The answer was Actions, my friends! They are useful in a variety of situations, including batch edits, speeding up certain processes and even making custom filters! And they’re simple to make too! You need not know how to program or script or anything like that. Just hit record, make the changes that you want in real time, just as you would normally do, and then hit stop! It’s that easy! You can even assign hot keys to actions to make them even more efficient and useful!

Lets say you want to create an action that resizes an image and then applies a watermark with your name. Simply open up the actions panel via Window > Actions and create a new action. In the panel that pops up enter the name of the action. You can also assign a hotkey to it here if you want. Next the record button in the actions panel. From this point, until you hit stop, everything you do will be recorded to the action. So, select Edit > Image Size, to change your image size to whatever you desire, and then play around with the text tool or place your logo onto the image to create a watermark. Move it to where you desire and adjust the opacity of the layer if you want. It’s all up to you. Anything you do is recorded so go crazy with creativity! Once you are done hit stop.

To use an action you can either hit play while it is selected in the Actions panel, or access it by it’s hotkey (which is what saved me loads of time on my project.) You can also use actions on multiple images by using the batch edit function (File > Automate > Batch), though you should be careful when doing this. One action might work well on one image but not so well on another so make sure your image is the way you want it before sending it off. Other than that have fun, get creative and happy photoshopping!

Relax! The frustration ends here! I have a few tricks to make Internet Explorer do what you want without hurting your layout in Firefox and other superior browsers.

First of all you need to keep in mind that each browser has different default values for css parameters. For example, your margins and padding may behave a certain way in Internet Explorer, and a completely different way in Firefox.  To combat this, developers sometimes use a block of code to reset all the default values to 0. An example of a a simple CSS reset rule is:

html, body, div, span {margin:0px; padding 0px;}

Please keep in mind that this is just one example of a CSS reset. Depending on what you need for your layout you can add more selectors and declarations to the rule.

But what about when a particular CSS rule works in Firefox and Chrome, but refuses to function properly in IE? That’s easy to fix as well!  All you have to do is override the rule. Internet Explorer, and Internet Explorer alone, has a neat feature that lets you put If statement like comments into your HTML. If a person viewing your website is using IE, you can give special instructions that would be bypassed by any other browser.  This comes in handy if you want to give special CSS instructions to the browser. All you have to do is use this code in your head, below your default CSS file:

<!--[if IE 6]>

<link href="css/ieoverride.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

<![endif]-->

Now all you need to do is add your override rules to the ieoverride.css file and your good to go. If you use this trick effectively you should be able to get around most of IE’s heartaches.  Please note that you can also target specific versions of the browser by using this code. For example, you can target IE 6 with:

<!--[if IE 6]>

<![endif]-->

I hope these tricks prove useful for you the next time you want to make that disobedient browser, Internet Explorer, behave itself. You can find other hacks online that will help too, but I find that these two are the most easiest and most useful, most of the time. So give them try, and put that fickle browser in it’s place!

So what is this CRAP thing anyways? Well, CRAP stands for contrast, repetition, alignment, proximity. Each of these elements is essential for a good web design, so pay close attention to all of them in all stages of development.

Let’s begin with Contrast. Now, when thinking about contrast most of us will immediately think about contrasting colors. It is definitely important to have colours that contrast with each other, and that are harmonious with each other. Colours that are too close together on the color wheel will result in an immediate eyesore, which send anyone running away from an otherwise good website. If you have trouble picking out a good colour scheme for your layout a good program is Adobe Kuler . Now, colours are certainly not the only thing you should be contrasting. Varying up the size and font styles of your typography will work wonders in spicing up a drab looking layout.

Any good web layout will use repetition religiously. If your pages are not uniform your website will instantly lose its professional look. But repetition is not just about making all your pages match up to each other. It’s about repeating elements throughout your layout as well. For example, if you have one button on your website that is shiny and pink, all of the buttons on your buttons should be shiny and pink. If you’ve been primarily using pink and blue in your layout, don’t stick a yellow border around one of your images. Elements that can be repeated in a layout include but are not limited to colours, sizes, typography and background images.

In web design, alignment isn’t as simple as left, right and centered. You need to make sure all of your elements are positioned correctly in relation to each other. This can take quite a bit of effort and tweaking to get right, but in the end it is always worth it. Sometimes that extra pixel or two to the left will make a world of difference.

Proximity is the final important principle in the CRAP model. This involves grouping together elements that are similar to each other and separating them from elements that are different. For example, you want to keep all your major navigational elements together in a navigation bar, rather than scattered across the page. It is also a good idea to group your main content together snugly (but not too snugly. Always leave a little bit of padding in around images).

These basic elements are used in practically any professional website. If you don’t believe me take a look at the website of your favourite brand, musician or film. You will see the CRAP model used again and again, sometimes in very creative ways. So do yourself a favour and give these four basic principles a try! You’ll be glad you did!