tools on a mask... hit "x" to swap between black and white... or "remove layer mask" or "Add to layer mask"

I learnt that one and went "oh my... wow... DAMN so much faster"


Also im listening to triple j and some cu*nt has stuffed up an old wendy mathews song by remixing it into some bad rap mix. Sweet merciful shit... IS NOTHING SACRED?

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Gee Greenslade [Link to www.missgee.net]

for any maya users, select a mesh hold right click and go to edge mode select an edge then hold ctrl and right click this opens up a whole host of helpful tools. theres select border edge, edge loop utilities which is pretty handy and options to convert selection to vertices. very useful. if your in edge mode and hold shift and right click it opens up another menu of handy things. enjoy!

edit: theres actually different tools with the same shortcuts depending on what selection mode your in. good stuff

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and it's a story that might bore you, but you don't have to listen, because I always knew it was going to be like that.

Planted keys in biped are handy, as is the TCB rollout.

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[Link to www.3dprevis.com]