Ben's Extra-Strength Tips for the Clients and Friends of Ben Willmore (www.digitalmastery.com):

I guess you've noticed that my "weeks" have gotten a wee bit long. Ok, I'm guilty as charged. Too much travelling, not enough quiet time for cranking out tips We're changing the name of this tip letter to "Ben's Extra-Strength Tips." I'll keep on sending these out to you periodically, so you'll still get the good stuff, just not on a weekly basis. Thanks for putting up with my schedule.

Now that Photoshop 7 has been out for a while, I think it's high time that I start giving you some new insights that will help you get better at using it. Oh, and don't worry, I'll still cover techniques that work with earlier versions of Photoshop, this one is just a special edition on 7.0.

There are a few things that I don't like about the default setup of Photoshop 7.0. The first one is the way the Brushes palette looks when accessing it from the Options Bar at the top of your screen. It defaults to showing a brush stroke preview, which I think takes up too much space. So, to get things back to the way there were in 6.0, click on the arrow that shows up in the upper left corner of that Brushes palette and choose Small Thumbnail. Then to access those brushes, you can right-click (Win), or Control-click (Mac) on your image. To choose a brush and dismiss the palette at the same time, double-click on the brush you'd like to use.

In addition to the standard Brushes palette in the Options bar (what I like to think of as the "lite" edition) Photoshop 7.0 has introduced a second, and entirely separate Brushes palette. This other palette (the "I'll take everything" edition) gives you a ton of new options, and can be accessed by choosing Window>Brushes. This is where you go to change all the settings related to a brush (as apposed to just choosing a preset brush). This palette has the same affliction as the Options Bar version, so choose Small Thumbnail from the side menu of the Brushes palette. The, if you like those brush stroke previews (they are useful for the more unusual brushes), just hover over one of the brush presets ( but don't click) until the tool tips show up and then run your cursor over all the brushes to see a preview at the bottom of the Brushes palette.

Now let's move on to working with Layers. Let's say you have a document that has dozens of layers and you need to delete six of them. Well, in either Photoshop 6.0 or 7.0, you can link those layers together by clicking on the small indent that shows up to the right of the eyeball icon on each layer. Then you can Command-click (Mac), or Ctrl-click (Win) on the trash icon at the bottom of the Layers palette to delete all the layers that are linked together! In earlier versions you had to use that trick, but there wasn't a menu choice to accomplish the same thing, but now in 7.0 you'll find a Delete Linked Layers choice on the side menu of the Layers palette. Also, in 7.0, they've added a Delete Hidden Layers command to the same menu, which will trash all the layers that have the eyeballs turned off.

When using the Eyedropper tool, you can usually only grab colors from the open Photoshop images, but in 7.0, you can click within an open Photoshop image and then drag outside of that image to choose a color from any part of your screen. I use that technique to sample colors that I like from different web pages. As long as the browser window is visible, then you should be able to drag to it to pick up colors.

Ok, now here's one for you web folks. If you click on the bottom-most icon in Photoshop's Tool palette, you'll be transferred over to Adobe ImageReady. Once you get there, create a new document with a transparent background and then type "duckerboard" and see what happens to the checkerboard that usually indicates an area that is transparent. To get things back to normal, just type that phrase a second time.

And now if you'll put up with me talking about two things that cost money, I'll reward you by telling you about some new free content that's available on my web site. Sound like a deal? Ok. I have just released three new videos that cover both 6.0 and 7.0. They are available on my web site and they cover color correction, blending modes and advanced layers and each is 90 minutes long. I also have signed copies of my Photoshop 7.0 Studio Techniques for sale for 20% off. If you don't have the 7.0 version yet, you'll be happy to hear that there's a brand new chapter on color management (that's how to get your screen to match your printer, and more). For information, visit my web site at www.digitalmastery.com Ok, you've made it through the sales spiel, so now it's time for your reward: Go visit www.digitalmastery.com/companionsite/magazine to download five new magazine articles that I've written.

Have a great week, and don't forget to check out this week's installment of the Photoshop Questions at www.digitalmastery.com/questions

-Ben Willmore