Did you know you could do this? I didn't ...

[Arual]

In photoshop CS, did you know that you could add categories to the drop down menu in your styles panel? I sooooo did not know this until a friend helped me figure it out last night! We were looking for a way to categorize things better in our styles instead of having ALL of them loaded up and showing in the panel at once - making it hard to find things often times. Like when I wanted to use my purchased shadow styles, I hated scrolling through my huge list of styles to locate my shadows. However, now I just click the drop down menu and choose the category I made called Laura - Shadows and up they come! I replace instead of append this way I only have the shadows showing at the moment. Im doing the same for my glitters, metals, etc.

Did you know you could do this?

[Mari Koegelenberg]

No I did not but now I am intrigued!!!

[Arual]

Mari, if you need help in doing it let me know and I can try and help - Im not the best at explaining but Im sure I could get ya there! lol

[kelley]

Very cool - I didn't know this either, and I hate scrolling through styles!!

[jacinda]

Can you do a step by step of how you put each style into a category? I'd love to do this with mine.

[Arual]

Originally Posted by jacinda

Can you do a step by step of how you put each style into a category? I'd love to do this with mine.

Yep, I can attempt this... Im not great at explaining (and Im on a mac..so you will have to figure out where to navigate to if your on Windows, which won't be hard Im sure...) but give me a few and I'll do this for you guys.

[Arual]

Whats the best way to upload a short tutorial that has screen shots?

[ayaandjudah]

oooooooh please, I'd love to do this.

[Arual]

Originally Posted by ayaandjudah

oooooooh please, I'd love to do this.

I just walked myself through it all again and have screen shots done... so I just need to write it up... any tip on best way to upload that... should I just write it up in a reply here and add screen shots into the reply ?

[aly321]

AWESOME!! Can't wait to see this. I would love to be able to do it! ♥ Thanks so much!

[ayaandjudah]

upload the screen shits to photo bucket and then put them in between the text.

[Arual]

LOL Alisa, great typo there! :-)

Ok I just finished doing it.. I made it into a PDF doc. Ooops, now how to get it to you gals. Sorry, Im super lame with this stuff!

I could just email it to those who want it?

[Lyd]

If you upload it to a site like 4shared or box.net, you could just post the link here, and anyone who wanted could download it. But, if you would prefer to email it, that works too.

[Arual]

I haven't ever done that Lydia, but I will try that. Ohh I could do dropbox too can't I? I have dropbox, doesn't that allow us to do a link as well? Hmm... Gonna attempt this ... lol

Edited: Okay, I posted the link below. It appears to work. Woot!

[Arual]

Let's try this.... let me know if I have failed, I haven't ever done this before (the tutorial and the dropbox! hahaa.... )

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/38312405/Cr...leCategory.pdf

Edited to add: I put a new link to the pdf, so that I could do a quick warning on it, after reading Kim's post! PLEASE be sure you have all of your styles saved onto your computer as .asl files before you do the new categories. This means any styles you have created, but have not yet saved, please do so otherwise you risk losing them! :-(

[Arual]

Also.... you can do this with BRUSHES .. I just made one called Laura_Alphas ... woot, now I can see all my alpha brushes easier and without having to scroll through alllll my brushes or without having to navigate to each alpha brush file, each time I want to use them. I can now see ALL of my alpha brushes in one file, with a simple click! Oh Im so happy! LOL!

[nietis]

that's an awesome step-by-step instruction!! I shall try it soon

[Mari Koegelenberg]

OMGOSH!!! Eeek so excited thank you Laura!

[taracotta7]

Thank you so much!!!!!!

[Arual]

Just be sure if you do this for Brushes that you save the file under the BRUSHES preset, instead of the STYLES one. Otherwise, the directions are the exact same.

[eranslow]

very cool! off to download and check it out

[elseepe]

thank you for sharing. I have often wondered if there was a way to do this.

[sprauncey1]

Very cool, I've wondered about this before!

