photoshopHelp

Brush Size Cursor Confusion

James writes,

I have just installled Photoshop 7 on an Apple Mac G4 with OS 9.2. I am having a problem with the brush size cursor which has been selected in brush preferences. I find that after a certain brush size is selected, the circle changes to the precise cross, irrespective if caps lock is on or off. The change varies with the image size on screen?? Can you help? Well and truly stumped.

Depending on the size and resolution of your monitor, the resolution of the image, and the current magnification setting, the cursor will change to the crosshair when the brush size is either very large or very small. So for example, on my 19" Sony monitor with a resolution setting of 1280 x 1024 with a 2400 x 3600 pixel image at 100%, the brush cursor become the crosshair when the brush size is 4 pixel or smaller and 1100 pixels or larger. To see larger brushes, reduce the magnification. To see smaller brushes, increase the magnification. A careful balance of the aforementioned variables should help you to see your brush cursor as you expect to.

History Log

Robert asks,

Is there any way to save the History after a Photoshop file is closed?

Unfortunately, when you close a Photoshop file, the information in the History palette  is eliminated... forever. There is one way, however, to save your history as a text file. It's called the Edit History Log and it can be accessed through either File Browser or the File Info command. But first, you'll need to enable the feature in Preferences.

1. Choose Edit > Preferences > General
2. The General Preferences dialog box appears.
3. Select the History Log option.
4. In the Save Log Items To: section, Choose one of three ways to save the text history. As metadata embedded in the file. As a text file (click Choose to designate a name and location for the file.) or as both metadata and a text file.
5. In the Edit Log Items: section,  choose Detailed
6. Click OK.

Whenever a file is opened in Photoshop, each and every step will be recorded as either metadata embedded in the file or as a simple text file. This is a great way to document exactly what you did to any one image in Photoshop. It's important to rememeber that embedding a History Log as metadata will increase the file size.

Opposing Thumbnails

Swami asks,

After I put Metadata information in my images, the image thumbnail is replaced by a generic icon. Is there a way to get the thumbnail back without opening the image and editing it. Thanks for helping.

When you're finished adding your Metadata try this.

1. Choose File > Save As. The Save As dialog box appears.
2. Select the Thumbnail option.
3. Click OK.
4. An alert box appears "The file already exists. Do you want to replace it with the new one?" Click OK.
5. The old file is replaced with the new one complete with metadata and a thumbnail preview.

If you're Thumbnail option is "greyed out" or unavailable you'll need to change one of the Preferences.
Choose Edit > Preferences > File Handling. The File Handling Pref dialog box appears.
Choose Ask When Saving from the Image Preview dropdown menu.
Click OK.

The Ask When Saving preference must be chosen in order to make the thumbnail option available. I hope this helps.

Recent Files

The quickest way to open files that you've recently been working on...
Chooose File > Open Recent
By default, the last 10 Photoshop files are visible in the menu.
You can increase that number in the Preferences file.
Choose Edit > Preferences > File Handling
Change the value in the "Recent file list contains..." area located at the bottom of the dialog box to a higher number.

It's important to understand that this operation will use RAM resources, so if you're running low on memory, you might want to leave this alone or even reduce it.

Photoshop Brush Cursor

Jonathan asks,

For some reason my paint brush cursor has changed to a small cross. I checked the Preferences and it apppears that the Brush Size option (the circle) is selected, but that's not what showing up on my desktop. What am I doing wrong?

Nothing Jonathan. I suspect that your Caps Lock is on. You can temporarily change your brush cursor to the Precise option, which displays as the small crosshair you describe, by pressing the Caps Lock key on your keyboard. Press it a second time and your usual brush cursor option should re-appear.