Photoshop cafe Newsletter

Welcome to the February issue of the CAFÉ cup!

Welcome to layers of fun,

Last month I said that we were going to feature tons of tips in this issue and we have! I have decided to focus on Photoshop layers and provide some tips for working faster and smarter.

First up I want to congratulate the winners of the 5th PhotoshopCAFE Design Challenge who won $6,000 in prizes including a copy of Creative Suite Premium from Adobe. The entries were excellent and it was tough to decide on the winners. Congrats to Doug Cloud, Phil Desmarais and Adam Tucker! Honorable mentions go out to Davey Wallis, Frank Priboy, Brad Strickland, Shane Paraone and Bilan Andrei Teodor.

Keep your eye on the home page as we are kicking off a new column for Digital Photographers this month. Photographer and trainer, Tim Cooper from Rocky Mountain School of Photography will be contributing some amazing articles.

Tell your friends and get them to sign up on the list, they may just win a prize. Prizes awarded weekly! As always this list will never be shared or sold to slimy spammers. Write to me and let me know what you would like to see in the Newsletter.

CONGRATULATIONS TO LAST MONTHS WINNERS WHO ARE:
Sue Schwegler - Down and Dirty Tricks DVD by Scott Kelby
Carol - Down and Dirty Tricks DVD by Scott Kelby
Lori Goding- Down and Dirty Tricks DVD by Scott Kelby
John Seacastle- Down and Dirty Tricks DVD or book by Scott Kelby

Prizes Kindly Provided by NAPP and ScottKelbyBooks.com
(If you are a winner you will be contacted my myself and Bruce from NAPP)

Tip: Layer Linking made easy Hold down Ctrl+Shift (Cmd+Shift Mac) and click on the layers in your document. As you click they will be linked togeter, click again to unlink.

Photoshop CD brand new site

Check out the newly redesigned PhotoshopCD site. All of Colin's videos are avaliable here. See the Specials page for different Bundle deals. You can also email us for special bundles if you don't see the combination that you need.

Check out the free movie clips on the site too.

check it out now.

Tip: Selecting layers Hold down Ctrl/Cmd and click on an object in your document window to make it the active layer.

Design Challenge #5 WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Congratulations to the winners of the 5th PhotoshopCAFE Design Challenge who won $6,000 in prizes including a copy of Creative Suite Premium from Adobe. The entries were excellent and it was tough to decide on the winners. Congrats to Doug Cloud, Phil Desmarais and Adam Tucker! Honorable mentions go out to Davey Wallis, Frank Priboy ,Brad Strickland, Shane Paraone and Bilan Andrei Teodor.

Thanks to all the sponsers of this contest!

See the Winning entries here

Is it possible to get quality Royalty free stock photos for $1.50? Sure is, check out istockphoto - They also have Flash movies and Illustrator files.

Coffee With Colin

Layers were introduced in Photoshop 3.0. This totally revolutionized Photoshop. For the first time you could do complex compositions easily without having to be a channels guru. I remember before layers, if a client wanted to make changes to a composition, or even change a font you were in big trouble.

There is a lot to layers and they will take some time to master. But they are not that difficult once you understand how they work. In this tutorial I will explain the concept of layers, describe the features and walk you through a simple tutorial. Along the way I will throw in a few cool tips to help you work faster and easier.

Read Layers Primer

Documents to layers The first step in creating a collage involves opening several images and placing them all on layers. There is a free script which will do this for you in Photoshop CS. Get AV Bros Collector now, also check out their other cool products.

New book out now! How to Wow - Photoshop for the Web

Author of the Photoshop WOW books - Jack Davis invited myself and Jan Kabili to write a book in the new "How to Wow " series.

This book is full of cool designs and techniques to make your sites pop with mouth-watering eye candy. Included CD with project files.

See more here

REPORT: PhotoshopCAFE and Colin on the road

Coming UP, these are events that Colin will be at:

Photoshop World Las Vegas (PhotoshopCAFE booth and the Portfolio tour, featuring work from members of PhotoshopCAFE)
PIDE San Diego (Workshops and seminar)

More coming soon!

Navigating the layers Palette

You can navigate the layers Palette by using the Left and right bracket keys [ ] Different Modifyier key will do different things

Alt/Option [ ] Navigate up and down the Palette
Ctrl/Cmd [ ] Move the layer up and down the Palette
Alt/Option + Shift [ ] Navigate to the top/bottom
Ctrl/Cmd + Shift[ ] Move the layer to the top/bottom

New book out now! Photoshop/ Dreamweaver Integration

If you are familiar with the hugely popular Super Tutorial on building a web site with Photoshop and Dreamweaver, or my book "From Photoshop to Dreamweaver", you will LOVE this book. This is not an update, this is a COMPLETELY NEW BOOK! This is all the stuff I wish I had put in the previous book such as Expanded explanation of slices and tables, frames and iframes, liquid sites, e-commerce, drop down menus and more. This is a FULL COLOR simple to follow guide that will take you through concept to upload of the DreamweaverCAFE site. It is also flexible enough that you can apply the lessons to any site! I wrote this as the book I wish I had when I started designing web sites.

See more here

Tip: Create a layer that merges all the layers without flattening. Create a composite layer by going to the top of the layers palette. Hold down Alt+Shift+Ctrl (Option+ Shift+Cmd) Press N and then E. Release the keys and there you have it.

Thanks for tuning into the CAFE Cup and remember: Create don't Steal! See you at the cafe

You can subscribe to receive the free CAFE cup each month here. (Note: You will never be spammed)