It is useful to be able to expand a number of layer groups so you can quickly get at individual layers, then collapse down those layer groups to make it quick to move around the layers palette.

To do this, hold down Command/Apple and click on the layer group you wish to control. Then hold down Command+Shift and click on the arrow (that collapses a layer group) to the left of any of the highlighted layer groups.

Worth noting however, is that you can highlight multiple layer groups by Command/Apple clicking on the name, but if there are layer groups that are not highlighted in-between others that are highlighted, they will also expand and collapse.

Here is the scenario - you have an image that you have colour corrected to your hearts content. You the go to ’save for web’ and disaster strikes - the contrast can go a bit wishywashy, saturation is lost and all-in-all your perfect image doesn’t look so perfect anymore! Don’t panic, just follow my simple step to perfect web colour!

1) Firstly, make sure you are working in the right colourspace. It’s best to do this whilst no image is open. Go to Edit>Colour Settings and select either ‘Europe Web/Internet’ or ‘North America Web/Internet’ depending on your geographic location. The only difference here is the CMYK colour profile - both use the same SRGB colourspace for RGB images.

2) Secondly, open your RGB image (you are using RGB for your web image - right!) - AND CONVERT TO SRGB PROFILE IF ASKED. This is an important step - becuase when you choose ’save for web’ your image is automatically converted to SRGB profile (which is more-than-likely creating the colour shift!).

3) Next, let’s get Photoshop displaying that image correctly. Many users view images in Photoshop with no ’soft proofing’ - meaning that Photoshop changes the way it displays colour in the application to emulate various production environments. The option is under View>Proof Setup. I work on an Apple Mac and change this to ‘Macintosh RGB’ - ‘Windows RGB’ can be used to emulate how the image will look on a Windows PC - I guess you would select this if you are working on a PC. It is worth checking your image using the ‘Windows RGB’ soft proofing method in certain circumstances - especially if you have very subtle tonal variations (colours close together) and you are worried about contrast. Also ensure under the View menu you have ‘Proof Colours’ ticked. This step is not essential - but I prefer to know roughly know what I’m getting at the end!

4) Finish up colour correcting your image (you are using adjustment layers for this I hope!) and save this as a separate version for web. The colour corrections you do in CMYK for print will be somewhat different to the colour corrections you do in RGB.

5) Now, the main part - once you have finished up working on your image, it’s time to go to the ‘Save for web’ option under the File menu. You might notice a colour shift straight away - DON’T PANIC!! The Save for web function has it’s own soft proofing colour engine, that probably is set to ‘uncompensated colour’. Change this by clicking on the arrow at the top right of the save for web window - and select ‘Use document colour profile’. Now you have got this selected you should notice the colours change in the preview and if everything has been followed they should now be pretty much exactly the same as your original image in Photoshop!

Pretty simple really - if you have problems, it will more than likely be that your image hasn’t been converted to SRGB BEFORE using the Save for web function. This is the process I follow when working with web images.

You just have to remember to change your colour settings depending if you are working on print jobs or Internet jobs - I tend to do this BEFORE I start working on an image as soon as I start Photoshop (in-fact, because I’m lazy I have an action setup to change between the two!).

It must also be noted that even amongst the same screens (with even the same settings!) colours can vary quite wildly. Everyone has their screens setup to their preferences with different colour, contrast and brightness settings, so you have to be a little cautious with low contrast images (eg subtle tones of grey) as I’ve found that these can be lost, especially on Windows systems.

It has a little ‘lock’ icon to the right of the name of the layer - you would have thought you could just ‘unlock’ it like any other layer… wrong! Photoshop treats the ‘background’ layer as special, meaning you can’t unlock it in the usual way.

The solution to this is as simple as double clicking on the layer - this will turn it into a ‘proper’ layer, meaning it can be moved, hidden and made transparent to your hearts content!

This is an easy little tip to remember - instead of the long winded way detailed above, simply create a solid fill layer - its on the adjustment layers menu at the bottom of the layers palette. Once in place, get rid of the layer mask that is automatically created.

