PSP8 Survival Kit: Page 10

Scales are not quite to scale anymore. . . Let me try to explain. In V7 when you change the size of a brush for instance, the little slider will show you a range of dots from teensy-tiny (almost invisible!) pinhead dots to big, round fat blobs. In V7 they correspond nicely to the actual size of the brushstroke. Well, not any more..... Here's a little tip: when you choose your brush size in V8 from the new tool options bar across the top of the interface, DON'T resize your brush by relying on what you see in the slider, pay attention to the numerical value instead - otherwise you may get a nasty surprise.

New icons...for just about everything, everywhere! Just about ALL of the tools and menu icons have now changed from V7. Not suprisingly, this doesn't make it any easier when you're hunting through the menus looking for your favourite tools, especially when you open PSP8 for the first time. However, they are here to stay now, so we'll just have to get used to them.

File Locations will be your new best friend! Well, maybe that's a slight over-exaggeration.... However, to use your V7 (and older) favourites such as picture tubes, masks, preset shapes, gradients, plugins, palettes and so on, all you have to do is to tell PSP8 where they're already located on your hard drive. For instance, my original V7 files are located on my hard drive inside Programs>Jasc Software Inc>Paint Shop Pro 7. All you need to do is to open up the File Locations and point them to your PSP7 folders. If you'd like to check this out in more detail right now, I have a tutorial on how to import preset shapes from V7 to V8, but this method should work exactly the same for the picture tubes, plugins, palettes, and so on.

The Keyboard Shortcuts.....ain't where they used to be! Aaaagh! This change is a tough one for those of you who use those shortcuts so much you've (almost!) forgotten where the commands are on the menus.... Those familiar old keyboard shortcuts, i.e. 'L' is for Layer, 'C' is for toggling the colour palette on and off (oh excuse ME, the materials palette!) and so on are - gasp - gone. 'L' will now open the Preset Shapes tool, and 'C' will now give you the clone brush. What can you do about that? Re-assign them back where they belong. Yes...you can assign commands to whatever keyboard shortcuts you like. I've written a tutorial to show you how to do this very thing: Customizing the Keyboard Shortcuts. So you can now breath easier again ;-)

Final Comment: Still not completely happy? Well, if all else fails, guess what? The good news is this: Jasc have included a PSP7-look workspace in PSP8. It's not exactly the same, of course (the different icons for instance) but my guess is that it'll be a good security blanket for some. With all these fab new features incorporated into the familiar old workspace we're used to, maybe all is not lost after all, eh?!

My aim with the 'PSP8 Survival Kit' was to introduce the new interface, tools and new tool locations. Hopefully by now you'll have a better idea of some of the major changes. I have only touched on some of these features here in this tut, but I've tried to give you a good introduction to them, and a better understanding of a few of them. I realise this is far from an exhaustive list, however I will try to update this resource and write more tuts on some of the tools as time permits. As I discover and learn more about V8 myself, I will be happy to share more information with you. As I said at the beginning, if there are any questions you have about what I've attempted to show you, or anything else you would like to comment on, by all means do email me at the link above.** In the meantime, good luck with this bold, brave new version of our favourite graphics program and I wish you well in your exploration of it. Happy creating, and most important of all, have fun!