Extremely handy Photoshop tip
 

dudes, I was having trouble seeing the darker shades of my DVD covers on my monitor...what appeared black on the screen actually had visual information I couldn't see until after I printed it out. This was driving me nuts as I kept thinking my covers looked good only to print them out and see all the mistakes I made. Anyway I happened upon a solution: Create a "top layer" above everything else, and fill it up with a white paint bucket. All you can see is white, right? Now crank down the opacity to 50 percent or so...you're now looking at your cover through a sort of brightening filter...the effect is like shining a flashlight on the cover, enabling you to see the darker tones better...(the lighter ones will be more washed out.) Try this and you'll be apalled at what you've been missing. Actually Vong I was prompted to write this after downloading your new EFNY cover, which is quite lovely, but when printed there are some obvious black streaks at the bottom, probably where you had to remove the original title from the poster art. This looks exactly like what was happening to me before I developed my little "method." Anyway I think this must be the first mistake you've ever made, as your covers are generally the cream of the DVDcoverart crop. So guys, let me know if this helps, or if I'm just a squidbrain.

If you have a good enough monitor you can just turn the bright up all the way for the same effect. Also, I made a "corrected" version of Darth's EFNY cover with all the black streak issues taken care of. If you want it, killbot, let me know.

A corrected version of that cover is now available. Sorry about that. I usually dont miss that stuff.

I think the best 2 photoshop tips ever are ones a teacher taught me in school. There isn't a photoshop file I haven't used the second one on. I use it practically on every cover.

1. Master your hot keys. It's probably just a mac thing but I couldn't live without 'em.

2. Hot key numero uno (never seen it mentioned in a book) Command/CTR(pc)-J It is 'Layer Via Cut.' In tutorials and books they always reference 'LVC' but never mention ctl-j. Very weird. What it does is takes whatever you have selected and copies it to a new layer. The most handy tool there is. IMO of course.