Photoshop Tips

Minor Software Version Updates

Users should periodically visit Adobe Systems's download page to see if there are minor updates available for their version of Photoshop.

Highlighting Text labels and Arrows

	Highlighted capital A	This useful tip for creating a narrow white border around black text and/or arrows can be credited in part to "The Dummies' Guide to Adobe Photoshop 4.0".  This technique should be very useful to anyone pasting digital images together for a figure for a publication or grant.  To achieve the affect shown here, follow these steps:
	Highlighted arrow

Open your image in Adobe Photoshop 4.0 or 5.0.

1. Using Photoshop's text tool, place a black label on your image (in the example above, the capital letter A in bold Times New Roman).  Photoshop 4.0 may require you to create a new layer first, version 5.0 will automatically create a new layer for your text.
2. Using the move tool, move your label to where you want it placed on the image (to do this you must have the text layer selected in the layers palette).
3. With the text layer selected, turn off the "preserve transparency" option in the layers palette.
4. While holding down the control (Ctrl) key (Windows) or the command key (Macintosh), put the mouse pointer over the text layer in the layers palette and click.  This will select the non-transparent parts of the layer (i.e., your text).
5. Make sure that your foreground color is now set to white (tools palette).
6. Go to the program menu and select EDIT, STROKE.  The parameters for the example shown were a "width" of 1 pixel wide and the "location" selected was "outside".

To add a narrow white border to an arrow requires a few more steps.  In addition to Photoshop, you will need to open either the Windows 3.1/95/NT Character Map Utility (usually found in the accessories group) or the Key Caps utility (Macintosh).  In the character map/ Key Caps utility select a symbol font (like the Wingdings TrueType font).  Find an appropriate arrow character, click on it, press the COPY button and then go to Photoshop.

1. Follow steps 2 and 3 listed above for highlighting letters.  You can paste the copied character into the text tool using ctrl-V (Windows).  Make sure you have the appropriate symbol font selected.
2. To rotate the arrow to the desired angle, select the text layer in the layers palette, go to the menu bar and select LAYER, TRANSFORM, ROTATE.  A group of "handles" will form around the arrow symbol and the cursor will change to look like a curved, double headed arrow. 
3. To rotate your arrow symbol, hold the left mouse button down and move the cursor around the symbol until it is pointing in the direction that you want.
4. When you are done with rotating the arrow symbol, press the enter key.
5. Follow steps 4 through 6 listed above for highlighting letters.

Overlaying Confocal Images in Photoshop

Users of the Leica TCS-4D confocal microscope have regularly asked how they can add a confocal image labeled with Fluorescien (a green fluorescent dye) to a second image labeled with Rhodamine (or Texas Red, both red fluorescent dyes) and have both colors show up in the combined image.  There may be other ways to do this, but here's the method that we usually demonstrate to users:

Look-Up-Tables & Image Mode:

1. Open the two images in Photoshop.  The images should have the appropriate green and red look-up-tables (LUT) from the confocal microscope.  If they do not, go to step 2.
2. The easiest way to "get" the appropriate LUTs is to open an image from the confocal that has the correct LUT and save it as a palette file (*.act) for use with other images.

1. Open the image with the green LUT.  From the menu bar select IMAGE|MODE|COLOR TABLE
2. Choose the SAVE button, name the file "confocal-green.act" and save it to a directory on your hard disk where you can find it again later.
3. Repeat the process with a red image to get the red LUT and name it "confocal-red.act" and save it to disk in the same place as the green LUT.
4. Now, select the image you want to make "green", check to see that the image is "indexed color" (see IMAGE|MODE ). From the menu bar select IMAGE|MODE|COLOR TABLE and select the LOAD button.  Find your "confocal-green.act" palette, select it, load it, and then click OK.
5. Follow a similar process for the image that you want to make "red".


3. After you have completed step 2 (if needed) use IMAGE|MODE|RGB to change the image to a 24 bit red-green-blue image.

Overlaying the Two Images:

1. Click on the "green" image to make it the active image.  Choose SELECT|ALL , then EDIT|COPY.
2. Click on the "red" image to make it the active image.  Choose EDIT|PASTE.
3. Find the floating Layers menu (if you can't find it, choose WINDOW|SHOW LAYERS).
4. There will be a drop down list that says NORMAL.  Open the list and choose SCREEN.
5. Now you will see the green & red colors together in one image.

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Portions of this document were originally published in the SWEHSC Cellular Imaging Shared Service Newsletter (4/1998, 12/1998, 2/1999). This WWW page does not constitute a specific endorsement of Adobe Photoshop™ (a product of Adobe Systems Inc.) by any of the organizations and/or persons listed on this page.