Today I have to share Stone House seamless tiling patterns. Patterns are saved with .pat extension and can be used in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Patterns are useful for Web and Print design. The license is free for personal and commercial projects as and everything else listed in freebies section and on my site Photoshop Plus > Free.
In this video tutorial, I will cover how to record flexible Photoshop actions. Flexible actions do not depend on document orientation, proportions or dimensions. You just run action and it delivers exactly what you need and what you expect.
What are flexible actions?
Flexible actions (my personal naming convention) are something like responsive layout which is adapting to any screen. In this case, action will adopt elements to document dimensions, proportions, and orientation. What is the trick? The trick is to change ruler's measurement unit to Percent while recording Photoshop action.
You can set measurement unit to a percent using right click on View > Rulers. That will instruct Photoshop to use relative, percent based units instead of hard units like: Pixels, Millimeters or Centimeters.
How flexible actions can be useful
You can, for example, automate the creation of layout which you will use as starting point. The layout is arrangement of page elements. If you have your favorite arrangement to use as a starting point then you can automate that task regardless of page (document) orientation, proportions, and dimensions. This can be useful when creating photo books, photo albums or web pages and web page elements. Read this tutorial which features entire set with flexible layout actions.
Limitations of flexible actions
Now we know miracle and top secret! Hold on, as and everything else, flexible actions has its limitations. Everything will work just fine with basic shapes and selections in some cases what depend on what you want to automate. For complex shapes and operations you must limit flexibility to the same document proportions or/and dimensions what we will cover in some of my next tutorials.
Video tutorial
Here is my video recording which will explain to you why and how to record and use flexible actions. I have included and some technical details for better understanding. If you have any question or doubt, please do not hesitate to leave comments.
Product used in this tutorial: Adobe Photoshop CC 2017
In this quick video tip, I will explain to you how to import or how to load seamless tiling patterns in Adobe Photoshop.
About seamless tiling patterns in Photoshop
Seamless tiling patterns in Photoshop are bitmap images that repeat themselves horizontally and vertically. Although Photoshop ships with a couple of very useful sets, most of the designers and Photoshop users are creating their own or downloading seamless tiling patterns from the internet sites like Adobe Add-ons.
How to import seamless tiling patterns
After downloading patterns, there is one more step to start using them. Common questions that users are asking me:
How to get patterns in Photoshop?
How to install downloaded patterns in Photoshop?
Where patterns go?
Most of the tutorials on the internet are using word "load" to explain how to get a set of patterns ready for use in Photoshop. The reason for this is button Load which appears in Preset Manager and some other dialogs and can be used to import seamless tiling patterns in Photoshop.
Guess what? You do not need necessary to use Load button to import patterns in Photoshop. There is one quick and easy way using File > Open > navigate to file with .pat extension and double click on it. That's it! You have imported/loaded seamless tiling patterns and you can start using them.
Video tutorial
Here is my video recording which is explaining two quick and easy ways to import or load seamless tiling patterns in Photoshop.
Product used in this tutorial: Adobe Photoshop CC 2017.0.1
Today I have to share Argyle Knitwear seamless tiling patterns. Patterns are saved with .pat extension and can be used in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Patterns are useful for Web and Print design. The license is free for personal and commercial projects as and everything else listed in freebies section and on my site Photoshop Plus > Free.
Anchored objects in Adobe InDesign have attached images or text boxes to some text. Anchored objects will travel with text which contains anchor what can save you tons of time.
In this tip, I will explain to you custom anchored object options in Adobe InDesign. Custom options give you the power to position anchored object anywhere inside or outside the text box.
Video tutorial
Here is my video recording which explains why and how to use custom anchored object options in Adobe InDesign. If you have any difficulties or further questions, please do not hesitate to leave comments.
Product used in this tutorial: Adobe Indesign CC 2017
Masks are one of building blocks of Adobe Photoshop. We are using masks to hide and reveal a certain portion of the layer, applied filter, adjustment layer, layer style...
Usually, we are creating a layer (bitmap) mask using selection or by painting. Sometimes it is easier to select a background or what we need to mask out then to invert the selection. It may happen that you have created, accidentally, the opposite mask of what you really want depend on technique and tools that you are using. The solution is simple and easy: invert layer mask by inverting colors on it using keyboard shortcutCtrl/Cmd + I.
Vector mask - why and how to invert it
Another type of mask is vector mask which is usually created using shape tools and the Pen tool. Almost every tool has its options in the Options bar. One of the options is Path operations which determine the behavior of created path: to combine, subtract, intersect or exclude overlapping areas.
Path operations are manual options and remain default unless the user changes it to something else. It may happen that Path operations is set wrong for what you want to achieve and created mask is not delivering expected result. The good news is that Path operations can be changed even after drawing path what will "invert" vector mask and give you expected and desired masking result.
Video tutorial
Here is my video recording which explains why and how to invert layer and vector masks in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any difficulties or further questions, please do not hesitate to leave comments.
Product used in this tutorial: Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 Reference: Mask layers
Today I have to share Windswept Sand seamless tiling patterns. Patterns are saved with .pat extension and can be used in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Patterns are useful for Web and Print design. The license is free for personal and commercial projects as and everything else listed in freebies section and on my site Photoshop Plus > Free.
