Photoshop CS3 for Screen Printers- P5 pptx

Using File>BrowseFile>Browse opens Adobe Bridge CS3, which is shown in Figure 6-4.You use this menu structure to locate files on your hard drive or net-worked devices.. In the following

. Note:

In this figure, there is a local drive C, a DVD drive D, an external backup

drive E, My Web Sites on MSN, and My Sharing Folders Because this is dows Vista, there is also access to the Desktop, Recent Places, Network,

Win-and more

4 Double-click on the drive that contains the image or file that youwant to open

5 Double-click again if necessary, or expand the folders in the browser

to locate the files You will see thumbnails or a list of the filesavailable

Once you’ve located the file, you can open it in several ways Formost folks, double-clicking on the file is the most comfortable How-ever, there are other ways With the file selected:

n Press Enter or Return.

n Right-click and choose Open.

Figure 6-2: Browsing for a file

] Tip:

Multiple files can be selected by holding down the Ctrl key while selecting

files (Cmd key on a Mac)

Using File>Open As

You’ll use File>Open As when you need to open a file that was saved in

a format other than psd or with an extension that does not match its trueformat You may also be able to open files with no extension ChooseFile>Open As, select the file to open, and select the format from theOpen As pop-up choices Figure 6-3 shows the choices

As noted earlier in this chapter, the look of the Open As dialog can bepersonalized and the views of the thumbnails can be changed dramati-cally Clicking on the additional options in the Open As dialog in WindowsVista brings up the choices shown in Figure 6-3 You’ll see similaroptions in other operating system versions

Figure 6-3: Open As options

Using File>Browse

File>Browse opens Adobe Bridge CS3, which is shown in Figure 6-4.You use this menu structure to locate files on your hard drive or net-worked devices You browse for files in the same manner as with anyOpen dialog box Click Computer, Desktop, Documents, Pictures, or anyother folder, and browse to the file you want to open

In Figure 6-5, I’ve browsed to the C:\Programs\Adobe\Adobe PhotoshopCS3\Samples folder Note that under the View menu I’ve selected AsThumbnails so I can see a preview of each file

Figure 6-4: Adobe Bridge CS3

Organizing Files

If you own a small screen printing shop or are just getting started, ing track of client files and images probably isn’t that difficult After all,you might only have a hundred or so files that you store in one or twofolders However, as your shop grows, you could have thousands of files,and if you’re not careful, those files could end up scattered everywhere!

keep-In my own screen printing business, I have lots of folders and youshould too In the following sections, you’ll learn how to delete files,organize your existing files by renaming, ranking, and moving them, andcreate a folder structure for new and existing files

Figure 6-5: Browsing with thumbnails

] Tip:

Although Adobe Bridge CS3 (which you’ll learn more about later) offers a

new way to manage files and folders, it can’t work miracles If your

com-puter is overrun with files you don’t need, has an unorganized file structure,

or has no file organization at all, Bridge can’t help you much It’s best to

organize the files you have first, and then use Adobe Bridge to manage

them

Deleting

The first step in organizing files is to delete any that you don’t need Thisnot only frees up space on your hard drive, but it also makes browsing forfiles more efficient First, there aren’t as many files to create a thumbnail

of, which helps the computer work faster, and second, you don’t have tolook through unnecessary files that you’ll never use You can delete filesfrom your hard drive simply by right-clicking on them and choosingDelete from the menu choices You can perform this task from inside anyfolder on your hard drive, or from Adobe Bridge CS3

] Tip:

Only delete files that you know you’ll never use again Just because you ated a logo that a particular client rejected doesn’t mean that another clientwon’t accept a similar logo at another time Consider moving files that youmight need again to an external drive or folder created specifically for suchartwork

To rename a file, right-click on the name of the file, choose Rename,and then type in a new name Notice the Delete and Rename options,among others, in Figure 6-6 Although you can perform this task from

inside any folder on your hard drive, in this example, I’m using AdobeBridge CS3.

] Tip:

Look carefully at Figure 6-6 and you’ll see that many of the files here are

JPEGs In our shop, after creating a file we save it as a Photoshop file and aJPEG, and send the JPEG to the client via e-mail for approval (Take a look atall of the Beast logos.) Not only does saving as a JPEG make the file smallerand easier to send, it also prevents the client from opening the file in their

own version of Photoshop or sending it to another printer for easy color

separation At least as a JPEG, it would have to be recreated for clarity!

