I can’t imagine working on pixel-precise graphics in Photoshop without taking advantage of multiple views of the same document, but I find that many designers don’t use this; turns out some just aren’t aware of it. Here, then, is my setup when working on UI bits and such:
- View the file at 100%, with extras hidden (View > Extras). This is my preview window.
- Open a new view of the same file (Window > Arrange > New Window for X). Turn on extras and set up a 1-pixel grid for this view. Zoom in to anywhere between 300% and 800%, depending on what pixels I’m pushing. This is the business end of Photoshop.
- Use full screen mode (View > Screen Mode) with large images, or when working on my MacBook; otherwise, arrange the views side by side, giving the zoomed view more space.
- In full-screen mode, switch between the views to jump between drawing and checking the actual-size preview.
- I use a kickass mouse (Logitech MX Revolution) with well-placed, programmable buttons. Using a kickass driver (SteerMouse, NOT the god-awful Logitech one) I set the flip wheel to zoom (Cmd+- and Cmd+=) and the paging buttons to switch between documents (Cmd+` in CS4, finally).
With this setup, I never (never!) actually switch to the zoom tool for any reason. The fingers of my left hand usually fly between V (move), M (select - I find I use this mostly to measure things, with the Info palette visible), U (shape), A (shape selection) and T (text). That’s about 95% of what I do!
Of course, it’s totally ok to use a single view and zoom in and out; kudos and god bless. Oh, a lot of this works in Illustrator as well; the multi-view thing, definitely.
