Installation
1) Unzip the Pro Canvas ZIP file to your Photoshop Automate Plug-ins folder. The default path is typically
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 6.0\Plug-Ins\Adobe Photoshop Only\Automate\
but it may be different on your machine. Alternatively, any folder within your Photoshop plugins folder should be fine.
2) Restart Photoshop
Usage
Pro Canvas is an Automation plugin and once installed (as described above), it will be available via the File > Automate menu. To quickly access Pro Canvas without going to the menus, press Alt+F-U-V on your keyboard. Alternatively, you may use actions to bind Pro Canvas to a keyboard shortcut of your choosing.
The basic functionality of Pro Canvas is pretty simple. The Absolute mode is the same as the default Canvas Size command: however, in Relative mode, you can add or subtract a specified number of units from any (or all) side(s) of the canvas. For example, if you enter 50 into the Top field and -25 into the Right field and set the Units to pixels, Pro Canvas will add 50 pixels to the top of your document and then it will subtract 25 pixels from the right side of your document.
As a second example, if the Horizontal Uniformity check-box is enabled and you enter a value of 20 into the center field (Uniform), 20 units will be added to both the left and the right sides of the canvas.
Finally, if both Horizontal and Vertical Uniformity are enabled, 20 units will be added to all sides of the canvas.
The New Size feedback area displays the dimensions of the canvas as a result of the values entered within the dialog box.
To use different backgrounds for Pro Canvas, simply place a Windows Bitmap (BMP file) into the root of your windows folder named procanvas.bmp. A bitmap of dimensions 424 X 296 pixels covers the dialog exactly. Pick up some samples from here.
For further assistance, please feel free to email me, Brian Fernandes at brianv@phreaker.net