Now before we lip head long into Photoshop CS2, let us take a moment to setup the program properly so that your version of the program and mine are in sync. If you ever done so already, go ahead and quite Photoshop, run the installer included with the series, and then restart the program,

The installer includes complete instructions for installing the files that will be working with, as well as shortcut settings, color settings and so on. And, it is important that you have those on your hard drive and ready to go. As soon as you get done doing that, go ahead and launch Photoshop and rejoin me right here.

Now, I happen to have one of the images from the lesson 2 file up in on screen. It really does not matter what file you open. We are just going to be talking about settings inside the Photoshop. Some of the most boring stuff frankly, but some of the stuff we got to do, and of course, I am going to make as exciting as humanly possible for you.

If you do, get a color setting errors when opening this or some other file. Just go ahead and click Okay, and I will explain during this lesson how to make sure those color setting errors do not come up again. Now, let us start things off by looking at the core settings inside Photoshop which is the preference settings. We are not going to go through all of them. We are just going to visit a few that I think are very important for you to change.

To get to the preferences, you go to the edit menu, you choose preferences, and then you choose general. On the Macintosh side, you go to the Photoshop menu, choose preferences and then choose general, or save yourself a lot of hassle and jus press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl K or command K on the Mac, and that will bring up this preferences dialog box right here. Then, notice right now, it set to the general preference. There are bunch of other preference panels inside the dialog box.

Now, here are some highlights. A lot of the stuff we have seen before in previous versions of Photoshop, but just a few highlights. If you preference settings that I think are set wrong by default, always have felt this way, but it is always worth visiting these things and turn them to hack on or off.

First of all, we want export clipboard to be off unless you plan on copying and pasting between different applications. It is better if this option is turned off because otherwise, it generates a lot of failure errors, it slows down the programs when you are switching between them, a lot of other hassles, better to turn it off unless you know want it on.

Zoom resizes windows is on by default on the Mac. It should be on by default under Windows as well I think, and then you and I will be in sync with each other.

Use Shift key for tools switch, I think should be off, okay? So, turn that one off. And that ensures that you can switch between tools just by pressing letter keys with that also having to press the Shift key. Again, this will bring you and I into sync.

Let us move on to the next preference panel which you can do by clicking the next button. You can also choose file hem link from this list up here, or every one of these panels has a different keyboard shortcut associated with it. So you can press Ctrl 2 or command 2 on the Mac. Go ahead and escape out of that.

Here is one thing I recommend you change. Right now, maximize PSD file compatibility set to ask, unless you are using some applications that requires a flatten version of a Photoshop file to be included inside of the PSD file. Then, I recommend you set this to never, if you are just using files inside the creative suite, I recommend never, that is the way I work. So, will go ahead and set this option to never. That makes sure that your PSD files are smaller,

If you select one of the other compatibility options, you create a flatten version of the image that makes the image bigger and bigger and bigger; sometimes as big as twice as big as normal. I going to go ahead and go to the next option in the list, display and cursors, and here is a really cool thing inside Photoshop CS2. You can now have a cross hair in the center of your brush tip, and that just helps you. It is kind of like a combination of the old precise cursors along with the standard normal brush tip, which allows you to see both how big your brush is, and exactly where the center point of that brush is. I really like the settings. You can try it out and decide if you like too.

You could also decide for soft brushes, you can get a full size brush tip and that include all the softness. So, every single pixel, that is going to be modified, or you can just leave and set to normal. I prefer normal, but you can again decide what you like.

Just two more settings I want you to change. Go up here to the popup menu and choose units and rulers, or press Ctrl 5 on the PC or command 5 on the Mac, and notice this option right here, the very first one ruler which is set to inches. This not only controls the unit of measurement use by the horizontal and vertical rulers, which you can bring up on screen inside Photoshop by pressing Ctrl R or command R on the Mac, which is the least of what this matters for.

It does affect the rulers, but it also affects every single unit of measurement inside the software. So whether you are working inside image size or canvas size, one of the dialog boxes where you changing the size of the image, you will see inches and that was a bad thing, in my opinion because inches is useful for American printing and that is about it, serves no function on the web, no function on video and no function in every other country on earth.

That is why I suggest use set this to pixels, the one unit of measurement that matters no matters what medium you are going to, no matter what country you are in and also if you are on foreign planets -- also matters. But, here is the real thing. That is what Photoshop is thinking of. Photoshop thinks in terms of pixels. You want to be thinking in terms of pixels too.

Again, you and I will be in sync if you choose that option.

Finally, choose plug-ins and scratch discs which you can do by pressing Ctrl 7 or command 7, and this is just for those of you who have multiple hard drives inside your computer. Now, I do not. I just have one hard drive. But if you have multiple hard drives, you want to go ahead and choose some other hard drive other than C or other than the hard drive on which Photoshop is installed, so other than the system drive, generally speaking, on the Mac or the PC.

So, if you got a D driver, a new drive choose that, and then set second to another drive like the C drive for example. This way, Photoshop will go ahead and fill up these various hard drives with scratch information to manage these very, very large files that it sometimes has to manage without slowing you down, without generating out of memory errors and without giving you any hassles.

So again, if you have multiple hard drives, full around with these options to get the best results you can, set them to different drives. Usually, people just have a first and second drive. If you do have third and fourth though, you can go nuts.

All right, and once you are done, click Okay to accept these changes.