Only one thing...I'd warn people to save their styles before they do all that (organize them) because I think I just deleted all my personally created styles when I did that because I hadn't saved them to a .asl yet. I've looked in the PS directory and they aren't there!!! I don't think I've ever saved/loaded them, they are just the working ones that I had when PS loaded every time (and there were a ton and not organized which is why I wanted to organize them!!)

So be warned if you make your own styles to save them first!!

[Arual]

Originally Posted by sprauncey1

Very cool, I've wondered about this before!

Only one thing...I'd warn people to save their styles before they do all that (organize them) because I think I just deleted all my personally created styles when I did that because I hadn't saved them to a .asl yet. I've looked in the PS directory and they aren't there!!! I don't think I've ever saved/loaded them, they are just the working ones that I had when PS loaded every time (and there were a ton and not organized which is why I wanted to organize them!!)

So be warned if you make your own styles to save them first!!

Kim, I'm so sorry! I'd assume that any styles that were loading into CS each time you opened it, were already saved somewhere as a .asl ... otherwise, how were they loading? Im confused. I feel awful now! I am so sorry!!

[Arual]

Kim, did you by chance upgrade your CS and import your styles? Maybe they would then still be in your previous version and you could import again?

I had zero idea that there were styles/brushes/etc being created that were not ever saved. I didn't know that if you create something and not save it, that it would still load when you reopen CS again. I guess Im not so fortunate because every so often when I reopen CS I have lost my prefs, my styles, brushes, etc and I have to start all over from scratch setting everything up because it has all reverted back to default like it's brand new out of the box. I thought it was just normal that this occurred every so often because it happens to other people I know as well.

I feel sick to my stomach, I am so incredibly sorry. I wish I could make this up to you somehow! Ugh!

[Arual]

Okay, after what happened to Kim, I went and found a better way to do a part of the instructions so that not only will you NOT lose your styles if you accidentally didn't save them, but you also won't have to worry about loading back in any styles you are NOT putting into a category....

So... here is the new updated tutorial:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/38312405/Cr...eCategory2.pdf

[kim21673]

This is awesome! I am going to try this later today!!

[origami]

So, when you save the set of styles, are you saving all the actual styles in a new ASL file in a new place?

[Freckles]

Sounds cool! Is this only in Photoshop CS6 or CS5 as well?

[Lyd]

I think you can do this in any version of Photoshop. I've done it with sets of styles and actions before using CS3. I'm not sure about earlier versions, but at least as far back as CS3, you could do it. And, yes, I think it does save a new .asl file to whatever location you choose. You just have to make sure you have those backed up and that you know where they are so that if you have to reinstall software, you can load them back in.

[Arual]

Originally Posted by origami

So, when you save the set of styles, are you saving all the actual styles in a new ASL file in a new place?

Yes, you are saving the ones you choose to go into the new category into ONE file (I call it a combo file... lol) and into a new location (your putting it into the cs6 app presets folder). Your original files are unharmed and stay in their original location.

[Arual]

Originally Posted by Freckles

Sounds cool! Is this only in Photoshop CS6 or CS5 as well?

I agree with Lydia, it should work in versions CS5, CS4 and CS3 ... I don't know about prior to CS3 as I have never used those. Just be sure your styles you currently have loaded, if any of them are ones you created, are saved to your computer somewhere before you start doing the new categories.

[glumirk]

Thanks!!! I love this!

Originally Posted by sprauncey1

Very cool, I've wondered about this before!

Only one thing...I'd warn people to save their styles before they do all that (organize them) because I think I just deleted all my personally created styles when I did that because I hadn't saved them to a .asl yet. I've looked in the PS directory and they aren't there!!! I don't think I've ever saved/loaded them, they are just the working ones that I had when PS loaded every time (and there were a ton and not organized which is why I wanted to organize them!!)

So be warned if you make your own styles to save them first!!

Bummer! I wonder if you can recover them by looking back on projects and resaving them.

[Arual]

Megan, thats a great idea, I never thought of recovering stuff that way! You could though, I just tried it with one of mine! You so smart :-)

[Sherri Tierney]

Thanks I just had to reformat my computer and reinstall Photoshop so this comes at a great time for me as I am getting everything back to 'normal'.