Power up your skills as we reveal 30 Photoshop secrets that will increase your productivity overnight.
Photoshop is an amazing bit of software that many designers use on a daily basis. It's such a flexible bit of kit that you could spend a week learning new features, and still have only scratched the surface of what's possible.
Once you've overcome the beginners' learning curve, however, there are some real gems hidden inside Photoshop that can help you speed up your work and get more out for less effort. Here we've rounded up 30 of the best Photoshop secrets to help sharpen your skills and improve your productivity.
01. Control your panels
Did you know about this hidden menu?
In the top right hand corner of every panel is a little icon that reveals a fly-out menu, giving additional options that you might not have seen before. You can use this menu to set your layer panel thumbnails to be larger, crop to artwork and much more - experiment!
02. Paste in Place
Paste in Place is one of those functions that you'll use all the time if you know about it, but if you don’t it will come as a revelation! After you’ve made a selection either in your current document, or in a second document if you’re combining artwork, copy as usual by choosing Edit>Copy, or by using the shortcut keys Ctrl+C (Windows) or Cmd+C (Mac). Once you’re viewing the document you want to paste into, use the shortcut keys Ctrl+Shift+V (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+V (Mac).
03. Bird's Eye View
If you’re doing detailed work such as cloning or edge refinement, it can be easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Equally, if you’re working at a high zoom level, navigating around the document can become tiresome when you need to get back to your high-level zoom. With the Bird’s Eye View feature, when zoomed in you can press and hold the H key on your keyboard, and click and drag with your mouse to temporarily zoom out to a bird’s eye view. When you let go, you’ll zoom back in to the level you were working at.
04. Interactively set styles
Move the shadow around by clicking and dragging on the canvasWhen you’re adding a drop-shadow layer style, move the dialogue box to one side. By clicking and dragging on the canvas you can use your mouse to interactively move the shadow around relative to the layer casting the shadow.
05. Repeat Transformations
Once you’ve made a transformation to a layer or object using Edit>Transform, you can very quickly repeat that same transformation on another layer or object. Simply press Cmd+Shift+T on a Mac, or Ctrl+Shift+T on Windows, and Photoshop will repeat the same transformation on the currently active layer.
06. Solo your layer
Here's how to preview a single layerIf you’d like to preview a single layer, you can quickly get a look at it on its own by Alt+clicking on the layer’s eye icon in the layers panel. Alt+clicking on the eye icon again will return you to the previous layer visibility state. Note that if you accidentally click on another layer’s eye icon you’ll lose the ability to revert back to the previous state.
07. Enable visibility history
Enable the history state for layer visibilityIf you want to avoid the problem of losing layer visibility settings while previewing individual layers, you can tick a setting in the History Panel options dialogue box that will enable history state for layer visibility. Once checked, you can use Cmd/Ctrl+Alt+Z to step backwards through your history as you always have, but you’ll find changes to the visibility of layers is now included within that history.
08. Merge vector shapes
Merge two vector shapes together and keep the result as an editable vectorIf you’re lucky enough to have Photoshop CS6 at your disposal, you can merge two vector shapes together and keep the result as an editable vector. Simply select the two shape layers and hit Cmd/Ctrl+E on your keyboard to merge them together. In previous versions this would have resulted in a rasterized layer, but Adobe have updated the functionality for CS6.
Press Cmd+Return on your keyboard to finish editing text and move focus outside the text fieldWhen you’re working with text boxes in Photoshop it can be frustrating to move between tools as your shortcut keys won’t work. A great little secret tip is that you can press Cmd+Return on your keyboard to finish editing text and move focus outside the text field. This allows you to quickly select other tools using their shortcut keys as appropriate (e.g. V for the move tool).
10. Organise your files properly
It's easy to become sloppy with the way you name and organise files. But if you have to hand over your work to others, this can rebound on you, giving you a bad rep as people struggle to work out what's going on. Follow our advice on how to organise your files properly here.
11. Draw dotted lines with the brush
Drawing straight dotted lines with the brush tool is a neat trickA common Photoshop technique is to use the brush tool to draw straight lines. With the brush tool selected click to place a point, then hold down Shift+click at a second point to draw a straight line between the two points. You may not know that you can open the brush panel and set the brush spacing to 150%+ to draw a dotted line instead of a solid one!
12. Change brush size and hardness
It's quite well known that you can use the square bracket keys [ and ] to change the size of your brush inside Photoshop. What you may not know is that if you hold down the Shift key while tapping these same keys, you can also affect the hardness of the brush without having to visit the the brush panel!
13. Reset dialogue boxes
When you're using a dialogue box with a pair of buttons that read OK/Apply and Cancel, it can be frustrating to undo changes you've made. Often you'll want to hit Cancel and then re-open the dialogue. Many of these modal pop-ups allow you to hold down the Alt/Opt key on your keyboard to change the Cancel button to a Reset button, returning the settings to how they were when you opened the dialogue.
14. Scrub values
One of the best time-saving features in Photoshop is the ability to scrub your mouse over input values. If you want to change the opacity of a layer, for example, rather than click into the opacity field of the layers panel, click and drag on the value for opacity. A scrub to the left reduces the opacity, a scrub to the right increases it.
15. Copy layer styles quickly
As well as copying a layer to a new layer, you can do the same with layer stylesIf you've been using Photoshop for a while you'll know you can copy a layer to a new layer by holding down Alt/Opt and dragging a copy of the artwork across the canvas. You can use this same trick for layer styles: simply hold down the Alt/Opt key and drag the FX icon in the layers panel from the layer with the styles to the target layer - the styles will be copied right over!
