Tutorial of the Week

Last week I showed everyone how to add overlapping drop shadows to clusters & now I'm going to give a quick overview of how to trim the extra transparent space from your cluster to offer it as a freebie. This step only takes a few moments & it really appreciated by people using your cluster as it makes the file size smaller & the thumbnails easier to view. It is especially important to do if you plan on designing kits for sale!

First you'll need to merge all your cluster layers together, if you've added the overlapping drop shadows then this step is already done. For a cluster or element that still has layers you'll need to go to Layer --> Merge Visible.

Now let's trim your cluster, here's how to do it in several different programs.

• Photoshop Elements: Hold down your control key & click into the thumbnail version of your element in the layer palette. The little marching ants will come up all around your element. Then, go to Image --> Crop. All the transparent pixels will be gone.
• Paint Shop Pro: Copy & paste the cluster as a new image.
• GIMP: Go to Image --> Autocrop Image & the program will do the work for you.
  

Since I use Photoshop, I go to Image --> Trim. Make sure that under the Trim Away section all the boxes are checked, click on OK & Photoshop will trim the cluster for you.

Once all the transparent space is gone you can save the cluster as a PNG file & package it up with a preview & your TOUs. I've left my cluster freebie up for everyone to snag, just go to last week's post to grab it!

Disclaimer for Tutorials: I use Photoshop CS 8 for Mac so I can't speak to how things may work in a different program. However, you can find this tutorial in the forum & if you have any other general tips or tips for different programs, please post them in the thread for everyone to see!