Like most programmers I always pull out the I am not a designer card so here it comes again. I am not a designer, but I have been using Photoshop for the better part of 6 years now. I was taught by a friend that a very important detail that you must pay attention to when creating layouts is organization of layers into groups and disincentive naming of layers. This helps when passing layouts on to other designers. When they need to make a change to the branding area logo, they can click on the folder branding and find the logo layers.

The reason I am bringing this up is because up until today I have never really had an issue with selecting layers. I received a Photoshop file from an outside designer today with well over 300 layers. The layers included the old site and many layers that did not make the final design. Finding layers to hide for rollover affects was a real pain in the butt. I always thought then when you choose your move tool you then had to select the layer to gain focus. This is a real pain when you have to go searching through all those layers that have absolutely no naming convention to them.

I am almost embarrassed to say this but I had no idea Photoshop had an auto select layer feature. When you have your move to selected you have a feature (that is off by default) for Auto Select Layer. When this is checked you click on an item and Photoshop will highlight that layer. I can not believe this, my job with this huge file just got a lot easier. Again I am pulling out the I am not a designer card, I just hope there is someone else out there without this knowledge!

autoselect



 

This entry was posted on July 2, 2007 at 6:21 PM and has received 11684 views. Comments 4 | Print this entry.