I'm so lost...

[Megan Turnidge]

CS4 is CRA-ZAY! lol... I'm like this -->
Does it not have the PAINT BUCKET?!?! For real. I need it. NEED.

[heatherdumas]

Meeeeeegan, I bought it for text on a path and I can't figure it out. I had PSE4 and CS4 opened tonight and I was trying to extract. Cool thing was, I could do something in PSE4 and drag & drop into CS4. But I am CONFUSED! And why, no matter how many times i trun it off, is there a grid across my image when I open it?

[heatherdumas]

okay, I just looked. up in the left hand corner, under the PS symbol, thre is a dropdown menu. The paint bucket is in there. then you change pattern to foreground.....

[Megan Turnidge]

haha... hold my hand, Heather!!

Leila just saved me. That pesky paint bucket was hiding under the gradient tool. lol... in PSE they are NOT together.

help me!

[Megan Turnidge]

Originally Posted by heatherdumas

Meeeeeegan, I bought it for text on a path and I can't figure it out. I had PSE4 and CS4 opened tonight and I was trying to extract. Cool thing was, I could do something in PSE4 and drag & drop into CS4. But I am CONFUSED! And why, no matter how many times i trun it off, is there a grid across my image when I open it?

The very first thing I did was text on a path!! Weeee! add me on yahoo... i'll screenshot ya m_turnidge

Ummm... and I HATE that there is no photo bin. I wub my photo bin. So, when I have multiple docs open, how do I add an element to my canvas from a different window? I can't even do that.

[Megan Turnidge]

P.S. It angers me that CS4 makes me rasterize a shape I want to paint bucket... PSE let me paint bucket all the shapes I wanted!

Oh, this is so very sad.

[heatherdumas]

Okaay, no layer bin, TRUE. But you drag the tab you want into the window. You can put as many there as you like. Then it is just drag and drop. At least that is how I have done it for the past few weeks. If anyone has any better ideas I would love to know

[heatherdumas]

ANd Megan, I just sent you a message on yahoo messenger. Do you have spring break next week? I do. We could exchange #'s and do some tutorials together. I learn better when I can bounce thoughts off someone.

[Megan Turnidge]

Let's see... what else bothers me? Oh, that I have to hit CTRL+T to resize things!!! Everything is always in transform mode in PSE. lol

I'm not liking the change. But I need it. lol

[lisabranka]

I agree Megan! I went from pse5 to CS4 and the little things are buggin me LOL

[krystalhartley]

People always think it's weird that I would go back to PSE instead of CS3 for designing so often, and it's because of all the built-in "shortcuts" and features like the photo bin. It drove me nuts that it would take me 10x longer to figure out how to do something in CS3 vs. PSE, but I finally just forced myself to do it. And now, I really am comfortable and LOVE the flexibility and power of the app. It didn't take long once I just decided that learning the program was more important to me than a self-imposed design deadline.

I keep my docs in cascade mode...especially when I'm doing things like previews.

[Tracie Stroud]

HUGS Megan! You'll get it, I promise! PM or message me anytime you need to.

[sprauncey1]

Originally Posted by krystalhartley

People always think it's weird that I would go back to PSE instead of CS3 for designing so often, and it's because of all the built-in "shortcuts" and features like the photo bin. It drove me nuts that it would take me 10x longer to figure out how to do something in CS3 vs. PSE, but I finally just forced myself to do it. And now, I really am comfortable and LOVE the flexibility and power of the app. It didn't take long once I just decided that learning the program was more important to me than a self-imposed design deadline.

I keep my docs in cascade mode...especially when I'm doing things like previews.

Me too. Gotta force it and it will come. But I still miss that photobin! I just use the cascade mode too and sometimes the Windows drop down menu to find something particular (if I know the name of the file).

Meeeegan, you can transform things if you have the little box with the Auto Select Layer button checked (right under the Edit drop down menu when you have the move tool selected). Then you have your transform boxes available at the corners to transform. This one took me a while to figure out!

[ditzyscrap]

Taking the leap from PSE to CS is quite daunting, but once you get used to the new way of doing things, you'll never want to go back! I tried going back to PSE3 after learning CS2 because my computer couldn't run CS2 anymore, and I was *so* frustrated, lol...

