Adobe Photoshop CS5 Tutorials
Photoshop Productivity Techniques / Saving & Understanding File Formats
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Subtitles of the Movie (Adobe Photoshop CS5 / Photoshop Productivity Techniques / Saving & Understanding File Formats)
Well, I suppose we should have a discussion on saving files and understanding File Formats and all that good stuff. You know, I could probably talk about File Formats for about an hour and a half or two hours straight, but you'd be bored to death, so I'm going to try and give you the, sort of the short and sweet crash course on File Formats. I'm talking about JPEGs and TIFFs and when should I save my file as a GIF and when should I save my file as a PDF and all that kind of stuff. Now, I guess I should start the conversation here by saying, of course and this really goes without saying, but as you're working along in Photoshop save your work often. If Photoshop crashes or if your computer crashes, heaven forbid, you will lose all of your work and you can phone me and we can cry together, but there's really nothing that I can do to help you if you've lost your work, so save often. That goes without saying. I do want to say this, though, as we're going along and saving our work, Ctrl-S or Cmd-S by the way, is your Keyboard Shortcut. So every once in a while I just hit Cmd-S or Ctrl-S to save my work, but depending on the type of file that you're working on, for example, here we have Barn1.jpg, so it's a JPEG file. As I'm working along inside Photoshop and, you know, as you and I start getting into the deeper aspects of Photoshop, Layers and Alpha Channels and you know, Adjustment Layers and all this good stuff, if we save our JPEG, Photoshop is going to want to save our file as a Photoshop File, a .psd file. Why? Well, Photoshop's trying to help you out because not all File Formats support all optionsright? For example, a JPEG doesn't support Photoshop Layers. JPEGs don't support Photoshop Alpha Channels, eitherright? This kind of thing. So, Photoshop wants to make sure that your images remain as editable as possible, so you might see this every once in a while and that's really the only reason why I'm mentioning it, I just don't want you to get confused here. OK, how do I save my file into a different format? Very easy. Up to the File Menu here and then down to Save As. Now, of course, there are other methods for getting our stuff out of Photoshop and into other applications, but I'm just giving you the down and dirty here, so File, Save As and then, of course, from the Format drop-down menu at the bottom of the dialog box, this is where we see the huge laundry list of File Formats. Now, you know, I'm not going to go through every single one of these File Formats with you here. I think maybe what I'll do is I'll point out the highlights and I will kind of leave it at that and hopefully that'll be alright with you. So, the very first option that we have is a Photoshop File, as previously mentioned, a .psd Photoshop Document File, and this is Photoshop's native file format, so pretty much everything I can do inside Photoshop would remain editable inside a Photoshop Document, or a .psd. So, things like Layers, Alpha Channels, Adjustment Layers, Masks, all the good stuff, right? So, what I would suggest you do is keep your files in the Photoshop format while you're working on them and then if you need to post a version of your image online, for example, then save out a copy of your file in the appropriate File Format. If you need your image in a Print Layout and you need to save out a copy then save out a copy in a proper File Format so, in other words, you're always working from the same original sourceright? Anyway, there's the Photoshop native File Format, the first guy there. BMP, don't use it, otherwise I will come to your house and take away your computer. Don't use .bmps, they're terrible, they're low quality, they really shouldn't even exist. Anyway, we have CompuServe GIF. GIF and we have JPEG and PNG down toward the bottom. These guys are all siblings so, again, GIF, JPEG and PNG. These guys are our three primary File Formats, image File Formats, that we would want to use in Web Design. Now, I'll spare you the nuts and bolts beyond that, so JPEGs and PNGs and GIFs are used nearly exclusively online. But JPEGs are also used quite often, you know, when you're emailing friends the photos you took on your vacation, that kind of thing, so a JPEG is a really good File Format for just getting your stuff around, you know, whether it's through e-mail or onto Facebook, or this kind of thing. There's another File Format here called Photoshop EPS. I'm really not sure if this format is really even used anymore. We used to use this File Format a lot in the print world, back in the days of Quark Express, but I really don't think it's used that much anymore. But anyway, it is an option. You might see EPSs, .eps files, come up every once in a while. And, of course, everybody knows about PDF files. Now did you know that you could save out your images, your Photoshop documents as PDFs? Sure can. All you need to do is just choose Photoshop PDF from the drop-down menu here, click on Save and that's all she wrote. Then you can open up the file inside Acrobat or e-mail it to a co-worker and they can open it up inside Acrobat. Either the full Acrobat Editing software, or if they just have Acrobat Reader. It's great. OK, good stuff. I already mentioned PNG, or ping files, so I'll leave that. The last one that I want to mention is TIFF and again, a TIFF file is kind of like a, I will say, a more professional version of JPEG. It's a great way for getting your images around. I think of TIFF as like a Jeep. It's really rugged, it's durable, it's going to get you around but it's really more used in professional circles so if I wanted to send a print house my file and I want to make sure they can open it up I would send the file to them as a TIFF. Or if I'm going to get my photographer to send me some files I'm going to ask for TIFFs, because guaranteed I can open up his files inside Photoshop. OK. I just gave you the super fast run through. If you want to take a moment and try saving your file out under different File Formats, comparing file sizes and things like this, go for it. Myself, I'm just going to Cancel out of this dialog box.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Adobe Photoshop CS5 |
| Author: | Geoff Blake |
| SKU: | 34150 |
| ISBN: | 1-936334-46-1 |
| Release Date: | 2010-08-06 |
| Duration: | 7.5 hrs / 95 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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