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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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?

Adobe Acrobat has many built in features to view, fix, and control prepress issues — including spot and process colors, printer marks, preflighting, and fonts. These various tools can take much of the guesswork out of files when preparing PDFs for commercial printing.

The Output Preview dialog box for example is a terrific tool that allows you to inspect individual color plates in a process or spot color print job, as well as simulating how your PDF will look in different printing conditions.

Note: That's a PDF of our Mac Maintenance Checklist used to demo this tip.

If you want to attract visitors to your studio's website (or if you design websites for clients) you really must understand and use Google's collection of Webmaster Tools. This free service from Google provides you with detailed reports about your website's visibility on Google, as well as giving you valuable ways to influence how your website appears in search results.

Link: Google Webmaster Tools

In this tip we'll dig into this powerful resource that is key for harnessing Google as a marketing vehicle for your creative studio. As part of that discussion, we'll show how you can answer the following questions:

1. When was the last time Google indexed your website?
2. Are there any bad links or missing pages on your site?
3. Does your website's content reflect your brand and target market?
4. Who is linking to your website?
5. How can you make your Flash-based site more findable?
6. Can you stop Google from indexing photos in your portfolio?
7. How do you remove something from Google's search results?

Tim, I will miss you. Sundays won't be the same without you.

Apple's Word Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) sold out this year for the first time ever. For those of us who aren't lucky enough to be down in San Francisco this week, Apple has posted the 1 hour and 45 minute video.

Watch it online on Apple's website:

Link: Apple WWDC 2008 Keynote

Or download the video to your own iPhone/iPod from Apple's new Keynote Podcast in iTunes. This latest video has been posted along with many other historic presentations:

Link: Apple Keynotes Podcast

Too busy? Read past the jump for a great 60-second version of the WWDC Keynote.

Welcome to our special iPhone tips edition. This Monday in San Francisco, Steve Jobs is kicking off Apple's World Wide Developer Conference with a keynote that should unveil Apple's new second-generation iPhone.

If you find yourself with a hankerin' to start designing the next big iPhone gadget, we'd like to direct you to a free set of templates from Yahoo Developer's Network. This free download includes (among other things) an editable collection of iPhone interface elements. Open their PDF iPhone stencil in Illustrator and you can snap together your own iPhone design from dozens of editable elements.

Link: Yahoo! Design Stencil Kit version 1.0