Adding Photoshop Tutorials Direct to Photoshop

[Steve Randles]

Its a little known fact that you can add your own "help" items to Photoshop so that you can access them whilst your working directly in photoshop. For example, your editing a photograph or graphic in photoshop and there is a process that you cannot remember quite how to do, but its there in photoshop, directly accessible from within the help menu because you put it there!!

 

You have two options here:

1. You can make an HTML file, that lists the steps or a whole tutorial.

2. You can add a direct link to an online tutorial (as long as the file that is online ends with ".html")

 

Here is how to do it.

 

1. On your computer, browse to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Help\additional how to content\

2. There are 3 files in this folder, "HowToInstructions.html" can be opened and tells you what I'm telling you know, although I found it a little confusing in how it is written. "Add_001.html" is a supplied template file, you can edit this and add your own content. And the final and most important file is "Add_001.howto" by default this will not open automatically and windows will ask you to choose a program to open it with, choose either notepad or wordpad.

 

So open "Add_001.howto" and you will see this:

 

"How to Create How Tos" "Create your own How To tips" HowToInstructions.html

 

Using this format you can add your own content,

 

"How to Create How Tos" will be in the list directly under "help" in Photoshop, "Create your own How To tips" will be a submenu of that and HowToInstructions.html will be the file that opens when you click it in photoshop

 

For example, you could add the following.

 

"Planet Photoshop" "Main Tutorial List" http://www.planetphotoshop.com/tutorials.html

"Planet Photoshop" "Antique Photo Look" http://www.planetphotoshop.com/videos/flash_antique.html

 

 

This would give you a entry under the help menu in Photoshop called Planet Photoshop and a sub menu called Main Tutorial List that when clicked would open a page to the tutorial listing on planet photoshop. Or when you clicked on Antique Photo Look it would directly open a web page that showed you how to make a photograph with an antique feel.

 

Advanced Usage:

 

For those who can or know how to, you can make your own HTML file and store it in the folder mentioned at "1." above, so then you dont even need to be connected to the web to access it.

 

Have fun!

 

Steve...

[Clifftop]

Steve ive just got paint shop pro 6. is there a way i can do this with psp 6. im new to all this so am not aware of what i can do and cant do.

im running xp

Edited September 7, 2006 by Clifftop