Tips and tricks to help you optimize your Adobe Creative Cloud use

Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator go together like bread and butter. Designers and illustrators love AI since it is easy to use, it has a fuss-free user interface, and it is flexible. As a matter of fact, once you have the working knowledge of Photoshop, you can learn Adobe Illustrator within a matter of days. You can take lessons from a friend or watch online tutorials. Then, there are other design and editing software programs like InDesign, which help in creating the final layout for your images into a final design.

Have you noticed the overlap of options and features among the different Adobe editing platforms?

The Adobe Creative Cloud has perfected the art of helping designers create breathtaking, original designs within minutes. Any aspiring designer is bound to notice the unique overlap of features among the Adobe programs. Was that a mistake? Did the program designers become lazy at one point? Or, is there a good reason for the extensive overlaps? The overlapping control options and features enable the users to transit from one application to another with ease. While it is a great feature that pro designers can exploit, it can be very confusing for the newbies.

Today we will explore some of the best secret tips and tricks that allow better utilisation of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.

Adobe Photoshop Tips and tricks that you cannot do without –

Photoshop – this is every photographer, photo editor and graphic designer’s best friend.

1. Did you know? PS has a Fade feature that can reduce the opacity of the most recent filter you have applied to the image.
2. You can apply multiple masks on a single layer. You can achieve this by applying a mask and then grouping it. Then, apply another mask on the group.

• You can apply the same adjustments to multiple images in a series. Drag the layers from one document to another. This trick works for multiple masks and groups.

NOTE: you can now access any version of Photoshop, even from the primordial days of photo editing. You will need a Creative Cloud subscription. You can run any of the versions parallelly with the current version you have installed. The Creative Cloud app has the option to access and activate the older versions.

Three easy tricks to speed up working on Adobe Illustrator –

Next, we come to Illustrator. Without mastering the tips and tricks of using Illustrator, there is no way we can call ourselves editing experts.

1. Everyone has faced this challenge at least once. When you increase the size of the design on AI, the strokes can become super fat or thin. This is strange since it is ideal for vector artwork. To adjust stroke weight go to Preferences.
2. Designers often need to draw inside other objects. You can always delete the excess with the Pathfinder tool, but that is a labour intensive process. The easier way is to use the tool on the bottom of the toolbar. This option will allow you to draw inside the object and AI will mask the overlap.

• You can build pattern fills wasting hours on end, or you can utilise the extensive Swatch Library from Adobe Illustrator. This option has hundreds of useful fill patterns that save time and effort.

Rounding up your editing skill with three Adobe InDesign tricks –

Learning the tips and tricks of Photoshop and Illustrator is not enough. Knowing how to complete the layout of the edited images is just as important.

1. One of the favourite tricks of the designers at Webgator includes converting objects of multiple sizes to the same size. Select Object >Transform Again>Transform Sequence Again.
2. You can introduce live corner effects in your InDesign file by clicking the yellow corner. Choose Opt/Alt-click the yellow corner to transform other corners.

• Select multiple lines or frames in a row, click and hold down the objects. Do this to a side of the object on the outermost edge. Hold down the spacebar and drag the sides to adjust space. This will adjust the space horizontally or vertically. To adjust corner distance between objects, do the same to the corner handles.

NOTE: you can switch between the different units of measurement on Adobe InDesign. Right-click on the square at the upper left corner of the file where you can see the rulers meet. Next, you will be able to see the units of measurement. Choose any unit you find convenient.

Object, image, page and text editing options and their shortcuts are different for PC and Mac. If you are switching from one system to another, you might have some difficulty initially to memorise the new shortcuts. One of the easiest ways to remember is – the Ctrl option in PC works similarly as the Cmd option in Mac systems.