[mk]

Prior to actually doing web design, one of my first jobs in the web industry as web monkey was the chore of taking a designer’s final work from design to HTML. This process typically involves taking a design file, normally a PSD, selecting and cutting out the necessary imagery to put together a HTML reproduction.

Learn from my pain

Anyone who has taken on this task before knows the pain of trying to work with unorganized design files. All too often designers would hand me PSD files containing 137 different layers all named something similar to “Layer 37″. I would want to select a particular layer and its location in the layer’s palette would keep itself hidden. What to do?

Shortcuts to the rescue

Alright, I’m going to outline a couple of scenarios which should help you out when selecting layers. All of these shortcuts have been tested to work with Photoshop CS2 and up.

I want to select an individual layer.

Press the letter ‘V’ to make sure you have your pointer tool selected. Then, press Control + Alt + Right-click (Win) or Command (Mac) + Alt + Control-click (Mac).

I want to select a layer group.

Once again, press the letter ‘V’ to make sure you have your pointer tool selected. Then repeat the same step as above except use a left click. So, press Control + Alt + Left-click (Win) or Command + Alt + Click (Mac).

I want to save a selection to an image in which part of the selection is on multiple layers.

Probably one of the greatest time savers for me was learning how to copy multiple layers into a single selection. The amazing thing about this shortcut is that you don’t even have to have any of the layers you need selected in order to do this. Here’s how:

Using the marquee tool ‘M’ make the selection you want to save. The second step is as easy as Control + Shift + ‘C’ (Win) or Command + Shift + ‘C’. This copies your selection to the clipboard. * Finally, create a new file, Control + ‘N’ (Win) and Command + ‘N’ (Mac), press OK and paste in your multiple layer selection.

I hope this helps you out. Let me know what you think!

* By adding the Shift command to your shortcut it selects multiple layers rather than just an individual layer.

Wow. Shaun Inman does it again.

Yesterday, Shaun released a major update to Mint, a popular web stats tracking app. The app’s design and interface are extremely intuitive and the new design/interface is definitely a polished spin on v1. Pick yours up today for $30. It’s well worth it.

And for those try before you buyer’s out there (I’m one) check out the demos, screencasts and screenshots. I’ve used Mint since the day it was released and must admit, I can’t get enough.

Okay, so I said I was going to start blogging almost 8 months ago. By the looks of things, not much has happened. One more time…

I’d like to think of myself as one living on the bleeding edge of technology. Typically, I’m the guy at my office saying “Did you hear about [fill in with latest tech news from 30 seconds ago]?” All things tech-related have always been a passion of mine–particularly the web. For years, I’ve been an avid reader and devoted follower of web standards, usability, information architecture and other web-related fields. So, you might ask the question, “Where do you get your information?” The answer: blogs. There are of course other methods–books, being my favorite; but, the reality is, the majority of information I get in this day and age are from blog-related sources.

So, one might then ask, “So Matthew, you’ve got a blog…right?” And that one, might not just be anyone, it might be Eric Meyer. The truth is not that I’m lazy or too busy, nor that I have nothing to blog about. I’ll admit it…I’ve been a little shy about making my voice heard. Truth be told, I designed a homepage for my blog over a year ago, I just haven’t done anything with it.

Well, here it goes, wish me luck and I’ll see you on the other side.