Stupid Application Tricks (&tips)

[p?tr?]

Ok, here's one, although I don't think it's just a stupid app trick but accually a useful one.
Don't have a screen capture program?....just press 'print screen' then go to Photoshop, make a new doc and press crtl+v (paste).

[gare]

Good one, p?tr??k--

I'd like to add to that, that you can do ScreenCapping to Xara, too (and several other graphics apps),
and can edit the cap. The result if you're running a 1024 by 768 monitor resolution is a 2.3MB file. You hit PrintScreen again to update it, and to clear the Clipboard, you can choose Edit>Purge in PS.

Welles, on the Mac, it's Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+3, isn't it?

My Best,

Gare

[p?tr?]

We have a G5 running Tiger and I'm pretty sure it's just cmd+shift+3. The difference on a Mac is it acually saves the .png right to your desktop.

[gare]

Hi, p?tr??k--

That's nice to be able to save to png no less, right to the desktop. For Macintosh screen caps, I use a Kensington programmable four-button mouse and an applet so I can right-click and save to file.

An additional stupid trick for screen captures lies in the editing phase, in case you're hard-copy documenting a UI or something. As you're all probably aware, you can't usually screen snag a tool cursor, because it's displayed on a unique video layer--ResHack can extract the icons and tool cursors, tho', and TechSmith's SnagIt will capture cursors in situ. I blew up all the PS tool icons to 1000%, then used Streamline to auto-trace them. As vectors, I can scale them above screen caps, then write the "scene" to bitmap in Xara. If anyone would like a font of PS cursors, let me know.

My Best,

Gare

[p?tr?]

That's cool, Gare. I don't really need the font, but just out of curiosity, what app did you use to create it?
Also, all the tool and cursor icons are located in the photoshop.dll I opened them up in Icon Developer and if you'd like I can give ya the .icl

[gare]

Hi, p?tr??k--

I use CorelDraw for a mercifully few tasks, such as creating symmetrigons and for creating typefaces--but I usually use FontLab on the font afterwards to fine-tune characters and convert to OpenType which both Win and Mac users can access.

Deep in the recesses of my mind I knew that a dll had the cursors, but until CS, PS's icons were tucked in a really obscure dll. Icon Deveoper is StarDock, right? I use Aha Software's Icon Lover Suite; it, too can extract bitmap data from apps.

I'd like to open this thread up to application tips in addition to stupid tricks.

You know that in Photoshop v 6 and later, you can specify an external plug-ins folder? This is terrific because now other apps such as Painter and Xara can use the plug-ins without installing a plug-in twice (and many plug-ins such as Auto f/x won't let you install more than once).

One thing, especially if you've got a lot of plug-ins, is that Xara will grind to a halt as it searches for plug-ins; the search is triggered if you don't have Search for plug-ins at Startup checked in Configure plug-ins--you'll then be forced to take a pause if you choose Utilities>Bitmap Effects & plug-ins, but also if you open the Bitmap Gallery and right-click on a bitmap to save or delete. To delete or save a bitmap without triggering the plug-ins search, click the delete and so on buttons at the top of the gallery palette instead of right-clicking on a thumbnail.

My Best,

Gare

[Welles]

About Screen Captures on Mac...

Command+Shift+3 -- Full-screen screenshot


Command+Shift+4 -- Crosshair to allow selection of screenshot area


Command+Shift+4, then spacebar -- ?Camera? to capture a specific screen object

Apple includes a program called Grab, which is located in the Utilities folder inside of the Applications folder. It does the same things as the built-in image capture, plus it allows users to do timed captures as well as screen captures that include the cursor.

Then there are endless little utilities to allow you to choose file type location and a variety of screen captures but with the advent of Tiger, I've gone to Widgets. I have a lower corner a hot corner to bring up Widgets and use Capture... every day!

http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashb...s/capture.html

[gare]

I have a question, Welles--

Because I document programs for a living, I need screen caps all the time.

What do you and most everyone else use screen caps for?

[Shaun]

The Warp Free Transform ([color=Navy] And if you drag the mash severley enough, you can see the back of the page.

I've got many happy hours out of the Warp Tool....

[gare]

Shaun, that is a marvelous image! You did it+what apps if you did?

I got a Xara workaround trick. I know a lot of use use blends to do a shadow, but I get lazy on occasion and feather an object. The problem with this is that if the shadow needs to tuck behind an object in a photo, feathering renders an unrealistic effect at the edge of the object.

So you create a 32-bit bitmap of the feathered shadow (hi-res is best...then you don't have scaling issues for output later), then create a silhouette of the object, and subtract it from the bitmap shadow.

My Best,

Gare