Figure 6-6: Right-click options

Using the Batch Rename Command

There is another way to rename files, and it is located in the additionaloptions (shown in Figure 6-7) in Adobe Bridge The Batch Rename com-mand allows you to rename multiple files simultaneously

In order to rename multiple files at once, you’ll need to select ple files You can do this by highlighting a folder in the browse area orselecting multiple files using the Ctrl (Cmd on a Mac) key in the AdobeBridge main window When highlighting a folder, all files inside the folderwill be renamed; when highlighting specific files in a folder, only thosefiles will be renamed

multi-To use the Batch Rename command:

1 Select the files to be renamed as detailed above

2 Click the arrow in the browse area to see the additional options and

choose Batch Rename, as shown in Figure 6-7.

3 In the Batch Rename dialog box, choose to rename the files in thesame folder or to move them to a new folder by checking the appro-

priate option Click the Browse button to locate the new folder if

desired

Figure 6-7: Using Batch Rename

4 From the drop-down lists, choose a specific rule that should beused when renaming the files Choices include the document name,date, serial number, and extension Choose up to six, but make sureyou put the extension as your last choice in the string You can seewhat the names of the files will look like while you are choosingthem.

5 If desired, choose to make the files compatible with other operating

systems—Mac, UNIX, Windows Click OK Figure 6-8 shows the

Although file structure and organization preferences differ wildlyfrom one company to the next, consider using the following folders fororganizing the files at your shop (files can be moved from one folder tothe next quite easily, as detailed in the next section)

Figure 6-8: Batch Rename dialog box

n Logo Ideas: With subfolders named 1-color, 2-color, 3-color, 4-color,

process color, indexed color, teams, companies, churches, schools,reunions, graduations, parties, birthdays, fund-raisers, etc

n Completed Project Files: With subfolders created for each client,

subfolders separating files by month or year, subfolders by city orstate, or subfolders by type of client (school, church, business)

n Work in Progress: With or without subfolders, this folder could

contain files that you are currently working on or those that are inthe print queue

n Images to Redesign: With or without subfolders, place images a

cli-ent gives you that need redesigning here This could be a subfolder

of the Work in Progress folder

n Templates for Team Logos: Most team and sports logos can be

reused simply by changing the name of the team or sport Place allteam and sports logos here and create subfolders for types of teams(baseball, hockey, basketball, tennis, etc.) These can be accessedoften, especially when a new logo needs to be created

n Clip Art: If you have a large enough hard drive, copy clip art disks to

the drive into subfolders created here In doing so, you have quickand easy access to the clip art without having to put the physical clipart disk in the drive The hard drive works much more quickly than a

CD, and you can keep the original disks in pristine condition if youdon’t have to access them often

n Archives: Create subfolders named for the month and/or year and

place client artwork files in the folders once the month or year is up.Doing so makes for easy backup and offers a place to store the filesuntil they’re needed again

There are certainly thousands of other folders that can be created, andeach shop will have its own needs These are just ideas to get youstarted The point is, don’t just lump all of your files in a single folder (orworse, save them in various folders haphazardly) Creating folders makesbacking up files easier and moving archived files to external drives moreefficient

. Note:

You don’t have to create new folders using your existing folder structure andoperating system if you don’t want to; you can create new folders inside

Adobe Bridge also Creating a new folder is the same inside Adobe Bridge as

it is on your own hard drive Right-click and select New Folder

Moving

Once the files are created, you can move files from one folder to the next

by dragging the file from its original position to a new one This can bedone on your hard drive or inside Adobe Bridge In Figure 6-9 AdobeBridge is open and a file named logo.bmp is being moved to the folderNew Folder I’ll rename the folder shortly

Figure 6-9: Moving a file to a new folder

To move a file from one folder to another:

1 Locate the file in Adobe Bridge

2 In the browse area, locate the folder to which you’d like the filemoved (don’t click on it, just use the scroll bars to locate it)

3 Click on the image and drag it until its outline is hovering over thefolder you’d like to place it in The folder to which you are movingthe file will change colors, as shown in Figure 6-9

4 Let go and the file is moved

Organizing your files might seem like a daunting task, especially if youhave thousands of files, but it is well worth it to create a file structureand move everything to its correct place It will increase productivity andefficiency and help your computer work more quickly

