General rule of thumb is to use gifs for illustrations and images that contain large areas of flat color' and to use jpgs for photographs and images with continuous tones. The jpg format has a very good compression rate' but compression reduces the quality of the image' so experiment until you have the optimal quality/file size.

Yes. Macs use a Gamma of 1.8' while Windows machines use a Gamma of 2.2. It is recommended that Mac users change their Gamma to 2.2 when working on web projects to see how images will appear on a Windows machine. For more in-depth information on Gamma and color theory

Creating Actions and Batch Processing

Creating the Action:

To do this first open the Actions Palette. Window|Actions

Then at the bottom of the palette click on the icon next to the Trash Can (Create New Action).

Name your action' Set: Default Actions.atn' choose a function key (if you want to use that feature) and colorize it if you want.

Then press RECORD and note how at the bottom of the Actions Palette the Red Circle button is depressed and anything that you do now will be recorded until you press the stop button.

Go through and do all the actions you want to do (crop' resize' save' etc) then press stop.

To apply the action to an image' open the image and then press your key command that you set. If you did not set a key command then simply click on the name of the action you made and press the play button at the bottom of the Actions palette.

The next part discusses how to apply your action or any other action to a larger quantity of images.

Batch Processing
Goto: FILE|AUTOMATE|BATCH
Set: Default Actions.atn
Action: The action you made or any other action
Source: Folder
Choose the folder where all the images are
Destination: Another folder' or choose none to keep them all in the same folder
Errors: Stop for Errors

Issue:
In Adobe Photoshop when scanning in black and white' unable to fill colors.

Cause:
When scanning an image in black and white it will be set as a black and white image' which means colors cannot be used until it is changed into a different format.

Solution:
Change the image mode from black and white to color.

Click Image
Click Mode
Click RGB Color

Once the above three steps have been completed you will be able to add color into your image.

Create the object you wish to make the light sabre. Use the Pen tool to create a simple straight path. This will provide the structure for the "light" ...

Now' set a soft-edged brush to the appropriate size to be the thickness you need for the sabre.

Now' you'll use the Stroke Path command to paint the sabre. The Stroke Path command allows you to create a paint stroke (using the current settings for your painting tools) that follows any path.

Start a new layer. When you stroke a path' the color values appear on the active layer. Make sure the layer you want is active before beginning.

1. Select the path in the Paths palette (Cmd/click or Ctrl/click).
2. Click the Stroke Path button at the bottom of the Paths palette. Each click of the Stroke Path button builds up the opacity of the stroke and in some cases makes it look thicker.

To stroke a path and specify options:

1. Select the path in the Paths palette.
2. Select the painting or editing tool you want to use to stroke the path.
3. Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) the Stroke Path button at the bottom of the Paths palette. (Or' Choose Stroke Path from the Paths palette menu.)

There's the sabre.

To create the aura surrounding the sabre' duplicate the layer. Now select the bottom most sabre

Ctrl/click (Mac: Cmd/click) the layer to select the sabre
Choose: Select > Modify > Expand Selection
... and expand it to approximate the amount of aura you desire.

Fill the new' thicker' sabre with the desired aura color.
Click Okay.

Drop the selection and choose: Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur

Adjust the slider until the aura is as you wish.

Presto... Light Sabre

And' may the force be with you.

Hiding the checkerboard pattern in Photoshop 6 through CS

To hide the checkerboard' press Ctrl/K (Mac: Cmd/K) to display the Preferences dialog box.

Then' select Transparency / Gamut from the main pop-up menu

In the Transparency Settings section' select None from the Grid Size pop-up menu and click OK.

Presto: no more checkerboard. Do the reverse to get it back' or change its attributes