This is one of those tips that is hard to describe or visualize. But when we demonstrate it to someone new, we usually hear “Wow, that’s cool.”

Adobe Acrobat Pro includes a special OCR (Optical character recognition) feature you can use to convert scanned documents into searchable PDFs. The twist with Acrobat Pro is that instead of converting your scan to a straight text file, you can leave the visual appearance of your scanned document untouched, and yet the text itself becomes selectable and searchable in Acrobat.

If you find yourself needing to quickly remove the background from an image in Photoshop, take a moment to play with the background eraser tool. (Click-and-hold on the eraser in Photoshop’s tool pallet to choose this tool). The background eraser samples the color in the center of the brush. It deletes that color and softens […]

What’s the fastest way to straighten a crooked or tilted photograph? This is one of those classic bread-and-butter Photoshop tips that sometimes slips through even the most experienced designer’s bag of tricks.

Select the tape measure tool (it shares space with the eyedropper in Photoshop’s toolbox) and drag a line across part of your image that should be straight horizontal or vertical. Then choose Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary.

Photoshop auto-calculates the value required to straighten your image. Click OK and your image is all squared up.

You are designing a website for a client (maybe you partner with a web developer who does the coding for you). How do you test your final design to make sure everything looks correct on all the different web browsers and operating systems out there? Unless you have a studio filled with testing computers, you […]

Most people know how to use the Apple (Cmd) key with “+” and “-” to zoom in and out within a Photoshop document. But if you have a mouse with a scroll wheel, there is a faster way. Hold down OPTION when you spin your mouse’s scroll wheel, and Photoshop zooms in and out on […]