Make the most of your mac

[anxela]

I thought I'd start a thread about using the mac's potential for speeding up scrapping process. Please post your best mac tips here!

Here's my first contribution: Make the most of your spaces.

I'm talking about window spaces, of course. You can set up your mac with multiple "spaces" to get a bigger workspace. Go to the apple menu, then system preferences, and Exposé/spaces. Find out what the shortcut keys for switching spaces are. Change them if you like. I've set mine to CTRL + arrow keys, and shortcut for individual spaces to CTRL + number keys. I have 4 spaces, but you can add more if you like. You have to tick "enable spaces", and I also ticked "show spaces in menu bar". Now. Open Photoshop in space 1, switch to space 2, and open your organizing program. Switch to space 3, and open Firefox so that you can participate in the DD community while scrapping. In space 4, I have my photo organizing program (Lightroom).

You can specify with the + buttons in spaces preferences where you want to open a particular program. So if you want to have photoshop open i space 1 all the time, do that. If you want to move a program to a different space, drag it with the mouse towards the edge of the space, in the direction of the space you want. When you reach the edge, the window will move into the next space.

With an external monitor, this is even better. You can have Photoshop on the big screen, supply organizer (iPhoto/ACDSee, whatever) on the laptop, and on space 2 Firefox and Lightroom (in my case).

You can also have the same program running in different spaces.

If you want to see what is running in all spaces, press fn + F8

Enjoy your spaces!

[digigrandma]

Anexela, you just taught me something new about my Mac. Thank you! It took me awhile to catch on, but, I now have spaces activated and assigned to my most used applications. The spaces icon is in my menu bar. That is handy for easy switching between applications.

Here are the applications I assigned to spaces:
Bridge
PSE 8.0
Firefox browser (DD is my home page, of course)
Adobe Reader (so I can quickly go back and forth between my layout in PSE 8.0 and Cassie's tutorials or Debbie Hodge's lesson pages)

Now, I'm off to add my email to a space.

[anxela]

It's great, isn't it By the way, you can have up to 16 spaces!

[kdif]

where do you grab the spaces icon? In what folder does it reside?

[maureenreynolds]

Spaces in an application. It looks like a 4paned window, so check your Applications folder or dock icon for it, and just drag it to your dock.

[maureenreynolds]

Here is a tip that is not specific to Macs but one I don't hear about that much. The Keyboard Shortcuts - letter only!

i = eyedropper
k = paint bucket

Can you tell I use "i then k" a lot for background fills?

The other ones that get a workout are

v for the move tool
t for the font tool.

[mugsbigsis]

Originally Posted by maureenreynolds

Here is a tip that is not specific to Macs but one I don't hear about that much. The Keyboard Shortcuts - letter only!

I love these! I've learned them all (plus tons more) from Cassie's Tutorials. Aren't they great?!!!

[anke]

Okay, I did it, but I don't see the advantage over just clicking on the symbols on your dock once you have them opened. What am I missing? You can just as easily click back and forth between programs that way...

[digigrandma]

Anke and Kate when I enabled SPACES it automatically put a little icon with squares for how many spaces I chose to use up in the menu bar at the top right of my screen in the same line up where the sound icon, the time, the fan with bars icon that tells you are connected to the internet, etc.

Now that spaces icon is where I go to switch between the 5 applications I use the most instead of going to the dock which is full of many icons, some of which I don't use that often. It just seems quicker and more efficient this way, Anke, and it keeps my Bridge window and my PSE layout window and a PDF tutorial just where I last left them so that when I'm working on a layout in PSE I can quickly switch to the Bridge window where I've got my digital designs in folders or I can switch back and forth between a PDF tutorial. It's a way of leaving these applications open to where you want them without having them in open layers on the desktop at the same time. For me it seems less messy on my desktop to switch back and forth between open documents, instead of trying to click on open windows that get underneath other windows when I want to switch.

[mugsbigsis]

I tried it, but I'm with Anke. I like having my screens open where I can see them all easily. I move them on my desktop so that I can easily click and bring one forward to search for an element or see my photos in LR. When I'm looking for papers and elements, I like that I can see the paper AND the layout so that I can see if a color works BEFORE I drag it onto the layout and find out that it doesn't work. :O\ Maybe it's just a matter of liking what you start out with because you are comfortable with it.

[anxela]

I guess it is a matter of preference. Personally, I like having my programs all open in different spaces, and not having things stacked on top of each other. Also, I like to use the keyboard shortcuts.

Anke, you probably know about the shortcut CMD-TAB? It takes you back to your previous program/application. Press it multiple times, and it will take you further back in "programs", . I find this keyboard shortcut faster than clicking the icon in the dock

[kdif]

I love using spaces when I had a lot of app's open. . . it just declutters everything. But then when I did regular scrapping I was always pretty neat whereas my sil had things all over the place and that didn't seem to bother her. So I guess it's a preference thing.

[kdif]

Here's another new shortcut I just learned today. I had a folder from the chat yesterday that had all of my goodies in it and I wanted to look at them in quick look and just scroll through all of them to see what we got. But I couldn't because I had to untoggle each of the folders first to be able to do that in quick look. So I went on a hunt for a shortcut to untoggle the triangle for all folder(s) open or closed. First do a select all of your main folder (chat freebies) then cmd-opt-rt arrow. (you have to be in list view for this to work). All of the subfolders will now all be untoggled and you can quickly view them all in quick look.

[anxela]

Originally Posted by kdif

Here's another new shortcut I just learned today. I had a folder from the chat yesterday that had all of my goodies in it and I wanted to look at them in quick look and just scroll through all of them to see what we got. But I couldn't because I had to untoggle each of the folders first to be able to do that in quick look. So I went on a hunt for a shortcut to untoggle the triangle for all folder(s) open or closed. First do a select all of your main folder (chat freebies) then cmd-opt-rt arrow. (you have to be in list view for this to work). All of the subfolders will now all be untoggled and you can quickly view them all in quick look.

Great tip! Thanks!

[echogirl]

I'm not crazy about spaces either. It always seem so finicky. I instead use F10 to see all the window I have open in that program and F11 to see my finder window.

I would have to say my biggest time saver I learned for photoshop was to create actions for shadowing and saving files into jpg. Honestly it saves me hours. And yes I learned it from Cassie's tutorial.

[anxela]

I totally agree about actions! I have a webfile action for things I upload, a drop shadow action, save for print, BW and for softening skin and brightening eyes

[kdif]

Anxela,
That's a great idea about an action for skin softening. I'm going to do it!
Have any of you used actions through the finder? I just read about that today and had no idea you could do it.

[iUma]

I use a stylus on the Wacom and just press on the app on the dock to find all my PS files. I'm using Snow leopard so maybe that is not on all Macs. And I have an external monitor for more play room.

Seriously liking the shortcut to view the whole tree of folders. Thanks Kate.

[maureenreynolds]

Thanks katemac for the opening folder shorcut. That's a good one. I tried, and the reverse works too for shutting the lot...cmd, option , left arrow.

[scrapyoga]

thanks for this thread! great resource!

[Kathie]

Ok, it isn't a make the most of your mac that you would typically think--but I have to add that I just got a decal for mine from Etsy that makes the most of the apple on my Mac! ;-) LOVE IT. Have gotten three from this guy (my stepson and his wife also have Macs, and had to buy them one too!)
Welcome to StuckOffcom by moviemagicman on Etsy
FYI I got Ironman, Snow White and Eve with the serpent.