If you have been following along you know that yesterday we talked about the basics of the Eyedropper tool in both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. (See yesterday’s article: In the Spotlight: Using the Eyedropper Tool in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements )
However, Photoshop has some additional Eyedropper features that Elements doesn’t have so we are going to cover them in today’s blog.
When you click on the Eye Dropper Tool in Photoshop you have several tool options like Eyedropper tool, Color Sampler Tool, Rule tool, Note Tool and Count Tool.
Beyond the Eyedropper Tool, the others are only found in Photoshop.
This gives Photoshop many more options for those digital scrapbooking or photo editing.
Here is what each tool in the Eyedropper Section does:
Eyedropper Tool: The Eyedropper Tool is used to quickly change color in the color picker tool (See yesterday’s blog for more info on this one). However one difference in Photoshop that is important to talk about is that the option bar that appears when the Eyedropper tool. In Photoshop when this is selected it has several extra options including letting you sample from all layers or just the current layer!
This makes Photoshop the graphic program you would want to pick if you want these kinds of specific choices while working on a project. Elements doesn’t have this features.
Also, these tools below are only found in Photoshop. I am using Photoshop CS4 Extended version – so some differences maybe in other Photoshop versions as well.
Color Sampler Tool: Color 
Sampler Tool allows you to view color values in defined spots of your image. Here is how you can use the Color Sampler Tool:
First, in the Toolbox, select the Color Sampler Tool (#1). Then, click on the image where you want to set the first sample (#2). A Sampler Information Box (#3) appears to show the current location and color values. You can set up to 4 color samples on your image using this tool. The color samples or they are called “Samplers” get saved in your image, so you can know color values in defined spots even after you reopen the image. In the Options bar, you can change sample size (sampler’s range). Point Sample reads out values from a single pixel; 3 by 3 and 5 by 5 read average values from larger areas.(See yesterday’s blog that explains point sample and 3 by 3 or 5 by 5 averages)
Also, you can move samplers with the Color Sampler Tool to any other spot to read color values from. As default a sampler’s readout on info palette box depends on color mode of your image (like a scrapbooking page – that might be in RGB color mode); you can however choose other readouts: right-click on a color sampler and choose in menu box other color modes. To hide / show annotations use [Ctrl+H] shortcut. To delete a sample, either use menu box or Alt-shift-click on it (mouse-click holding [Alt+Shift] keys pressed).
Wow! Are you still with me?? One simple reason you might want to use the Color Sampler Tool is to find out the color codes in your image or scrapbooking project. It sounds harder than it is – once you try this tool it will become clearer! Trust me it sounds harder than it is!!! 
See the image below with the Color Sampler Tool I can find out what exactly the color’s code is! This can be helpful if I wish to type in the exact color in Photoshop or even other computer programs to have every thing in my project match!
There is more to the Color Sampler tool for more advanced work – but I think this is a good start. Try it out and see how simple it is to use this tool —- even though it might sound harder than it is!
Ruler Tool: The Ruler tool helps you position images or elements precisely. The Ruler tool calculates the distance between any two points in the workspace. So basically this tool measures distances, locations, and angles.
When you measure from one point to another, a nonprinting line is drawn, and the Info palette box appears and give you information about the measurements. For example in my scrapbooking page, I drew a line from one icicle to another and I could find out the exact distance by looking at the Information Palette Box. This information box gives me more information about measurements in my project. This is helpful if I am positioning some thing exactly in my digital scrapbooking page. Ps. the line I draw out with this tool is for my reference only – it will not print when I send my project to my printer!!!
Note Tool: You can attach notes to an image in Photoshop. This is useful for associating review comments, production notes, or other information with the image.
Notes appear as small non-printable icons on the image. They are associated with a location on the image rather than with a layer.
You can hide or show notes, or open notes to view or edit their contents.
In Photoshop you might want to put a note about image in your scrapbooking page like when and where the photo was taken.
You might want a note about some tricky scrapbooking technique you used in this scrapbooking project. You can make the note so you can remember how you did that technique in this scrapbooking page so you can use again. All notes can be hidden and you don’t have to print them! So they are like using posted notes in your scrapbooking project!!!!
The Counting Tool: counts objects in an image. (Photoshop Extended version only)
You can use the Count Tool to count objects in an image (like how many snowflakes). To count objects manually, you click the image(s) with the Count tool and Photoshop tracks the number of clicks. This is helpful for me as I always lose count in my head. Now I just click on the items I want to count and Photoshop keep the count for me!
The count number is displayed on the item you are counting (like the snowflake), and in the number is shown in the Count Tool options bar. Count numbers are saved when you save a file, so if you come back to the scrapbooking project you don’t have to write down the number it has been saved for you. This tool ends up be more useful than you first might think it really is surprising how many times we count and recount things in scrapbooking!
Photoshop can also automatically count multiple selected areas in an image, and record the results in the Measurement Log panel. Sometimes in digital scrapbooking you want to keep track of how many embellishments or patterns so this would be a way of doing that.
Ok … are you still hanging in there? These are great tips and tools if you just try them out then you will see that some of these extra tools are really helpful in some digital scrapbooking tasks we do everyday. All tool discussion sound harder than they are – once you try them they will make more sense and really be easy to use. But first you have to know about them to use them – so hopefully now you will feel more confident to try them and see how they can help some of your projects!
At last after this article these tools are not hidden any more!
Try a few of these extra tools and let us know how you used them in your digital scrapbooking or photo editing projects!
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