You have now created a flexible background that will fill any dimension of canvas (if you remove the layer mask as detailed above). It is much quicker to edit the colour - just double click on the colour chip in the layers palette. It also takes up less memory, and applies much quicker than selecting a large canvas and filling it with colour. The final advantage is that it takes up less memory, which is always an good news when you are working in Photoshop!

Simply draw you selection as normal with the marquee tool, DONT release your mose button you are holding down to draw the selection and simply hold down space. When you move your mouse, your marquee selection will now move in your image, letting go of space restores the usual functionality of the marquee tool.

I really love these custom shapes - they will resize perfectly to any dimensions as they are pure vector artwork. I’ve put a-lot of detail in these, so they will look great at backgrounds for flyers and creative artwork in Photoshop. These will only be available for one day, so get them while they are hot!

Wow, 3 years already - I can’t believe I’ve been writing this site that long! As a bit of background info, my name is Jonny and I am a freelance graphic designer based in the West Midlands area of the UK. I’ve currently been freelancing for over 6 years now, previous to which I worked at an ad agency for nearly 3 years. I also have extensive training and lecturing experience, with well over 150 formal training sessions conducted in colleges and studios.

I am the sole owner, author and creator of this site and create content in-between working for a range of clients and ad agencies (oh, and keeping my long suffering girlfriend happy!). At the moment I am working on a-lot of web and multimedia based projects, although I have extensive experience of print and of course Photoshop based work.

Over this time, Photoshop Ninja has lead to some interesting new partnerships - I have reviewed Photoshop books for 2 well-established publishing houses, discussed a number of publishing deals and been featured in Photoshop Creative magazine in the UK and The Neatherlands.

As a final note, Photoshop Ninja currently gets around 300-400 visits a day (Google Analytics tracking) and just about generates enough revenue from advertising to pay for hosting, which is nice! You want to advertise to my visitors, just get in-touch!

The Tech Abstracts 1 collection is the most popular download on this site - so I thought that I’d give you want you want - even more cool Tech Abstracts, these ones have lots of nice detail in.

DOWNLOAD HAS NOW BEEN REMOVED - Sorry, this was a special download to celebate the 3rd birthday of Photoshop Ninja!

To celebrate this I am going to upload for 1 DAY ONLY a special selection of high resolution downloads. Put the date in your diary and come get ‘em while they are hot - after this point they will only be available to members of the soon to be launched (hopefully!) members area of Photoshop Ninja!

Wow, 3 years already - I can’t believe I’ve been writing this site that long! As a bit of background info, my name is Jonny and I am a freelance graphic designer based in the West Midlands area of the UK. I’ve currently been freelancing for over 6 years now, previous to which I worked at an ad agency for nearly 3 years. I also have extensive training and lecturing experience, with well over 150 formal training sessions conducted in colleges and studios.

I am the sole owner, author and creator of this site and create content in-between working for a range of clients and ad agencies (oh, and keeping my long suffering girlfriend happy!). At the moment I am working on a-lot of web and multimedia based projects, although I have extensive experience of print and of course Photoshop based work.

Over this time, Photoshop Ninja has lead to some interesting new partnerships - I have reviewed Photoshop books for 2 well-established publishing houses, discussed a number of publishing deals and been featured in Photoshop Creative magazine in the UK and The Neatherlands.

As a final note, Photoshop Ninja currently gets around 300-400 visits a day (Google Analytics tracking) and just about generates enough revenue from advertising to pay for hosting, which is nice! You want to advertise to my visitors, just get in-touch!

I’ve just upgraded the system that runs Photoshop Ninja, so please bear with me whilst I re-instate some of the functionality that you might have noticed has disappeared for the moment (alhough the site functions perfectly without some of the bells and whistles!!) Also, I am working away on a completley new design for Photoshop Ninja, which should hopefully be ready to launch around June 2008 - it will be the 4th design the site has gone through, and hopefully one I’ll be happy with for a while!

Finally, thanks for dropping by - I hope you have found the Photoshop information on this site useful. See you soon and remember - don’t miss out on that special high resolution download available for one day only!!