Here’s a trick Dave (http://underlingcomic NULL.com/) clued me in on in our latest study group session, and it’s one of those things where I do not know how I lived without it. It’s a simple that works for all versions of Photoshop, CS and above.
For my project I’m doing due process and setting my artboard much larger than the size of what the final strip will be. However when I zoom in for detail work, I don’t yet have enough experience to know what a given sized brush stroke will look like after zoomed out and resized. I’ll spend 5 minutes zoomed in getting something perfect, only to zoom back out and realize all that line work gets condensed into 3 millimeters and looks like a indiscernible mess. This leads to a lot of zooming in and out, constantly checking my work to see if it’ll look right when it’s done. Not exactly conducive to a smooth workflow.
Leave it to Photoshop to have already thought of this. With your file open, if you go to Window -> Arrange, there is an option that reads “New Window for mycomic.psd”. This opens a second window of the same file. Any changes done to one is reflected in the other. And best of all, the zoom level of each window can be set separately. Just arrange them side by side, and while you’re in close in one window, a casual glance to the other set to the final size will let you know how it looks. On the fly. Without interrupting your work flow.
Pretty neat, huh?