Here’s the problem. You “know” Adobe Photoshop, but more work is piling up, and if you are doing any type of digital production work, you know that speed is part of the game. Everything needs to be created at the highest-quality—fast.
Do you find yourself fumbling around or feeling like tasks are taking longer than expected?In my experience, everyone works differently based on the type of work they create.
Graphic Designers are different than Concept Artists. Illustrators are different than Motion Designers. 3D Artists are different than Game Artists. In context the position doesn’t even matter, but the techniques used create their work on a daily basis does.
Regardless of those techniques, it all comes down to how the human mind works and the UI/UX of the software. Directors and seasoned users can usually gauge someones experience in a software package by how their environment is set up. If the “Essentials” workspace is being used, there is certainly room for you to evolve.
What is one way to increase your speed and efficiency?
Build a custom layout based on what you do. This will…
This approach is for artists and designers who want to break the mold. Maximize their skills to focus on creating and accomplishing more art and design, faster. Time = money now more than ever. Serious professionals use Professional Tools.
Let’s take look at the default Essentials Layout, which has had so many variations over the years, in 2021, it includes training modules(?). Let’s deconstruct it. There are three areas for tools and features. If you use hot keys—great! That helps reduce how often you visit the Tool bar. However, this layout depicts that every time you want to do an action, you have to micro-pause, split your focus, and decide which of the three locations to go to.
These actions cause a ping-pong effect, making you bounce to and from different directions to your canvas each time—making it six actions each time you make these decisions.
Even while I am in my most focused zone creating art and using focus music like Brain.fm, it still takes me just under one second to reach the panels. Multiply this times the hundreds of interactions in one sitting, that is a lot of time lost—it’s minutes. You could be done a lot sooner in your day to go for a walk, meditate, or enjoy some Meiji Mushroom Mountain snacks (one of my favs.)
In our Photoshop Masterclass, we spend a session building custom layouts to increase our speed as well as our efficiency that supports our workflows. Let’s take a look at our Chimirus Layout along with our time-saving, custom actions.
As you can see, our layout reflects those of the Golden Ratio, and stacks the toolbar and panels on your dominant side, in this case, the right.
Now your brain no longer has to make that decision—it is all on ONE side. After some initial unlearning, your brain will automatically go to one side now, removing the hesitation, saving you lots of time.
Plus with our workflows, you will rarely ever have to visit the File Menu.
This simple shift will speed you up by:
✅ Reducing Three locations down to two.
✅ Remove your “ping-pong” workflow.
✅ Holding one place for your panels and toolbar.
If you learn this, plus our techniques, (3-step approach) in our Photoshop Masterclass, you will not only increase your speed 200% but you will also gain a clear understanding of how to command Adobe Photoshop and create any type of project.
If you want to increase your speed, workflow, and compositing techniques in Photoshop, take a look at our live Photoshop Masterclass class.
Cheers to evolving as an artist!
