Tip#83: Clean and uncluttered panels in Photoshop and Illustrator

Clarify UI of MagicPicker and MagicSquire panels - PRO mode
Clarify UI of MagicPicker and MagicSquire panels – PRO mode

Use PRO Mode to clarify MagicSquire & MagicPicker panels in Photoshop and Illustrator while keeping all functionality.

PRO Mode lets you see only the essential features of the panels to focus on your creative work.

Click Menu ► PRO Mode to activate/deactivate it.

MagicPicker is a professional color wheel and color picking panel for Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator

MagicSquire is an advanced brush/tool manager for Adobe Photoshop

Learn how Pro artists use MagicPicker, MagicSquire, MagicRefs and other panels

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All tutorials, tips and tricks on how to use our MagicPicker, MagicSquire, MixColors, DiskFonts, MagicRefs in Photoshop/Illustrator panels are now in one place

Tutorials for MagicPicker, MagicSquire, MagicRefs, MixColors, DiskFonts
Tutorials for MagicPicker, MagicSquire, MagicRefs, MixColors, DiskFonts

Get access to 80+ tutorials, tips, tricks and videos on essential features of MagicPicker color wheel, MagicSquire brush/tag manager, MagicRefs reference image manager and DiskFonts external font viewer

 

 

Tip#82: Use Compact Mode to speed up your creative work

Increase your creative performance with smart Compact Mode. Shrink our panels in Photoshop into informative small tiles that auto-magically expand with simple mouse movement. Zero clicks allow you to focus on your work. No right-clicks or crazy keyboard shortcuts anymore!

Smart Compact Mode in MixColors, MagicSquire, MagicPicker, MagicRefs in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator
Smart Compact Mode in MixColors, MagicSquire, MagicPicker, MagicRefs in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator

MagicPicker color wheel, MagicSquire brush tag/group assistant, MagicRefs reference image manager and MixColors color mixer all support it in Photoshop (and Illustrator for MagicPicker). Activate Compact Mode from panel’s menu.

MagicSquire 3.1 update improves brush handling in Adobe Photoshop

Tags are more user-friendly! Search improved, Collections speeded up, Brush Tip rotation is faster with Keyboard Shortcuts, sync brushes to Dropbox is better. LAST chance update discount until March 9th 2019!

MagicSquire 3.1: Brush Tags improved, Collections speeded up, more
MagicSquire 3.1: Brush Tags improved, Collections speeded up, more
WHAT’S NEW:
– Tags UI improvements by concept artists’ feedback
– Improved brush tip rotation performance, fixed problem with available keyboard shortcuts to brushes when too many shortcuts are assigned, fixed searching for tags, capturing color, rotating brush tip, permissions with relocating data folder to Dropbox and Google Drive
– All features available now for Photoshop CS5, CS6, CC, CC2015, CC2017, CC2018, CC2019+

MagicRefs, the advanced Reference Image manager for Photoshop is out!

FEATURES:
– Deep integration with Photoshop – native panel. Always there in the UI when you need it
– Drag’n’drop folders – directly from Windows Explorer or Mac Finder
– Add image from web
– View all images at once in a stream with zoom
– Colored groups
– Zoom, flip and edit selected image, use eyedropper
 Animated GIF Video support! With frame-by-frame control
– Link sets of images to PSD documents
– Keep all data in the cloud of your choice
– Photoshop CS5, CS6, CC, CC2014, CC2015, CC2017, CC2018, CC2019+ support
– more!

Tip#79: Shift+Click to slightly adjust color in Photoshop with MagicPicker

Shift+click moves color wheel pointer towards cursor and allows to slightly change current color with precision
Shift+click moves color wheel pointer towards cursor

Shift+click inside the MagicPicker color wheel panel to move color wheel pointer towards cursor. Works in Photoshop and Illustrator and allows to slightly change current color with great precision! This feature supports all color wheel and color pane modes of MagicPicker.

MagicPicker is the professional color picking solution of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

Tip#78: Advanced Brush Stroke display in MagicSquire

Brush Stroke in MagicSquire (Photoshop)
Brush Stroke in MagicSquire (Photoshop)

Display Photoshop brushes in 5 different advanced styles to distinguish them better, with MagicSquire. Double-click the brush in the group to choose the stroke style from the dialog. The strokes are auto-generated in high resolution and show precisely how the brush would look like on the canvas. Renders precise opacity, texture, mixer brush tips, tilt etc – all advanced properties of any Photoshop brush. Supports 4K and 5K monitors.

In addition to standard Photoshop functionality the dialog also allows you to update current Brush properties.

MagicSquire is a professional brush managing panel for Adobe Photoshop

 

Tip#72: Change color brightness/temperature/hue etc using new Keyboard Shortcuts in MagicPicker

MagicPicker 6 introduces new Keyboard Shortcuts that allow you to change color temperature or brightness/hue/saturation (and more) with one press of a button! Assign them in the easy-to-use MagicPicker dialog. Click MagicPicker menu -> Settings to enter Keyboard Shortcuts dialog.

You can use advanced keyboards’s keys and Wacom’s keys.

Works in Photoshop and Illustrator.

