Splashup.com is a free Photoshop alternative that may be a perfect solution for those of you that need to edit images for the web, or make quick changes to images. The web-based software does a great job of importing both small and larger files very easily.

In this video we quickly go over the features of the site and how it can work for you. It’s not going to replace Photoshop for those of you working in the print industry, and it certainly has limitations, but it does have a place between a basic Paint program and Photoshop.

After our last tip on quickly switching windows in Photoshop, you all suggested I do more. So I recently found three handy tips that saved me time.

Duplicating Slices with Option

Creating slices can be a pain to make over and over again, thankfully there’s a quicker way. Select a slice with Command+Click then Option+Click to duplicate it. Too easy!

Hold Shift and Change Values in Increments of 10

Any field you can change with your keys (up and down) you can also change in increments of 10 by holding shift. So instead of 70…71…72 it would be 70..80..90.

You can also scroll your mouse wheel to change the value.

Organize Windows with Workspaces

One of the most frustrating aspects of using Photoshop is maintaining all of those tiny windows. Workspaces solve this headache by providing the ability to save and load window locations.

They also come with a couple default workspaces (Basic & Legacy) that work nicely

There you have it, 3 tips for improving productivity in Photoshop.

What do you think of multiple smaller tips like this? Good/Bad?

If you find it frustrating you can’t switch between active windows in Photoshop by pressing Command+Tilde (Command+~), you’re not alone.

Thankfully there’s a few quick shortcuts nearby that accomplish the same thing:

• Command+Shift+Tilde
• Control+Tab
• Control+Tilde

Are there many Photoshop users out there? More or less Photoshop tips?

Photoshop has many different fullscreen modes that make focusing on your work much easier. Pressing the “f” key takes you through the following modes. Also keep in mind you can toggle the window pane visibility with the Tab key.

If you were to guess what application that window came from, what would be your first guess; Aperture? Photoshop? Nice try, but it actually comes from Preview.app. By hitting Option+Command+C, you can obtain this little popup that let’s you adjust the color levels in your photo. Here is a picture of my sister with a baby panda before modification. Notice all the annoying fake shrubbery in the background.

After some cropping and a few quick adjustments (mainly on the contrast and sharpness, we get this as our final product

Without any photoshopping at all, I’ve managed to get rid all the annoying foliage. If you look closer and compare the two pictures, it also becomes apparent that the colors appear much warmer as well. This took all of 30 seconds to do which is about the time it takes Gimp to even start up!

Selective decolorization is removing the color from parts of a picture. In this picture, I removed all the color from the background. For some reason there’s some noise that appeared when I uploaded it but it’s not like that in the master version.

It looks complicated but it’s actually a relatively simple process. Just open the picture you want with Gimp, then create a new layer.

Then go dow to the Mode dragdown menu and select saturation (make sure the new layer is selected). Then you can either use the paint fill or paint brush tools (or any other tool) to make certain areas appear black and white. It’s a neat trick that can really make some pictures look really nice. I did this one kind of quickly but with a little more time and effort, these turn out quite nicely

My good friends at Micahville introduced a great Photoshop tip a little while back on how to create your own fake iPod Nano, like the many fakes going around the web before Steve Jobs’ big announcements yesterday.
Check it out here: The Making of A Fake iPod Nano
Lets hope that Micahville releases more Mac-related tips in the near future!

Technorati Tags: CS3, Fake, iPod, iPod Nano, Micahville, Nano, Photoshop, Photoshop CS3

A quick way to zoom in and out while using Photoshop is to use the and keyboard combinations.

Technorati Tags: Photoshop+tips, zoom, puppy