A smart object is basically a shortcut or a reference to some original data so you have an external file which appears in a layer in your photoshop document but remains in its original place. If you subsequently change the original image any references to it in you new photoshop document will reflect the changes. Smart objects will be covered in our Beginners Photoshop Training training course in Brighton, Sussex.
You can convert one or any number of layers into a smart object in your active photoshop document.
Smart objects are created automatically when you place an Illustrator, raw or another Photoshop image into your document.
If you double-click the thumbnail for a Smart Object, the embedded (original) file opens.
Any edits you make on the open file will update automatically in your new document when you save the external or referenced file. You can reference the original file many times in your psd and all instances of it will update.
To create a Smart Object, do one of the following:
- Select one or more layers from the Layers panel
- Right-click (Mac: Ctrl-click) the while the layer or layers are selected and choose Convert to Smart Object
Read more
Posted by Heather Buckley in Photoshop Training on April 27th, 2009 | No Comments »
Want to learn more about Photoshop – we offer a comprehensive range of courses including an Adobe Photoshop for Web Graphics workshop.
Upgrading Photoshop is expensive and some may wonder if it is worth upgrading to Adobe Photoshop CS4. If you’ve been trying to determine whether to upgrade to Photoshop CS4 look first at the new features listed on the official adobe Photoshop site. One great new feature the use GPU and OpenGL acceleration (to ordinary people this means Photoshop should be much quicker). A GPU is dedicated to calculations needed for graphics. OpenGL tells your GPU what it is working with and how to manipulate it. It will make your Graphics Card do some of the work your central processing system used to do.
To make use of the new GPU accelerations, your graphics card must have a minimum of 128 MB of memory and support OpenGL 2.0 along with something called Shader Model 3.0. If you’re not sure if you’ve got all these, Photoshop CS4 can tell you.
- Go to Edit >> Preferences >> Performance and look for the check box for “GPU Settings.”
online casino net
- If your GPU qualifies, the model will be listed and the box will be checked.
- If this area is blank, Photoshop doesn’t think your system has what it takes.
- If you think you do have a GPU that is up to the task, make sure your video driver is updated.
With GPU acceleration enabled, the experience of using Photoshop is greatly improved. Now when you zoom in and out, the size of everything changes evenly smoothly and, the view remains sharp at all magnification ratios. When you zoom above 500% you can now turn on a pixel grid view that outlines single pixels so you can see what you are editing.
If you hold down the H key (active the hand tool) then left mouse click on your image you can activate the “Bird’s Eye View” feature to show you where you are at. The view will zoom out to display you the total image and a bounding box appears centered where you clicked, move your mouse around and the box will follow. Let go and the image will zoom back into the scale you were at previously but at the new location. These tools are smooth and fast.
Holding down the space bar allows you to “flick” scroll the image with your mouse, by clicking and dragging in the direction you want to scroll and the image.
If you’re already using Photoshop and wish to upgrade to CS4 and your graphics card doesn’t support this feature, get a new graphics card.
Read more
Posted by Heather Buckley in Photoshop Training on February 24th, 2009 | No Comments »
Part 1.2: Introduction to the Home Page
The first page that you will design will be the ‘Home Page’. This is the main page of your website that visitors will view once they have entered your domain name in their browser. For example, if you type in the domain name http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk you will automatically be forwarded to the ‘Home Page’ on the site.
All this is covered in our comprehensive Dreamweaver course in Brighton, Sussex.
The ‘Home Page’ main function is to include important information relating to your website, including a short description about what the site is all about and relevant links to useful pages.
If you look at http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk, the home page instantly tells you what product it is selling and the service it provides. It is easy to navigate because it points visitors to specific locations where they can find more information about a certain training course or service. This also relates to personal websites, because you still need the main page to give the visitor a good idea of what your website entails.
How to Design the Home Page of Your Website in Dreamweaver CS4
1: Using the template we selected before, Dreamweaver generates a two column web page. You will see a horizontal bar across the top of your page labelled “Header”. Insert the name of your website here. Under the header there are two columns. The narrow left column, called the “sidebar”, is where you will eventually place your navigation menu. The wide right column, entitled “Main Content” is where you will place the bulk of your web page’s content.
2: Directly above “Header”, there is a section that says “Title:” followed by a field that contains “Untitled Document”. This field is the text that the search engines will show as being the title of your web page when it displays the results of a search. It is also the text shown by a web browser in the title bar of the browser window when it displays your page.
Highlight the words ‘Untitled Document’, and type in your website name.
Please note the web browser does not display it in the body of your web page because it is an internal field. As mentioned above, the field is only shown in the title bar of the browser window itself. Although it doesn’t show in the body of a web page, it is an important part of the page, so it should not be left as “Untitled Document”.
3: Now we move on to the visible part of your web page. Highlight the word “Header” and replace it with the name of your website.
4: Next, replace the “Main Content” section of the web page with your real content. Highlight the “Main Content” text, press delete and replace with some appropriate content.
Once this is done, replace the “Lorem ipsum dolor” with your own words by clicking anywhere in the top line. Typing and editing text in Dreamweaver works the same as if you were using a word processor.
The “H2 level heading” subtitle is there to show you that you can have subtitles in your documents as well. Replace it, along with the text below, or whatever you want.
Please take a look at the following example text:
Welcome
Silicon Beach Training offer quality, cost effective training to industry and individuals. Our training courses allow beginners and professionals to expand their IT, business and management skills. Small classes allow clients plenty of individual assistance from our experienced trainers.
Featured Product
Popular courses include Project Management, Dreamweaver training, Photoshop training, Systems Development and Business Analysis courses, Leadership training and Web Design training.
5: You do not need to change anything in the left column (sidebar). You will be adding a navigation menu to this section in later chapters
6: Scroll down to the bottom of the page and locate the horizontal bar labelled “Footer”. Replace the word “Footer” with anything you like e.g. a copyright notice. The copyright symbol, ©, can be inserted by clicking “Insert > HTML > Special Characters > Copyright” from the menu.
7: Once you are happy with your web page, save it by clicking “File > Save As…”. Type “index.html” (without the quotation marks) into the “File name” field and click the “Save” button.
IMPORTANT: the name “index.html” must be typed exactly as shown, in lowercase letters and no spaces between the words. Do not use any other name. Files with the name “index.html” are regarded as special files by most web servers. Published correctly, when a visitor accesses your website by just the domain name, like http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk the web server will automatically deliver to them the “index.html” file in your site’s main folder.
You have now created your home page.
Read more
Posted by Aaron Charlie in Dreamweaver Tutorial on March 13th, 2009 | No Comments »
){kind=link}