Bad Photoshop Habits And Mistakes You Need To Break Right Away
Composite image by DesignTAXI via Shutterstock
It’s no secret that Adobe Photoshop has revolutionized modern graphic design and photography in recent decades. With its editability and intelligent tools, it’s notably lightened the workload of designers everywhere.
If you use the software’s tools properly, Photoshop significantly shaves time off work and has the potential to produce excellent quality graphics. But stay complacent, and you’ll likely encounter the very problems that creatives during the pre-Photoshop era came across.
Old habits die hard, so how do you avoid repeating 27-year-old mistakes? Photoshop educator Dave Cross has experienced it all since the conception of the software. In an article by creativeLIVE, he shares some common time-wasting mistakes artists and designers make that can be easily avoidable, what with Photoshop’s advanced technology.
If, like everyone, you hate having to re-edit original files because of a mistake you made, read on to find out which Photoshop habits you need to break right away.
1. Forgoing your ability to edit
Image by FunPic.us via GIPHY
Photoshop developed its native ‘PSD’ file format for a reason. It allows you to render images without flattening them—which means you’ll be able to go back to their layers and easily make more changes. Use this to your advantage.
It’s always wiser to save a copy of your files in ‘PSD’ format, and not a ‘TIFF’. This way, you can come back six months later and work on the editable image when you need it.
2. Adding vignettes the old-fashioned way
Back in the day, you had to fill a new layer with black and feather it with a marquee selection tool if you wanted to make a vignette. If the effect didn’t come out right, you had to redo this cumbersome process all over again.
Things have changed, and you won’t have a dark cloud forming a vignette over your mood anymore. There’s now a “much more editable, flexible and reusable” way to add a vignette. Simply “use an adjustment layer, darken with curves, make your selection, fill with black on the mask and use the feather slider to your heart’s content.”
3. Skimping on masks
Dave says, “Deleting and erasing is a quick fix that is very permanent that leads you to problems.” If you’re not ready to throw your computer off the table, always remember to use masks instead. A mask allows you to preserve all information in a file and you can return to it at a later time.
4. Over-depending on the history panel
Image by Reddit via GIPHY
“The history panel is a short term fix that will come back and bite you later,” and relying on it actually restricts yourself. It only keeps track of “linear” changes and if you want to undo a change from step 4, all changes you’ve made after that have to be reversed.
The history panel is also only relevant at the session of use. After you have saved and closed your file, you can’t go back to it and make changes.
Learn more by reading the article here.
[via creativeLIVE, images via various sources]
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