Working Smarter

If you spend a lot of time in photoshop or any software program for that matter you have probably learned a few keyboard shortcuts. Here is a great little quickie tutorial by Dave Cross on setting up your very own shortcuts in photoshop. I spent some time this morning on Planet Photoshop browsing through their terrific photoshop tutorials. This is a terrific site.

I must admit that I have only scratched the surface when it comes to using Photoshop's ease of production tools such as actions, and customizing my keyboard shortcuts. I would like 07 to be all about working smarter and not necessarily harder so I guess I need to set up a few of my own personal keyboard shortcuts today.

Why I Visit On-line Tutorials so much:
As a commercial artist I find it is easy to get into routines in my work and rely on the same techniques or the same habits of doing things that I have always done. I find the challenge in my work at this point is looking at things upside down so to speak or from a new angle to discover new ways of achieving my goals. This is never more true than with Photoshop. There are a gabillion ways of doing one thing in this software program. Those that are not familiar with Photoshop may think that all digital artists have one big "easy button" that we all use to colorize an image in the exact same way. The reality is there are dozens of ways to colorize an image, and different approaches will yield different results. By browsing tutorials you can find new solutions to issues you have been addressing that approach your challenges in different ways. If a new technique saves you even one step then that might be a few extra minutes you can spend at the park with your dog. Yea, my new mantra needs to be work smarter....work smarter ....work smarter.