We delayed this tip a week so Jenn could post her great 2 for 1 Daily Download series!

One of the most satisfying aspects of writing for this blog is remembering all the cool Photoshop or Elements stuff tucked somewhere way back in my little old head. Here’s one that is a HUGE timesaver and uses a feature that I, yet again, need to do daily but always forget. Digiscrappers will use this one a lot:

You have a picture or kit open and want to add something to it - another picture or an element from another kit. What I do is go File-Open, Open the new kit. Find the layer with the element, hit Ctrl-A to select all, Ctrl-C to copy, click the original document window so it’s active again, and hit Ctrl-V to paste.

Whew… way too much work.

What I should do is use the Place command. Look under your File menu in Photoshop or Elements. The Place command opens a picture or element and immediately puts it into the document you are working on - no more select, copy and paste. Cool and fast!

An added benefit is that in Photoshop CS2/CS3 (sorry Element’s users!) when you Place an element it makes it into a Smart Object that you can resize larger or smaller multiple times and not lose quality. A smart object “remembers” it’s original size. Here’s a link to an article by Dave Cross in Peach Pit Press “Work Smart with Photoshop CS2’s Smart Objects” that gives a great explanation.

Until next week - Keep Scrappin!

Stan, the DaddyKitty