Paint Shop Pro Toolbar Tips
(Written for PSP 7 and earlier, but I believe 8 and 9 are similar)
While I find it easier to learn the keyboard shortcuts for my most-used functions, I also find it helpful to always have certain buttons visible on my toolbar. I can also be absent-minded and forget to change color depth or remove a selection I no longer need. I use these buttons mostly as "indicators" - one glance tells me whether, for example, I still have hidden active selection that I may need to get rid of or whether I'm working with enough colors to use the effects filters I need. See your manual for instructions on how to add or remove toolbar buttons in your version of Paint Shop Pro. Also, please note that not all of the following buttons are available for all versions of Paint Shop Pro.
The first two buttons listed (Increase Color Depth and Grey Scale) are available for PSP 7, but its users probably won't need to worry about them because PSP 7's color palette automatically changes to show you how many colors you're working with.
- (Increase color depth to 24-bit, PSP 5 and later) If this button is "lit" (not greyed out), it reminds me that I'm working with 256 colors or less and I'll need to increase the color depth if I want to use most of my special effects filters.
- (Grey Scale, PSP 5 and later). Similar to the color depth button above, if the grey scale button IS greyed out, I know that I need to increase the color depth if I want to use most of my special effects filters.
- (Select None, PSP 4 and later). If this button is lit, I have a selection active. If PSP won't let you paint where you want to, check this to see if you have something selected that may be preventing your paint tools from working properly. This is most useful with PSP versions 5 and later, which offer the ability to hide the selection marquee, thereby making it possible for an absent-minded person like me to forget that there is an active selection present. See also the "Hide Marquee" button below.
- (Hide Marquee, PSP 5 and later). This button will look indented or "pushed-in" when you have a selection that's been hidden. I frequently hide the marquee (the "marching ants") when I'm playing around with text effects and often forget to Select None when I'm finished. I use the Hide Marquee button along with the Select None button above to remind me when I have a hidden selection active, so that I don't get frustrated when the program won't let me paint outside of a selection that I forgot was there.
- (Float and Defloat, PSP 5 and later). These are useful if you work with a lot of text effects and need to be able to tell at a glance whether your text selection is "floating" or not (note that this does not apply to vector text). Starting with PSP version 5, the option to use "Floating Text" is available. When this type of text is applied to an image, the text will "float" above the main layer on its own "mini-layer". You can see this by opening the layer palette (type the letter "L" on your keyboard) - you will see a layer labeled "Floating Selection". Some special effects, such as Outer Bevel, will not work properly unless the text is defloated onto a standard layer first.
© 2002 by Roxy Triebel.
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