CreativeTechs Tips

There is something immensely satisfying about discovering a Photoshop feature that's been sitting in front of you for years. The Copy Merged command has been waiting patiently in Photoshop's edit menu for well over a decade. Yet I've missed it all that time. A quick poll of savvy Seattle Photoshop production artists tells me I'm not the only one who missed this gem.

If you're working on a multi-layer Photoshop document and want to copy a portion of the combined image into another document, simply choose Edit > Copy Merged (command+shift+C) to copy a flattened version of your selection. You can paste anywhere you like — including a newly created file if you wish.

Read the Full Tip: "Discover Copy Merged in Photoshop." »

Tip posted on July 21, 2008 |

Here is a nice, quick one. If you’re working on an (ahem!) important confidential document and someone walks into the room who shouldn’t see your screen, you can instantly darken you Mac's screen by pressing ctrl-shift-eject. To turn the brightness back to where it was, press any key or move the mouse.

Read the Full Tip: "Instantly Darken your Mac's Monitor." »

Tip posted on July 21, 2008 |

Are you working on a product packaging job? Here's a way to combine digital product photography with Adobe Photoshop Smart Objects in CS2 or CS3 to create quick virtual prototypes. The process is fairly easy once you understand the technique, and can be used for some pretty remarkable results.

Read the Full Tip: "Prototype Packaging using Photoshop Smart Objects." »

Tip posted on July 14, 2008 |

The AIGA|Aquent Survey of Design Salaries 2008 is now available.

This survey is widely recognized as the most comprehensive look into how creative professionals are compensated. The results are drawn from responses from more than 6,200 design professionals across the United States.

Link: Design Salaries 2008

Curious how you stack up with your peers? The website has a location-based salary calculator that lets you compare average salaries using a wide range of variables.

Link: AIGA|Aquent Salary Calculator

Play with this handy tool and you can uncover a wealth of details:

• What's the average salary for a Creative Director in Seattle?
• How do salaries compare between design studios and in-house design departments?
• How do different cities compare in creative salaries?
• What is the trend for designer salaries over the last several years?

Enjoy the research.

Read the Full Tip: "2008 Annual Designer Salary Survey. " »

Tip posted on July 14, 2008 |

RSS feeds are a great way to stay updated whenever new articles (or tips) are posted to your favorite blogs. But the usefulness doesn't stop there. As you become more comfortable using RSS feeds, you'll discover all sorts of handy ways you can use RSS to grow your business.

For example, you can turn any search on Craigslist into a personalized RSS feed that notifies you whenever newly posted listings fit your search criteria.

Read the Full Tip: "Track Craigslist Opportunities using RSS." »

Tip posted on July 07, 2008 |

Try this test on your Mac: Select a collection of ten image files in the Finder and open them in Photoshop. You can either double-click the files, or drag them together onto the Photoshop icon in your dock.

Do they open up in the order you expected? Do they open in alphanumeric or chronological order? Chances are Photoshop opens the images in a seemingly random order. How frustrating!

This annoyance isn't limited to Photoshop. With a few notable exceptions, opening a list of files from the Mac OS X Finder results in a random order in most applications. In this tip we'll describe 3 workarounds to solve this annoying behavior.

Read the Full Tip: "Avoid the Finder's Odd Sort When Opening Files." »

Tip posted on July 07, 2008 |

Each week we get emails and phone calls from readers outside of Seattle who want to sign up for one of our workshops. We've been promising an online test of these classes for people in other parts of the country.

So we're opening the question up to you: What topics are you most interested in? Visit this quick survey and simply check off any topics you'd like to see offered as an online webinar:

Survey: CreativeTechs Online Workshop Topics

The responses we get to this survey will help us determine whether to offer online workshops. So if you are interested, please participate.

Tip posted on July 06, 2008 |

As we head into America's July 4th holiday weekend, I was looking for something fun to lighten things up. Ah, yes. This should do nicely. Here is a five minute music video with the inimitatable Deke McClelland singing (rapping?) out 101 Photoshop Tips in just over five minutes.

We transcribed all 101 tips, so do check out the full list. Even the most seasoned Photoshop expert should discover plenty of gems. My own list included tips 14, 62, 80, 81, 85 and 98.

Read the Full Tip: "101 Photoshop Tips in 5 Minutes" »

Tip posted on June 30, 2008 |

Each summer around this time, Veer publishes their annual Summer Activity Book for Creatives. Each workbook is 100 pages of full-color brain-teasing fun. Spend glorious summer hours playing designer-specific games, puzzles, and more.

PDFs of the last four editions:

Veer Activity Book 2007

Veer Activity Book 2006

Veer Activity Book 2005

Veer Activity Book 2004

Enjoy the upcoming extended weekend. See you next week!

Read the Full Tip: "Veer's Summer Activity Books for Creatives." »

Tip posted on June 30, 2008 |

On June 20, 2008, we performed a Google search using the phrase "Seattle graphic design."

Out of about 722,000 total results, we carefully studied the top 10 websites Google identified as the best match for our search keywords.

Then we compared Google's results to a list of the top 10 Seattle design firms drawn from the 2008 edition of Media Inc’s annual Northwest Graphic Design list.

It's instructive to consider the differences between these lists. Large prominent design firms such as Hornall Anderson, HL2, Fitch, and Methodolgie are largely absent from Google's results. While smaller (some relatively unknown) studios managed to grab Google's top slots.

How do they do it? How do smaller studios like Page 3 Design, Eben Deisgn, and Design Hovie Studios beat out the big Seattle design firms in Google's search results?

More importantly, can you learn how to accomplish the same results for your own studio?

Read the Full Tip: "SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for Graphic Designers." »

Tip posted on June 23, 2008 |