Today’s Question: For photos I’m going to print, I spend a lot of time in Photoshop trying to get every detail absolutely perfect. This can require considerable time, so I don’t always finish everything in one sitting. Is there a method you recommend for keeping notes about what tasks I want to perform for an image so I can easily reference those notes when I return to finish working on a photo?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can use the Note tool for this purpose in Photoshop, which is exactly the type of task it is designed to help with.
More Detail: The Note tool in Photoshop provides a feature that is analogous to putting a sticky note on a printed photo or document, such as to add notes about what needs to be done with the image.
The Note tool is found under the button for the Eyedropper tool on the toolbar, so you can right-click or click and hold on the Eyedropper tool button to bring up a flyout menu, where you can select the Note tool.
On the Options bar you can enter a name in the Author field if you’d like, and select a color from the Color popup by clicking the color swatch. Then click on the image, which will add a note and bring up the Notes panel. The Notes panel will show the Author at the top if a name was entered and features a large text field where you can enter any details you’d like.
You can click elsewhere in the image to add another note or click on an existing note to review or modify the details on the Notes panel. To remove a note simply right-click on it and choose “Delete Note” from the popup menu.
As long as you save the image as either a Photoshop PSD or TIFF image, the notes will be saved along with the other image elements, so the notes can be reviewed and updated when you open the file again.
