Spring is upon us and we all know this means it’s time to do a little cleaning. As you’re giving your workspace a once-over consider this a perfect opportunity to clean up your not just around your computer but in it. Specifically, inside all those Photoshop files packed full of remnants from vestigial ideas considered and abandoned.
Inheriting a previous designers authoring files at the start, or worse mid-way, on a project is usually a nightmare which can waste hours by introducing a learning curve when what you really need and want to do is hit the ground running. For in-house designers trying to interpret the intentions of a college, who is inevitably on vacation and unreachable, can lead to hours of frustration. While file format standards abound there is no industry standard or accepted practices for workflow. So, before you push authoring files downstream, or before archiving, here are a few tips to make it easier on the next guy—or future you.
Remember, while this articles focuses on Photoshop, these tips can easily be applied or adapted to Illustrator, InDesign or other authoring programs.
The Problem With Layers: Naming Defaults
Until Photoshop adds mind reading as a feature, we will be saddled by layers with mundane default names such as Layer 1 copy, Layer 1 copy 2 (Figure 1), or hierarchies of folders titled Group 1, Group 2, which do nothing to map files logically or convey your thinking process on how you tackle the project. If your file consists of only a handful of layers than this is not so much a concern.
However, if you file is composed of many layers—thirty, sixty, one-hundred or more—it can render the file unnavigable and lead to hours of turning layers off then back on in a hunt-and-peck attempt to locate content. It can get maddening.
Taking Control Of Your Layer Addiction
Photoshop has tools built in to help you organize your files. Apart from naming layers logically, you can group similar layers based on content or location into a folder and assign the group a color (Figure 2). Try combining a folder hierarchy with a standard method of naming layers. Each layer is first identified by an abbreviation of the intended use, an underscore, then a descriptive name in camel notation. As an example, if I have an RSS icon in my header, I might have a violet folder titled HEADER and in the folder a layer title icn_rss or icn_rssFeed.
Below are some other prefixes you may find useful:
icn = an icon
img = any graphic element; vector, raster, or CSS generated.
btn = a button
txt = any string of text; headline, body copy, etc.
MASK = any shape used as a masking layer or clipping path.
This also makes it easier to drill down through layers without relying on constant trips to the layers palette. With the Move Tool selected right click (when using another tool use cmd (ctrl)+right click) and Photoshop will present you with a context menu (Figure 3) of all folders and layers under the cursors current position. If all your layers follow a naming convention and are neatly nested inside folders you easily have direct access to exactly the content you want.
Make A Note Of It
Unlike Illustrator or InDesign, Photoshop does not allow you to set up a paste board or slug (you can fake a slug but it’s just begging for trouble at prepress) to leave notes for PA’s or Prepress Operators. When all other methods fail to provide you a way to communicate your intentions, try the Note Tool—it’s located in the Eye Dropper fly out menu or use cmd (ctrl)+I.
Delete Is Your Friend
As a design evolves over time it can become chalked full of vestigial ideas. Little by little these experiments and tangents can eat up space—sometimes doubling the size of the file. But with your layers organized
The Payoff
Other than showing off your Photoshop prowess there are tangible benefits to a tidy authoring file. The biggest benefit is smaller files which load faster, are more responsive when being edited, and occupy less storage space.
Case in point: I recently designed a website wherein the resulting PSD weighed in at roughly 57MB. After the client approved the design, I cleaned up my layers and comps and the resulting file weighed in at 23Mb. This might not sound like a big deal considering gigabytes are now cheap as Chicklets, but when you multiply the savings across hundreds or thousands of authoring files this could translate to serious cash being saved by slowing the ever-growing need to expand storage capacity. Not to mention less time spent waiting for files to transmit across networks.
If your on the design side of the equation, cleaning up your files means you leave nothing to interpretation by a PA in another department, office, or even on the other side of the world. You also avoid the inroduction of mistakes caused by accidental clicks turning on a layer you never intended to have show up in the published piece. We’ve all seen an errant FPO rear it’s ugly head as we page through a publication.
As a PA, you can quickly and efficiently slice and dice design files into finished pieces and negate time wasted waiting for replies from designers so they can convey how they intended a specific design element be applied.
Do you have a method to your layer madness? Share it with us below.
