The hunch engine mentioned in Wired News today sounds just like Variations in Photoshop, which has been included in the program for, oh, at least ten years:

To try it in Photoshop just open and image and choose Image > Adjustments > Variations. It’s not really new, but perhaps this kind of results-oriented UI may finally catch on.

With all the hype from the Origami Project, I thought I’d share a bit about my favorite app for tablets and what makes it so great (and one of the only things that makes a TabletPC worth owning, in my opinion).

Alias Sketchbook Pro is a freehand pixel-based paint program specifically designed for pen-based input. it’s designers have perfected the drawing experience for a pen-on-screen device. And on top of it they’ve given it a very clever UI that seamlessly promotes the user from using menus to using gestures. It’s amazing. As a UI designer I carry with me my laptop and a sketchbook, and the new Origami tablets look like a great size to duplicate a sketchbook experience.

So, what makes Alias Sketchbook Pro so good? I can break it down into a few different bits:

• Focused on a single thing: getting the sketch experience right.
• UI optimized for speed and pen-based input

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Photoshop has long-ago run out of legit keyboard shortcuts for new commands. But if Adobe wanted to get serious about solving the issue, there’s a lot of illegitimate ones they could use.

Space Modifier

Modifier keys are the keys you hold down before pressing another key to trigger a two-key shortcut. These keys traditionally are SHIFT, CTRL, and ALT.

My solution is to turn the spacebar into a modifier key. So, in the same way you can hit CTRL+T for Free Transform, you could hit SPACE+T for Transform Selection (or whatever you assigned it). Just think of the Spacebar as a really long shift key. Adding this opens up a whole new set of two-key shortcuts, and it doesn’t break any existing shortcut. Read the rest of this entry

I have had Alias Sketchbook Pro ever since I got my first Tablet PC, a few years ago. I’ve been a fan of it from day one, but I never really used it because I didn’t have a project that required freehanding. However, I have a new game in the works, and I gone back to paper to get the creative juices flowing. This weekend I started using Sketchbook Pro for coloring and I just have to say that it is amazing. The program has a great feel unlike any other, and the UI is inspired. Read the rest of this entry

I love Photoshop. I use it almost every day, and I’ve been using it since at least 1994. It really is a great program. And I fully realize it’s a program for professionals, which means a lot of it is optimized for efficient workflows for professionals, as opposed to being optimized for a shallow learning curve for new users.

But for the last few versions of Photoshop I’ve been driven crazy by what appears to be an oversight by the Photoshop developers in how their vector art tools work. The problem is not entirely apparent until it’s been seen in a real situation, so let’s walk through one.

The problem

Here’s a clipping of the image for my blog and homepage. The entire image was done in Photoshop, and a lot of it is done with Photoshop’s Vector tools. I’ve simplified the document to isolate just a few elements, in order to make things easier to explain. Here you can see we’ve got three vector art layers:

The problem I’m running into is with Photoshop’s two vector selection tools, the Path Selection Tool and the Direct Selection Tool. These two tools are used for manipulating control points on vector shapes, and they have an auto-layer-select function built into them that is flawed. Let’s say I’m trying to select and manipulate the points in the upper-left serif in the H logotype. I can use the Direct Selection Tool to do so, and if I click inside of the H or directly on the points, I’m okay:

But if I accidentally click outside of the H and on one of the purple hexagons, Photoshop automatically selects the hexagon layer:

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Here’s a quick way to see auto-layer-selection with the Direct Selection and Path Selection tools. Read the rest of this entry

Adobe announced that they’re finished with their acquisition of Macromedia. It’s been a mixed-bag for many real-life users out there, some being thrilled with others being worried. But most of the fears have been about user interface or software bloat.

I am not looking forward to the merger because of competition. I really only use one Adobe product, and that’s Photoshop. I’ve been using it almost daily since 1997, and I’ve stuck with it through many revisions since that time. The biggest upgrade I ever saw to Photoshop was 6.0, when Adobe added a ton of web-related features. Photoshop never had proper drawing tools, but 6.0 added vector illustration tools, new in-document text editing, layer styles, layer-based slicing tools, weighted image optimization, the liquify tool, text warping, not to mention a complete second tool called ImageReady designed just for the web. It was just a massive upgrade. Read the rest of this entry

So, just I’ve written a few Photoshop tutorials in the last few years. I’ve tried to focus on not-run-of-the-mill tips that are non-obvious. The change a logo to work on a dark background tutorial is my latest, and I was spurred to write this after realizing that that technique I had come up with was quite simple for being so unobvious.

Anyway, my Photoshop tutorials are on my homepage under “Articles”.