Saving Commonly Used Layer Styles


Okay, I have a confession to make here. This tutorial is totally personal. I may be the only person in the world who hates the fact that the Stroke layer style defaults to a bright red color, but I don't care. It's my book and I can write what I want. Now, on the off chance that I'm not the only person in the world that this bothers, or if you have certain settings you really like when using layer styles, read on to see how you can save yourself some time and create a preset of your favorite settings.

Step One

Create a new Photoshop document (800x600 pixels in width and height) with a black background. Then open a photo and use the Move tool (V) to drag it into this document on top of the black background. Resize it to fit in the center of the canvas, if needed.

©MATT KLOSKOWSKI

Step Two

I tend to use the Stroke layer style to add a white border around my photos. Let's use a layer style for this. Click the Add a Layer Style icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and select Stroke. Notice how the default color setting is an obnoxious red? On the off chance you don't want to make your photo border red, go ahead and click on it to bring up the Color Picker to change it to white. Also adjust the size setting to your liking and set the Position to Inside so the corners aren't rounded, but don't click OK yet.

Turbo Boost

You can move layer styles by dragging the Layer Style icon from one layer to another. You can duplicate layer styles by Option-dragging (PC: Alt-dragging) the Layer Style icon from one layer to another.


Step Three

When you have the settings the way you like, it's time to save them as a preset so you can use them again without having to change the color, size, and position every time. To do this, just click the New Style button. Give your style a descriptive name and click OK.

Step Four

To use this layer style, just choose Window>Styles to open the Styles palette. You'll see the newly saved style at the bottom of the palette. Just click on it whenever you want to add it to a photo and you won't have to manually go into the dialog and adjust the settings every time.

©MATT KLOSKOWSKI

Turbo Boost

The Spot Healing Brush, Healing Brush, and Clone Stamp tool all have a Sample All Layers checkbox in the Options Bar. This allows you to perform all of your retouching on a new blank layer and never modify the original photo.




Photoshop CS2 Speed Clinic
The Photoshop CS2 Speed Clinic: Automating Photoshop to Get Twice the Work Done in Half the Time
ISBN: 0321441656
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 113

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