As for resizing, when you've got your move tool (the black arrow) selected, you should see an option in the task bar just above the toolbox that says "show bounding box", make sure that IS selected, that will make the little boxes show up when you select something so all you have to do is click on one of them and drag to resize. I *don't* recommend the "auto select layer" option...because that one will select another layer if you accidentally click on something and then you could end up doing a whole bunch of steps that you have to fix afterwards, lol (it's happened to me...a LOT). My trick for selecting layers when I don't want to go into the layers palette is to hold Ctrl while I click on the item I want to move to and it selects it.

[Heather Roselli]

OK, girls - I've never had PSE and I have just CS3 now, but I think I might be able to answer a few of these things... surely PSCS4 can do everything PSE can and more!

To turn the grid off - go to the menu bar and choose View, Show, Grid - toggles the grid on or off. Once you turn it on it tends to show up on everything you open during that session...

To have CS always in Transform mode - you want to turn on the Transform Controls - go to the info bar at the top of the screen below the menus. Click the little box that says "show transform controls". That will give you handles on all objects that you can grab with the arrow tool.

If these things aren't the same in CS4 just do a help search right there from the menu bar and it will probably tell you where to find them.

I don't know anything about the photo bin or dragging things from tabs - sorry.

[Megan Turnidge]

Thank you, ladies! I will give it another try today....

[HeatherKS]

I opened up a blank page in mine the other day and finally figured out how to drag a picture into it and that's as far as I've gotten. I was so overwhelmed that I opened up ACDSee and started tagging stuff instead. Now that's sad.

I know it's going to be great when I get there but I'm just not there yet.

[ditzyscrap]

Oh, for the grid, I use Ctrl+' to turn it on/off...guides (if you use them) can be turned on/off with Ctrl+;

I use a LOT of shortcuts to get around in CS, lol...

Ctrl++ zooms in
Ctrl+- zooms out

Though if you have a Bamboo tablet, you can use the little trackpad thingie at the top to zoom in and out by dragging your finger around one way or the other like you would on an iPod.

[lovely1m]

lol...I have PSP X2 and use it for all my scrapping. Someone gave me PSE and I am so lost. Its very different and I get to caught up in not wanting to learn a new program when I just want to scrap, so I seldom use it.

[switchwiz]

Originally Posted by lovely1m

lol...I have PSP X2 and use it for all my scrapping. Someone gave me PSE and I am so lost. Its very different and I get to caught up in not wanting to learn a new program when I just want to scrap, so I seldom use it.

I totally understand. I use PSPX2 also and have PSE5 just to use some of the cool actions. I have tried to use PSE5 but I just can't get the hang of it.

[Heather Roselli]

Originally Posted by ditzyscrap

Oh, for the grid, I use Ctrl+' to turn it on/off...guides (if you use them) can be turned on/off with Ctrl+;

Just know that guides - blue lines you can drag around - are different from the gray grid that appears all over an open window. Both can be turned on and off, guides can also be removed/deleted too. If you don't like the color of the grid and/or guide lines, those can be changed under menu Edit/Preferences. HTHs

[Susan Bartolini]

Another tip....you DON'T have to rasterize a shape in order to change its color. Once you have created the shape, you will see in the layers palette that you have a colored box linked to a vector mask (which is the actual shape). Double click on the colored box (which is the first box on the left) and you wll get a pop up window where you can select a different color! Easy peasy!

Susan

[Megan Turnidge]

Originally Posted by Chef

Another tip....you DON'T have to rasterize a shape in order to change its color. Once you have created the shape, you will see in the layers palette that you have a colored box linked to a vector mask (which is the actual shape). Double click on the colored box (which is the first box on the left) and you wll get a pop up window where you can select a different color! Easy peasy!

Susan

Ahhhhh! Thank you! That was seriously buggin' me! hehe

[kim21673]

I am going to be watching this thread! I DL the trial version on CS4 and if I like it DH said I could buy it...I am upgrading from CS2.

[Brooke W]

I'm going to keep an eye on this thread too

[HeatherKS]

Originally Posted by ditzyscrap

Though if you have a Bamboo tablet, you can use the little trackpad thingie at the top to zoom in and out by dragging your finger around one way or the other like you would on an iPod.

I did NOT know that and now it's my new favorite thing. So much easier than jumping back and forth between tools!

And what is the cascade mode for your different windows? Mine open and show at the top and then I drag them off to the side and tile them there. Is there an easier way?