If you move a lot of files to different locations, consider defragmenting yourdrives afterward Start the defragging process at night though, because it

could take a few hours to finish

Getting Information about a File or an Image

The right pane in Adobe Bridge contains information about the selectedfile There’s probably more information there than you’ll ever need, butit’s there just in case you do From here, you can see information such asthe date that the file was created, the date last modified, and the file-name, among other things Image size, color mode, resolution, colorprofile, and even the model of the camera (if it is a camera file) can beseen You can even find out if the camera’s flash went off when the pic-ture was taken! Although I wouldn’t screen print this picture (I might use

it for a heat transfer), the image selected in Figure 6-10 shows some ofthe information you can obtain from the Metadata tab

Notice also in Figure 6-10 the position of the slider at the bottom ing the slider to the right causes the thumbnails for each image to beenlarged (Moving it left makes them smaller.) Also notice I’ve reposi-tioned the panes (by dragging them) so that I can read all of the metadatainformation.

Mov-Additional Adobe Bridge Options

There are tons of ways to manipulate the Adobe Bridge interface

There’s a Sort by pop-up menu in the Filter tab, as shown in Figure 6-10,View menu in the menu bar at the top, Rotate options in the Edit menu,and options for rating images in the Label menu From even moreoptions scattered about the menus, you can refresh the view, purge thecache, and group images in stacks, among other things In this final sec-tion, you’ll learn about a few of these options

Figure 6-10: Reviewing metadata

The Interface

At the bottom-right corner of the interface window are buttons you canuse to switch views Click 1, 2, or 3 to change from the default view tothe Horizontal Filmstrip view or the Metadata Focus view The MetadataFocus view is shown in Figure 6-10

You can also sort by various metadata Figure 6-11 shows the Filtertab’s Sort by pop-up menu options Here By Rating is selected

You can also personalize the panes in the interface Drag the pane ers to change the view, use the slider at the bottom to increase ordecrease the size of the thumbnails, and in the left pane, switch fromFolders to something else entirely

divid-Purge Cache

The cache is an area of the hard drive where information is stored about

the thumbnails, metadata, and rating information in your images (amongother things) By storing this information in memory, Photoshop is able

to quickly load previously viewed pages, such as folders and files, inAdobe Bridge You can purge the cache and delete this information ifdesired by using the Purge Cache option This will free disk space,making room for other more important information After the purge,thumbnails will be regenerated, but other metadata will be lost

Figure 6-11: Changing the sort order

You should use this command at least occasionally The problem isthat after a few days of working with Photoshop, the cache part of thehard drive can become filled with thousands of bits of information Whilethis makes for faster browsing, it can slow down other aspects of yourcomputing tasks.

To purge the cache for a selected folder, select Tools>Cache>PurgeCache

Refresh-Summary

In this chapter you learned about organizing files and using AdobeBridge Adobe Bridges enables you to access files quickly and see all ofthe files in all of the drives on your computer This includes any remov-able drives, floppy drives, or digital cameras seen as external drives.Adobe Bridge can also be used to rename, sort, rotate, delete, and pre-view thumbnails of files, as well as view file information including thename, date created and modified, color mode, and more

Artwork and

Logos

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Getting Creative

In Part II of this book, “Creating Artwork and Logos,” we discuss how tocreate files and images using the tools available in Photoshop Specifi-cally, I cover the shape tools, type tools, eraser tools, and coloring tools

We also discuss layers and color profiles This chapter will serve as anintroduction to these tools and concepts

Here, we discuss how to focus in on your client’s ideas to create work that meets their needs We also learn to use the Paint Bucket tool,Image menu commands such as Duplicate, Rotate, Crop, and Trim, andEdit menu commands such as Cut, Copy, and Paste, among others Com-mon brushes are covered, as is the Pencil tool and tips and ideas forcreating designs wisely (which comes in handy if you’re new to thescreen printing business)

art-Coming Up with Ideas

It’s hard to say where ideas come from, but generally my ideas for work come first from listening to clients describe what they think theywant and then combining that information with what they’ve said theywant to spend Most clients have something in mind regarding clip art,text, price, and number of colors, and whether they want somethingthat’s just text and spot color or something photorealistic If it’s your job

art-to find out what they want and create it, this section is a must-read Ifyour job doesn’t entail creating the actual artwork, meaning you are onthe production end and/or are provided with camera-ready artwork, youcan skip this part of the chapter

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