Category: Tips&Tricks

Tip#100: Ways to activate full-featured color picking HUD

Looks like an anniversary of the tips&tricks series! 100th tip is ON.

Quickly get full-featured color picking HUD under your cursor in Adobe Photoshop. MagicPicker HUD shows up over normal Photoshop’s interface.

The HUD is more unique, intuitive and faster than normal Photoshop panels. It always pops up under your current cursor position. It’s very important especially if you use a Wacom-like tablet (no need to move your hand anywhere). It also auto-hides if you click anywhere on the document. MagicPicker HUD can also auto-hide when you release key/button.

MagicPicker 7: Advanced color picking HUD in Adobe Photoshop
MagicPicker 7: Advanced color picking HUD in Adobe Photoshop

You can activate MagicPicker HUD in the following ways:

  • Click “HUD” button on the panel
  • Click MagicPicker menu -> HUD mode
  • Assign keyboard shortcut in Settings and activate through keyboard any time
  • Assign same shortcut to Stylus button and call it with stylus
  • *Activate “Sticky HUD” mode from Settings to show HUD on press and hide on release of the key

HUD is available in MagicPicker starting from version 7.0.

From series of tutorials for MagicPicker, advanced color picker for Adobe Photoshop

Tip#99: Quickly and silently add new brush/tool preset

Silently add new 🖌️🖌️ brush or tool presets in Photoshop using keyboard shortcut. In MagicSquire panel use Settings to define “Quick New Brush” shortcut. That’s it! One key press and your auto-named brush is in the group. No questions asked.

Quickly add new brush to group with MagicSquire panel for Adobe Photoshop
Quickly add new brush to group with MagicSquire panel for Adobe Photoshop

From series of tutorials about MagicSquire, the advanced brush group manager for Photoshop

Tip#98: How to fix Adobe products not showing up in Anastasiy’s Extension Manager

Fix for Anastasiy's Extension Manager list of Adobe products being empty
Fix for Anastasiy’s Extension Manager list of Adobe products being empty

If you experience one or more of the following problems with Anastasiy’s Extension Manager in Adobe Creative Suite (2021 included):

  • Only Photoshop is listed in the Anastasiy’s Extension Manager list (or only Adobe Illustrator)
  • Photoshop is absent on the extension list
  • Adobe extension list is empty/blank
  • Extensions don’t show up after installation on Photoshop or other Adobe Creative Cloud products (like InDesign, Illustrator or Adobe Premiere Pro)
  • Extension Manager doesn’t list your application or extension
  • ZXP extensions are not displayed in the Extension Manager after installation
  • Installation of Adobe extension failed

It’s easy to fix! First of all please make sure, you’re using the most recent version of Anastasiy’s Extension Manager – at least v3.6. Then:
1) Click File -> Reset extension list in the main menu of Anastasiy’s Extension Manager
2) That’s it! Now all Adobe products should appear and when you install new extensions (or reinstall old ones) they will re-appear on the list

Tip#97: GIANT color preview

GIANT color preview in Photoshop with magicPicker color wheel panel
GIANT color preview in Photoshop with magicPicker color wheel panel

See the 💙GIANT preview of current color with MagicPicker color wheel panel in #Photoshop and #Illustrator. Just Alt-Click on the color swatch

From series of tutorials for MagicPicker, advanced color wheel and color picker for Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator

Tip#96: Collections of groups of brushes with MagicSquire

Groups of Photoshop brushes can be further combined into sets with MagicSquire panel. Click MagicSquire menu -> Collections. Use different Collections of groups for different types of projects.

Switch collections in one click! Or use a keyboard shortcut (customizable from MagicSquire menu -> Keyboard Shortcuts).

MagicSquire: organizing groups of Photoshop brushes in Collections
MagicSquire: organizing groups of Photoshop brushes in Collections

From series of tutorials for MagicSquire, pro brush organizer for Photoshop

Tip#95: New MagicSquire’s right-click menu for brush presets

Right-click to duplicate Brush/Tool presets in MagicSquire

Right-click to duplicate Brush/Tool presets in MagicSquire

New MagicSquire 5 introduces a quick way to duplicate a Photoshop brush or tool preset. Just right-click on any tool preset and select “Duplicate …” from the menu! That’s it!  Also works with new brush preset HUD popup.

What required a fair number of steps now can be done easily with MagicSquire.

From series of tutorials for MagicSquire, pro brush with groups/tags in Photoshop

You can upgrade to MagicSquire 4 to duplicate brushes, use unique HUD popup and more – here

Set up ANY keyboard shortcut or stylus button for MagicSquire HUD brush picker popup

New MagicSquire 4 is out, so you can now use it as a fully featured professional HUD popup for quick-picking brushes in Adobe Photoshop.
*HUD is displayed exactly where you look at – under the cursor, so you don’t get distracted from your art.

MagicSquire quick brush picker HUD popup setup in Photoshop (Keyboard and Stylus settings)
MagicSquire uncluttered brush picker HUD popup setup in Photoshop (Keyboard and Stylus settings)

Setting it up is really easy and quick!
1) Go to MagicSquire Settings and assign any keyboard shortcut to the HUD Mode. Even the simplest like Ctrl+H would work!
2*) If you want to display it when clicking a Stylus (Wacom or any other) button – just assign the same keyboard shortcut in its settings
3) That’s it! Now you click a button and MagicSquire will be available any time under your cursor.

This feature will work in Adobe Photoshop 2020, CC2019, CC2018, CC2017, CC2015 and CC2014.

Main features of the HUD:
– You can assign any keyboard shortcut to it
– It’s resizable – can be small or big, exactly what you want it to be
– Quickly hides by clicking outside
– All functions of MagicSquire work including uncluttered PRO Mode
– It’s fast and powered up by OpenGL/Metal
– Activate “Sticky” HUD to show panel on key press and immediately hide it on key release

Upgrade MagicSquire

MagicSquire is an advanced brush tag group manager for Adobe Photoshop

Tip#94: Resize Color Wheel HUD in Photoshop

Color Wheel HUD in Photoshop is freely scalable with new MagicPicker. Resize ⤡ HUD however you need. Activate panel’s HUD Mode, then simply drag right bottom corner to scale 

Scale MagicPicker Color Wheel HUD in Photoshop
Scale MagicPicker Color Wheel HUD in Photoshop

From series of tutorials for MagicPicker Photoshop color wheel (Illustrator is supported too!).

Tip#93: Sync brushes & image assets in Photoshop on any Cloud

Keep your brushes & image assets on the Cloud of your choice in Photoshop!

Keep image assets and brushes on the Cloud of your choice
Keep image assets and brushes on the Cloud of your choice

In MagicSquire brush manager or MagicRefs image collector click Settings -> Browse to relocate your data! You can then sync data between computers or just use your cloud as a backup.

From series of tutorials for MagicSquire, brush group manager, MagicRefs, image asset collector and MagicPicker, Photoshop color wheel

Tip#91: New layers for color-matched images in MagicTints

MagicTints can create new layers for color matched images. Select the color source image and click “Create new layers button”. After you click “Apply” current Photoshop’s document will be color-matched to the image you selected, on a new layer.

New layers for color-matched images in MagicTints
New layers for color-matched images in MagicTints

This will really speed up your search for right color variation.

Works in Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator.

From series of tutorials for MagicTints, 1-click color matching/correction panel for Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom etc