Your Adobe Aha-Moment

[ManiRani]

Happy New Year, Everyone. I've been talking to a lot of people recently who have been sharing really interesting and valuable things that they have only recently discovered about a piece of Adobe software they have been using for quite some time. This is what I am coining as "the AHA moment" when the light bulb suddenly goes off and you are delighted that you learned something new to add to your creative toolkit. Please share your Adobe Aha-Moment here with your community and enter a raffle to win some cool Adobe swag that will be awarded around Valentine's Day (2/14) where we will spread the Adobe love.

Thanks much,

Rani

[Egypt Urnash]

I'd been using Illustrator for a number of years. Drawing stuff on paper, then working over scans of it with the pen tool. It was a slow, painstaking process. But it was the only one I knew - the pencil tool looked promising in theory but it wouldn't draw filled paths, and was useless for linear sketching because it constantly tried to edit the last line I drew instead of laying down another one near it. I'd gotten good at rapidly drawing shapes with the pen tool, I suppose. But everything still took forever.

Then one day I double-clicked on the pencil tool and discovered it had settings. Those things that made it utterly useless were just strange choices of defaults! I turned on "fill new pencil strokes" and suddenly I could draw a filled shape in seconds rather than having to slowly work around it. I turned off "keep selected" and suddenly I could knock out a sketch just as quickly and easily as if I was doing it on paper. (And then I went around double-clicking every single tool in the toolbox, just to see if there was anything else with settings attached to the tool rather than the preferences. I'd been using it for years, read the entire manual, and I'd missed that this was a thing.)

That day, my entire approach to Illustrator changed. I was able to do an entire 200-page graphic novel directly in Illustrator now that I'd discovered how to make the pencil tool work for me.

[ManiRani]

Wow, Margaret, I can't think of a better aha moment to start the conversation rolling. Thanks so much for sharing. Please email me your mailing info at ramani@adobe.com. You get some Adobe love for being the first out the gate.

Happy New Year,

Rani

[cwclifford]

In 1996, I learned that the Tab key hides all the palettes in Photoshop. It seems minor but in my work I would clutter up my workspace pretty good with palettes!

[MrRyanMonroe]

i almost refused to use lightroom at 1 point because i was overthinking the concept. then one day i thought i will give another try and BOOM!!!! everything made complete since. in reality it was the same thing i had been doing in bridge for years but for some strange reason i over thought it.

[Kat Gilbert]

My original fine art focus it was sculpture and printmaking- way before computers were a consumer idea- so I took my passion to photography and worked to incorporate with other creative endeavors such as printmaking- etching, lithography, etc. When Ps introduced 3D into the mix it was a major- at last moment for me. With all the other Adobe apps that embrace 3D I am in my creative place at last!

[Kat Gilbert]

Thanks Tricia. I cannot expound upon this moment of 3D and my process. It has totally changed the way I think and create and hopefully it will continue to expand!

[Ontwerpfabriek]

I learned something surprising today. Synchronizing of settings is removed from Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, and InDesign CC...

[MrRyanMonroe]

thats more of a boohoo moment isn't it, i wish i would come back since i use multiple machines

[melissapiccone]

‌I had a huge aha moment way back when, around 2004. I was doing digital scrapbooking in Photoshop which involves lots of text and journaling. Single lines of text... One day my hand slipped while dragging the mouse. I was both elated and furious at the same time. No more line by line text, I could now do paragraphs - yay! But... How many hours and hours had I wasted because I had no idea it was there . I have always kept up with what's new since then!

[ManiRani]

Boy, that's beyond huge. Thanks for sharing, Melissa.

Best,

Rani