Opacity shortcuts

There are about a bazillion keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop and Elements, and you can't learn them all at once.

At first, focus your attention on the most important ones in the toolbar - C for the Crop Tool, B for the Brush Tool, V for the Move Tool, etc.  Those are the ones that you'll use frequently, and therefore they'll save you the most time.

Once you've mastered those, you should aim to gradually add more shortcuts to your subconscious arsenal.  Every time you can press a key instead of moving your mouse to a tool/menu/slider, you've saved yourself a second or two.  And even though a second or two doesn't seem like much, a lot of little time savings can seriously add up to a faster workflow.

I want to tell you about the keyboard shortcuts that have saved me the most time - brush opacity.

Changing the opacity of your brush is a tedious thing to do with the mouse.  It's not just one click, it's two or three.  You have to reach up to the toolbar, click for the slider to appear, then slide it; or click to highlight the numeric value, then type a new one in.  Seconds wasted!

Embrace the shortcuts, my friends.  They're staggeringly simple - just press 1 for 10%, 2 for 20%, 3 for 30% etc.  That's all!  Just a single keystroke will change the brush opacity, and you barely have to pause painting to do it.

Most importantly, press 0 to put it back to 100%.

If you want a more precise value, type two digits.  Type 25 for 25%, or 03 for 3%, etc.

Try it and see!  It's great.  It also works for the Clone Tool, and other brush-related tools.

Word of warning, though.  If you happen to have a non-brush-related tool selected (such as the Move Tool, or the Crop Tool, or whatever), and you press a number, it'll change the opacity of the layer instead.  Watch out for that little trap - it's caught me many times!

Dealing with "hot" areas of skin

This is a very simple tutorial that I've been meaning to write for ages.

Many thanks to Nicole of Essence of the Soul Photography for allowing me to use this beautiful photo:

So gorgeous!  But it has a little problem that seems to pop up in quite a lot of photos ... it has some areas of very "hot" skin - that is, the skin is glowing quite bright red in some parts:

This problem almost always occurs in shadowy areas of skin.  Sometimes it's caused by a red cast - perhaps the subject is wearing a red shirt, or standing beside a red car, or whatever.

Jpegs in ACR (Elements)

I don't know why it's taken me so long to write this simple post!

Photoshop Elements has been able to open Jpegs in Camera Raw for quite a few versions now (since V6, maybe?).  It's very easy to do, as I'll show you.

First, let me reiterate - I can take my cat to a zoo, but that doesn't make it a tiger!  Likewise, you can open Jpegs in a Raw program, but that doesn't make them Raw files!  Editing a Jpeg in ACR is fun, but it's still a Jpeg.  If you want real control and flexibility when editing, shoot Raw.  [/rant]

First, go to File>Open As:

At the bottom, change the format to "Camera Raw":

Choose your image, and press "Open":

Voila!  There it is in ACR:

Do your editing, then press "Open Image" to bring it into Elements for further work.