*** From the Archives ***
This article is from June 1, 2015, and is no longer current.
How I work As a Digital Artist: Software Part 2 — Utility Software
For this installment in the ongoing “How I Work As A Digital Artist” series, I want to address some of the digital tools I use as a digital artist that help me on the productivity side of things, rather than the art side of things. In a previous article in the series, I discussed the main graphics software I used to create the artwork.
Any self-employed artist will tell you that they are equal parts businessperson and artist. Some (most!) weeks I spend more time on the business duties than I do the creative side. I never thought I’d get so good at spreadsheets — and I have actually come to be a big fan of them, much to my surprise.
As far as I am concerned, any tool that helps ease the burden of (and the time spent on) the business side, the better. In general, I am an efficiency and productivity geek, so this comes in handy. I enjoy streamlining stuff, and what better stuff to streamline than repetitive business procedures?
A lot of my software suggestions are going to be Mac-specific, but I will do my best to find and suggest viable PC alternatives when I can.
While the following sections are set up for the reader’s sake, as far as I am concerned all the items in the “Really, Really Nice To Have” list are personal must-haves. But I have to concede that they are not really must-have apps. And as many of the apps on the list are not free, the cost can add up.
I’ll explain briefly what each app does, and how I use it. Once I’ve made it through all the apps, I’ll give a general overview of my workflow and how it includes all these apps in concert.
Must-Have:
What It Does: At its most basic, it inserts long chunks of text when you type brief shortcut phrases, eliminating the need to type out long or often typed blocks of text. For example, when I type the shortcut phrase //cc TextExpander replaces that with my full website address, https://coghillcartooning.com
How I Use It: To reply to project inquiries, to insert every URL I use in conjunction with my business (website, blog, social media accounts, etc.). My email addresses. HTML code.
Text Expander’s functionality goes far beyond this, and I do not have the space here to explain it all in depth. Visit their website for more info. If I had to choose only one productivity app, it would be Text Expander, without a doubt.
PC users: take a look at the free Phrase Express or Breevy.
What It Does: manages all your passwords, as well as addresses, credit card, and bank account info.
How I Use It: it saves the login and password for every site I browse to online, regardless of the browser I am using. It also syncs with my iPhone so I am never without access to log in no matter what device I am using. I never have to think about, remember or remember to write down any password, ever. It auto-fills name, address and credit card info into web forms too. Plus tons of other stuff.
1Password is a close second to TextExpander, but if I had to I could use the password saving features in Safari or Chrome browsers. 1Password is just so much better in every way.
Available on Windows, OS X, iOS, and Android with full syncing between all.
What It Does: floats a reposition-able and resizable image file above all windows on the computer screen.
How I Use It: I place reference images for when I am working on sketches or drawings in Photoshop or Illustrator.
A simple app, but fills a superb little niche. Also inexpensive.
The closest PC alternative I could find is Osiva, and I am not even sure if it actually does exactly what Screenfloat does. If you know of a better option, please share it in the comments.
What It Does: it stores the history of things you’ve copied to the clipboard (as opposed to just the most-recent item copied), so you can copy and paste multiple recent items.
How I Use It: Too many to list. I use it for everything. I have tried nearly all the clipboard managers available, and this one is by far the best. It has some handy extra features like snippet storage and other advanced text manipulation features, but mostly I use it for the clipboard history.
Not under active development any longer, but still working as of Mac OS X 10.9.
PC users should take a look at this Lifehacker article for suggestions on clipboard history utilities.
Really, Really Nice To Have:
What It Does: Keeps files and folders in sync both on your computer(s), mobile devices, and via the Dropbox website.
How I Use It: I use Dropbox for many, many different things. But the primary use would be to store the files I need regular access to so I never have to wonder if it was synced to the phone, or it’s online somewhere I can access it. With Dropbox, I know it’s always at my digital fingertips.
A sampling of specific uses:
- I save photos I take of rough sketches to a specific folder in Dropbox. Once synced back to the main computer, another utility software program (Hazel) is monitoring that folder for new files. When it finds one, it opens it up in Photoshop and runs a custom Action I build to prep my “scans” of my sketches for cleaning up in Photoshop.
- I share a Dropbox folder with a client, and they can add files to the folder instead of sending them in email, and I can do the same. We both can see exactly what files are there so there’s no confusion about “Did I send that file?” and other things you might have to ask a client about.
