Set up ANY keyboard shortcut or stylus button for MagicPicker HUD color wheel popup

New MagicPicker 7 is out, so you can now use it as a fully featured professional HUD popup for picking colors in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
*HUD is displayed exactly where you look at – under the cursor, so you don’t get distracted from your art.

MagicPicker Color Wheel HUD popup setup in Photoshop and Illustrator (Keyboard and Stylus settings)
MagicPicker Color Wheel HUD popup setup in Photoshop and Illustrator (Keyboard and Stylus settings)

Setting it up is really easy and quick!
1) Go to MagicPicker 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 MagicPicker will be available any time under your cursor.

This feature will work in Illustrator and 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 MagicPicker work including uncluttered PRO Mode
– It’s fast and powered up by OpenGL/Metal

Upgrade MagicPicker

MagicPicker is an advanced color wheel and color picker for Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator (and now a HUD as well)

Fix MagicTints not working on macOS Catalina (Big Sur, Monterey etc)

Version10-4HD

If you have updated to macOS 10.15+ Catalina (or higher – El Capitan, Big Sur or Monterey etc.) you may have noticed that MagicTints panel stopped working in Adobe Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC or InDesign CC. You cannot apply color correction and match colors between layers. Some users reported errors like “MagicTints1.jsx cannot be opened because developer cannot be verified” and “Could not color match the following layers…”.

Don’t worry, there’s a fix for that! Please do the following (see below):

MagicTints macOS Catalina error fix
MagicTints macOS Catalina error (fixed)
 1) Download MagicTints Catalina fix script

 2) Open Adobe Photoshop CC and choose File -> Scripts -> Browse and locate MagicTintsCatalinaFix.jsx you just downloaded

 3) That's it! Enjoy MagicTints

Please note that I don’t recommend to update to macOS Catalina yet as Photoshop itself may act strangely, there are problems with UI Scaling and other plugins. Hopefully Apple and Adobe would provide a fix soon. We will also publish the new update MagicTints that doesn’t require any additional scripts to run.

Please stay tuned and meanwhile enjoy MagicTints!

Tip#89: Auto-update background/foreground color relationship when using eyedropper

Keep relationship between foreground and background colors when using eyedropper. In Photoshop click Link button next to color swatches on MagicPicker color wheel panel and then use eyedropper.

Keep linked background to foreground w/eyedropper in MagicPicker color wheel
Keep linked background to foreground w/eyedropper in MagicPicker color wheel

Background color will update automatically. So for example you can always have complementary color in the background swatch.

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

Tip#88: Use MagicSquire’s PRO Mode for direct access to brushes in groups

Get rid of the UI and directly access Photoshop brushes while keeping them organized in groups! Use MagicSquire’s PRO Mode:

MagicSquire's PRO Mode: simplify brush group interface
MagicSquire’s PRO Mode: simplify brush group interface

Click MagicSquire menu -> PRO Mode

Works in Vertical and Horizontal modes of the panel.

MagicSquire is a brush group/tag organizing plugin for Adobe Photoshop

MagicSquire 3.3 brings stability and performance improvements

MagicSquire 3.3 is out! It’s a small service update that brings stability and performance improvement.

MagicSquire professional brush manager update 3.3
MagicSquire professional brush manager update 3.3

Upgrade MagicSquire

Read more about MagicSquire, professional Photoshop brush manager

New MagicSquire 3.2 brings right-click to move brushes between groups

MagicSquire 3.2 is here! Check what’s new below:

MagicSquire 3.2 - advanced Photoshop brush manager
MagicSquire 3.2 – advanced Photoshop brush manager

– NEW! Right-click on the brush to quickly move it to any group, pick group by name
– NEW! Directly drag’n’drop .abr and .tpl files on the panel to load them as groups! Works only on Photoshop CC and higher
– Added new option in the menu – “Optimize brushes” that rebuilds brush database to avoid possible errors
– Fixed: In some scenarios Photoshop window deactivated after loading brushes from files
– Improved selection of newly created brushes on CS6 in various scenarios
– Improved compatibility with CC2019 in various scenarios
– Improved keyboard shortcut detection
– Improved handling of Dual Brushes when rendering strokes and creating new brushes
– In PRO Mode checkmark next to corresponding panel’s menu item is now correctly displayed when it’s active

Upgrade MagicSquire, advanced Photoshop brush group manager

Tip#87: 1-click convert RGB/HSB to HSL (YUV, Pantone etc) with MagicPicker

You can use MagicPicker panel in Photoshop to quickly get HSL, Pantone, YCbCr, YUV, XYZ, L*C*h or color name and copy to clipboard.

Convert HSB to HSL (YUV, XYZ, CMYK, Pantone etc) with one click
Convert HSB to HSL (YUV, XYZ, CMYK, Pantone etc) with one click

Use expandable field on the left bottom of the panel to see color values. Click on the field to switch between color spaces. Click on the Copy button to copy color values to clipboard.

MagicPicker is a professional Photoshop color wheel picker for CS4, CS5, CS6, CC, CC2014, CC2015, CC2017, CC2018, CC2019+

Tip#86: Update Brush/Tool parameters in MagicSquire

Finally you can update existing brush or tool settings – like Tilt, Brush Size,  Shape Dynamics etc –  in Photoshop using MagicSquire.

Update brush parameters in Photoshop with MagicSquire
Update brush parameters in Photoshop with MagicSquire

Double-click on the brush or click Edit button to bring up Edit Brush/Tool dialog, then change parameters in Photoshop and click Update button! No need to delete and then re-create brushes anymore!

MagicSquire is an advanced brush/tool manager for Adobe Photoshop

Tip#85: Insert reference image from MagicRefs into Photoshop Smart Object

MagicRefs offers a deep integration with Photoshop. Without switching panels or software, with a single click inside your document you  can insert a reference image from MagicRefs group into a new Smart Object.

Just click “Insert into Document” button. Works with multiple images.

Insert reference image from MagicRefs into Photoshop Smart Object
Insert reference image from MagicRefs into Photoshop Smart Object

MagicRefs is a professional reference image manager for Adobe Photoshop

Tip#84: Painless ways to organize brushes in Photoshop

MagicSquire 3 offers different view modes depending on your Panel workspace in Photoshop, including two additional modes to what Photoshop offers.

MagicSquire Brush List View Modes

MagicSquire Brush List View Modes

Two plain lists including long one (on the top left on the picture) and multi-column, also mixed mode (on the top-right) where you can see all your brushes at once and the horizontal one (right-bottom of the picture above) so you can attach MagicSquire panel to the bottom of your screen.

Click the “Change list display” button on the top right of the MagicSquire panel to switch modes.

See the brushes the way you want and quickly find the relevant one!

MagicSquire 3 is a professionalbrush management solution for Adobe Photoshop