Here I’m going to show you how to convert an Illustrator file/document to one color. This is mainly used (from my experience) for screen printing purposes but has many other applications.  I’ve had may clients ask me to put 30 different logos of varying colors and design, to all be one color to send to the printer.

This can be achieved very simply with just a few clicks in Illustrator.

The video below is a quick tutorial on just how to do this.

STEPS:

Open you artwork in Illustrator and select all the artwork. You can click and drag to select everything or use Ctrl ‘A’ keyboard shortcut.

Once all of your artwork is selected chose: Edit > Edit Colors > Recolor Artwork.

From the dialog box that pops up you can start the magic.

If the artwork contains black which you want to alter as well….. Click the little pref icon next to the “Preset” drop down menu. This will bring up the Color Reduction Options dialog.

• choose 1 from the colors drop down
• uncheck the “Black” item under “preserve”
• if “Grays” is checked, you’ll want to uncheck that as well.

If the artwork does NOT contain any black, simply choose 1 under the color drop down in the middle of the dialog window.

You can now double click “NEW” to edit the color or drag current colors to the new pane and adjust accordingly.

Be sure the “check” Recolor Art so that you may see you edits live.

Click “OK” and you are set.

I hope this helps.

I’ve been doing quite a few WordPress sites for clients lately and I use a lot of premium templates from templateforest.net. These templates are great but you can run into php errors with them from time to time dependent on your server’s settings for php. Sooner or later you’re going to run into some kinds of php error and that brings your site to a screeching halt. The most recent error that I encountered was this:

1.Maximum Execution Time (max_execution_time) : 30

I ran into several solutions, or so I thought, to correct this error. Again, dependent on your server’s php settings and where you host your site, this can turn into a giant headache in a hurry. I’m going to give you two methods that work and the one method that worked for me. It saved me so much time and got my project back on track with the client.

Method 1: Editing the .htaccess file

Using your favorite FTP clinet (mine’s Filezilla), edit your .htaccess file that’s located in your site’s root folder, where all of your main WordPress files reside as well.

Right click on the file (in Filezilla) and choose View/Edit and edit the .htaccess file in your text editor of choice. I prefer Notepad++.

At the end of the .htaccess file, paste this snippet of code.

1.php_value max_execution_time 300

This code sets the value for maximum execution time to 30 seconds. Some WordPress templates may require 60 seconds or more, if so, simply change the value to 600 or more dependent on your template’s needs.

Method 2: Editing the wp-config.php file (method that worked for me)

Again, using Filezilla (FTP) to connect to your server, in the root folder of your site, edit the wp-config.php file.

Scroll to the bottom of the file and above the commented out code that reads:

1.“/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */”

Paste this snippet of code:

1.set_time_limit(60);

I hope that one of the above methods works for you, the wp-config.php file edit method is what worked for me. Happy coding.

This is by far the best way to cut out anything that you may come across in Photoshop. I do this almost every single day when cutting out people, shapes, buttons, you name it. It is clearly and by far the best method for your intended results.

I see so many people try to use the magnetic lasso or the polygonal lasso and this is just a mistake. I’m even guilty of trying to shortcut with the lassos when I was a junior designer.

Bottom line, the pen tool will out perform the array of lassos any day of the week. You have control of each point, line and curve. God forbid if you make a mistake with one of the lassos… BOOM, you have to start all over again.

With the pen tool, you can even close the document you’re working on and pick up that exact path at a later time with no consequence.

So the lesson here, PEN TOOL for CUT-OUTS  in Photoshop.