- I keep my business branding files on Dropbox, including a PDF portfolio and other promotional design and art files so I always have access to them and can send to a potential client immediately.
- By saving files to Dropbox, you have an easy way to sync files between a computer and a mobile device, and vice-versa.
A basic account is free, and Dropbox is available for OS X, Windows, iOS and Android.
What It Does: Hazel monitors specific folders that you specify, and when the folder (or the files it contains) meet certain criteria you’ve set up, it performs actions you’ve set up.
How I Use It: Again, too many uses to cram into this sort description. But I automate quite a bit of my client artwork creation process using Hazel. Often projects all follow pretty repetitive steps, and anything repetitive can be automated by Hazel.
Again, let’s look at some specific examples:
- I have a main folder for client projects. Each project gets its own folder. Hazel watches this main “Client Projects” folder, and when it sees a new folder added (an action I do manually), I have set Hazel’s “actions” up to add the standard folders I keep for each client project — Sketches, Docs, Reference, Vector Art. See this post over at my personal blog where I explain how I set this up in detail.
- Exporting JPG files from Adobe Illustrator often results in unwanted filenames if you are using more than one artboard. I have Hazel set up to watch for files that match this pattern in the filename, and rename the files to my liking.
- I use a utility app called Dropshelf, which is like a little temporary storage “shelf” where you can drag files for later use. Kind of like a pause while doing some drag-and-drop actions. Hazel is set up so that when a new client project sketch file is added to the folder, it is opened in Hazel.
PC users should take a look at File Juggler, which seems very similar.
What It Does: enhances the Open/Save dialog windows on OS X with additional functionality.
How I Use It: I use Default Folder mainly for the ease of accessing recently-used folders in the Open/Save dialog windows, as well as for the file naming tools. See below for some specific examples.
- Default Folder adds the ability to easily return you to the last-used folders, system-wide, when accessing them through the Open/Save windows. Often when working on client projects I find myself hopping between a handful of specific folders. Default Folder makes it easy to access these, no matter where they reside on your hard drive.
- Default Folder allows you to rename files and folders from within the Open/Save windows, as well as duplicate them, move them to the Trash, ZIP compress them, and much more.
- When saving files, Default Folder allows the option of Option-clicking on an existing file name to use for the file you are currently saving in the same folder. This is extremely useful when saving revisions for client projects, where you want to maintain a consistent file name format (client-project-sketch-v01.jpg, client-project-sketch-v02.jpg, and so on).
The feature list for Default Folder is far more extensive than what I’ve listed here, but these are some of the main time-saving uses I’ve come to rely on for my digital art workflow.
Honorable Mention:
ForeverSave 2
What It Does: ForeverSave 2 is like Apple’s Time Machine backup software with more control and an auto-save feature. Handy for apps without auto-save like most Adobe software. While there are a bunch of software-specifc plug-ins for this kind of task, ForeverSave 2 works with any software on your computer.
How I Use It: I mostly use Forever Save 2 as an auto-save and versioned backup utility for my Adobe CS6 software programs (Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign). FS2 allows you to customize settings for each program individually, controlling the frequency of backups, the versioning of files, and how many versions are saved.
Unlike the built-in auto-save in Photoshop CS6 and above, FS2 allows you to save versions, just in case the auto-save overwrites with unwanted edits. It also offers a visual-based file browser so you can see the actual saved versions in a thumbnail grid.
ForeverSave 2 will also work with just about any app that has a manual Save feature on your Mac. Many of the other solutions I’ve found are specific to Photoshop or Illustrator only.
If you have used Apple’s Time Machine, you’ll have a good idea of how ForeverSave 2 works. It does everything Time Machine does and more.
Conclusion
That wraps up my overview of the top utility software I use that most directly related to my workflow as a digital artist. As emphasized throughout this series, there’s a lot of business going on besides the creative stuff, so you’ll find a balanced mix of creative and non-creative utilities here which as a whole all help to improve and enhance your digital artist workflow as a whole.
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Something a lot of people don’t know is that you can drag a folder from the Finder into a File>Open/Save/Place/Export/etc. dialog box, and that location will be set for you. So when I’m working on a project I keep Finder window(s) open for any folders I might need to access, and can easily drag them in to instantly browse to them.
You can also drag files into these dialog boxes, which will not only set the location but also the filename (excellent for when you want to intentionally overwrite a file, or need to populate the filename box with a complex filename such as a customer or project ID).