MagicPicker Keyboard Shortcuts to change color hue/brightness/temperature
MagicPicker Keyboard Shortcuts to change color hue/brightness/temperature

Here’s the list of functions that are available for key binding in MagicPicker 6:

  • Increase/decrease Color Temperature
  • Increase/decrease Color Brightness
  • Increase/decrease Color Saturation
  • Toggle Color Scheme
  • Toggle Tone Lock
  • Toggle K-Lock
  • Toggle Compact Mode
  • Toggle RGB/HSB
  • Switch between Color Wheel Triangle/Box/Diamond/Color Temperature/LDT Cube modes
  • Copy current color’s Hex value to Clipboard
  • Switch Color Wheel / Color Box (Pane)
  • Toggle MagicPicker panel on/off

MagicPicker is an advanced color wheel and color picking panel for Adobe software

Assign Keyboard Shortcuts to MagicPicker functions in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator

Starting from MagicPicker 6.0 you can set up keyboard shortcuts through MagicPicker’s Settings dialog (from the panel’s menu):

MagicPicker - assign keyboard shortcuts
MagicPicker – assign keyboard shortcuts

Click on the empty field next to the function description and press the key combination. That’s it! Works on Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator CS3, CS4, CS5, CS5.5, CS6, CC, CC2014, CC2015, CC2017, CC2018+.

You can also adjust steps for every feature. For example you can adjust brightness by value of 5 or 10 or even 17.

Here’s the list of MagicPicker functions that you kind bind to your key presses:

- Increase/decrease Color Temperature (with adjustable step)
- Increase/decrease Color Brightness (with adjustable step)
- Increase/decrease Color Saturation (with adjustable step)
- Toggle Color Scheme 
- Toggle Tone Lock 
- Toggle K-Lock 
- Toggle Compact Mode on/off
- Toggle RGB/HSB
- Switch between Color Wheel Triangle/Box/Diamond/Color Temperature/LDT Cube modes
- Copy current color's Hex value to Clipboard
- Switch between Color Wheel and Color Box (Pane)
- Toggle MagicPicker panel

Adobe Photoshop CS3 and CS4 troubleshooting

Due to limitations on older Adobe products on Adobe Photoshop CS3 and CS4 you can assign keyboard shortcuts using Photoshop Edit -> Keyboard Shortcuts… dialog. In the dialog locate File -> Scripts menu and assign keyboard shortcuts to “(MP)…” scripts.

Adobe Illustrator troubleshooting

Adobe Illustrator allows only Shift, Cmd/Control and F1-F15 keys assigned to shortcuts. This is Adobe’s limitation. It means you can only use key combinations like “⌘+F1” or “Win+F2” or “Shift+Control+F3” or “Shift+F5” etc. F1-F15 keys are required in any keyboard shortcut.

If you receive the following message “Some event has not been registered for action“. It means you face a rare bug of Adobe Illustrator CC2015 or below. This is not a common bug and we’re still investigating why it happens for some users. It’s easy to fix on your side. Please update to Adobe Illustrator CC 2017 or above! The update is available for free from your Adobe Creative Cloud.

The message “The object “MagicPicker…” is not currently available” means you’re trying to use keyboard shortcuts on Illustrator without an active document open. Please open or create a new document in order to work with the keyboard shortcuts. This message is a bug of Adobe Illustrator.

I see the message “Please run Illustrator as Administrator…” or “Please restart Illustrator…” in the MagicPicker Settings. On some computers MagicPicker fixes the problem with problematic installation. You need to right-click on Adobe Illustrator and choose “Run as Administrator”. Then open MagicPicker and click Settings. If needed you need to restart Illustrator again. If shortcuts still don’t work please upgrade to Adobe Illustrator CC2017 or higher.

Adobe Illustrator CS6, CS5, CS4, CS3

The message “Some event has not been registered for action” on Adobe Illustrator CS6 and below means you face a rare bug of Adobe Illustrator. This is not a common bug and we’re still investigating why it happens for some users.  Please use the manual way of assigning shortcuts: you will need to go to Adobe Illustrator -> Scripts -> MagicPicker and assign keyboard shortcuts to those scripts using AutoHotKey (Windows) or Automator (Mac). Adobe fixed all bugs related to keyboard shortcuts in Adobe Illustrator CC2017 and above.

 

How to fix freeze, stutter, lags, slowdown and stylus pressure problems in Photoshop (MagicPicker and other panels can be affected)

This only affects Windows/Adobe Photoshop CC Users that have installed Windows Creators Fall Update. The symptoms in Photoshop CC may include (but not limited to):

  • The stylus is lagging when you click and press on the panel
  • You can click and select a color with it, but you can’t drag the sliders
  • The plugin won’t recognize the stylus when pressing and moving across the color picking areas
  • If you click on the panel with Wacom pen then the color updates. But if I press and drag the panel does nothing. You can only tap
  • When you want to pick a color and move it with Pro Pen on Cintiq then you can’t move it. Only double click works. Also it still works with mouse
  • You lost pen pressure sensitivity on Photoshop

All those problems are connected to Photoshop CC’s bug with stylus and tablet, in most cases it’s a Wacom tablet-only problem but it affects other tablets as well.

The good news it’s very easy to fix! Please do the following (the fix bellow applies to all versions of Photoshop you just need to replace Photoshop’s version in the path):

PSUserConfig

1) Go to your Wacom preferences and disable “Windows Ink” or “Windows Freehand” (the name depends on your Wacom drivers version)
This is not all! After this step you will probably lose pen pressure sensitivity, so follow next steps to avoid it:

2) Go to C:\Users\“YOURNAME”\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC2018\Adobe Photoshop CC2018 Settings\ and modify a file called PSUserConfig.txt (create a new file if it doesn’t exist). You need to add the following lines:
# Use WinTab
UseSystemStylus 0

3) Restart

That’s it! Those simple steps will make sure you will keep pressure sensitivity on your tablet while fixing the problem with Adobe Photoshop.