If you download a lot of custom Photoshop brushes, you have probably found yourself looking for an easy way to preview what those brushes look like before loading them into Photoshop and trying them out.

Our friend, James Dempsey at The Graphic Mac wrote up two handy tools that make previewing your custom brushes a snap. Both tools are quicker and easier than loading all your brushes into Photoshop in order to see what they look like.

Lots of web designers rely on Chris Pedrick’s Web Developer extension for Firefox. It’s one of many reasons Firefox is such a popular browser for web development. I’ve used this Firefox every week for years. We covered this in a tip back in 2006:

Archive Tip: Great Web Developer extension for Firefox.

So you may appreciate my happiness at discovering the greatly improved web inspector Apple has built into the new Safari 4 beta. Apple’s marketing claims this is the best set of development tools ever included in a browser. As I get to know Safari 4 better, I’m inclined to agree.

Need to build some Flash skills? Swinburne University in Australia has posted almost 10 hours of free Flash videos taught by members of their design faculty. You can access the tutorials directly from their podcasts website, or subscribe in iTunes:

Swinburne Podcasts: Faculty of Design – Flash

iTunes U: Swinburne University Flash Tutorials

This collection of tutorials features training in Flash MX 2004. That’s a few versions back, but the learning applies to newer versions of Flash as well. It’s a good, free place to start building your Flash skills.

Longtime readers of this tips newsletter know we love a good cheatsheet. When I’m mastering a new graphics application, I’ll tack a concise list of keyboard shortcuts on the wall next to where I’m working. If you are anything like me, you’ll dig these free shortcut guides from Noble Desktop:

Noble Desktop Keyboard Shortcut Guides

This collection of free PDF cheatsheets include guides for InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and QuarkXPress (Mac or PC format). Download a few, print them out, and start saving time.

When you are drawing with the Adobe pen tool, keep an eye on those small modifiers that appear in the lower-right of the pen icon. They change as you use the pen tool depending on what you do or which part of a path you hover over.

If you are new to the pen tool (or want a quick refresher) print this handy cheat sheet and train yourself to pay attention to the subtle cursor changes. Once you get to know them, the different icons remind you of the action you are about to perform.