16. Open a document quickly
Rather than navigate to File>Open to open a document, double-click on the pasteboard inside Photoshop (the bit outside the main canvas) to automatically bring up the Open dialog box. Inside recent versions, this trick only works when you don't have another document open.
17. Close documents quickly
You can also close your documents quickly. You're probably familiar with the shortcut combination Ctrl+F4 (Windows) or Cmd+W (Mac). This closes the current document, but if you add a second modifier key you can automatically close every document. Hold down Shift+Ctrl+F4 on a PC, or Alt+Cmd+W on a Mac to close all open documents. If you have multiple documents with changes you'd like to discard, check the Apply to All box when choosing Don't Save to avoid having to confirm each document.
18. Share with friends and colleagues
Share your screen with colleagues or friends easily in PhotoshopOne of the nicer features that arrived recently in Photoshop is the ability to share your screen with other users. Choose File > Share My Screen and log in with your Acrobat.com username/password. Your web browser will open and a new online meeting will be set up automatically to which you can invite friends and colleagues. You'll be able to chat, share webcam footage and your screen to make for productive collaboration - even if you're the opposite side of the globe to your friends.
19. Quickly change measuring units
When you open a new document in Photoshop you can set the measuring units to match your needs, but sometimes you'll need to switch between different units. The normal way to change is to select the options Photoshop>Preferences>Units & Rulers (or, on a PC, Edit>Preferences>Units & Rulers). But there is a quicker way! Just right-click on a ruler (Cmd+R/Ctrl+R will show your rulers if they're not already visible) and choose the new measuring unit you need.
20. Fill with scripted patterns
Pattern fill includes handy Scripted Pattern optionPhotoshop CS6 introduces a new pattern fill option based on a script. First isolate an object on a transparent background and define it as a pattern (Edit>Define Pattern). Next, access the fill command as you normally would (Edit>Fill or Shift+F5). Choose Pattern as the fill type, then select your isolated object from the patterns drop-down.
Finally, tick the Scripted Patterns checkbox and choose one of the options from the predefined scripts. All bar spiral will add a colour and brightness shift randomly to your object as part of the fill operation. You can also write your own scripts to use in this dialogue!
21. Insert Lorem Ipsum
Use placeholder text to help utilise text boxesA small new feature that will help save time when you're producing mockups inside Photoshop is the handy new Lorem Ipsum function. Select the type tool and draw an area type box by clicking and dragging out a selection. Now choose Type > Paste Lorem Ipsum to automatically fill your type area with faux Latin text.
22. Use space to move selections
Once you've made a selection inside Photoshop using any of the standard tools, such as the marquee tools, you can easily move it around on your canvas. Simply hold down the space bar and use the selection tool you've got active to move the selection around.
23. History Snapshots
Snapshots ensure you can return to any point in the history of your workIf you're accustomed to using the history feature in Photoshop when you've made a mistake or want to back-track a few steps, this tip will allow you to take complete control of your artwork. Open the history panel, and click on the camera icon each time you reach a milestone in your artwork. This will create a history snapshot that you can return to at any point. Snapshots can also be used as the source for the history art brush!
24. Style text easily
If you're lucky enough to be using Photoshop CS6, you can take advantage of a great new feature that makes it simple to achieve consistent text styling. The latest version of Photoshop introduces paragraph and character styles. Choose Window>Paragraph Styles to open the panel, then click on the new style icon to create a new style. Double-click on the style to set font, colour, leading, kerning, open type features and hyphenation options. To apply to text, simply highlight the text and click on the desired style.
25. Apply blending modes simultaneously
If you're rocking CS6, a new feature that can save a bit of time is the ability to set blending modes for multiple layers simultaneously. You could always do this with opacity, but it's only with CS6 and above you can select more than one layer (by holding down the Cmd/Ctrl key and clicking on each layer in turn inside the layers panel) and change the blending mode for all selected layers at the same time.
26. Crop non-destructively
Your cropped areas need not vanish into the ether with CS6Another nice addition to CS6 is the ability to crop without throwing away the bits of image outside your crop area. Choose the crop tool and uncheck the new Delete cropped pixels checkbox. Now when you apply your crop, the areas of image outside the crop will simply be hidden for later retrieval. To get access to the area outside your crop, simply choose the crop tool again and change your crop accordingly.
27. Hide other layers quickly
You can quickly get a preview of the current layer by turning off all other layers without losing track of which layers were visible and which were hidden. To do so, hold down the Alt/Opt key and click once on the eyeball icon in the layers panel for the layer you want to isolate. When you Alt/Opt and click again, the other layers will switch back on again, remembering which you had hidden.
28. Quickly create 3D extrusions
3D extrusions can now be easily added using CS6's new toolYou can now add punch to your titles using 3D extrusions in Photoshop CS6. The 3D interface has been overhauled to make it more friendly to non-3D modellers, and it's now really easy to create high-quality, textured 3D type by simply creating a type layer and choosing 3D>New 3D Extrusion from selected layer. Shadows and reflections are easier to control too, making it a great way to create engaging display type in a hurry.
29. Use actions for common tasks
One of the most powerful features in Photoshop is its ability to record macros of common tasks, allowing you to automate mundane manipulation work. Open the actions panel to see a list of pre-defined actions that can be run. Click the New button at the bottom of the panel to record your own action!
30. Add selective focus
Blur gallery in Photoshop CS6 has made adding focus easierWith the new blur gallery in CS6 you can selectively blur and, by extension, add focus to your image. Individual focus points can be added to your image, with the amount of blur, fall off and iris size all edited directly on the canvas using the HUD. You can also add special effects such as lens bokeh with ease, making it simple to draw attention to the parts of an image you're interested in.
Chapter 1: Introducing Adobe Photoshop CC In This Chapter Getting acquainted with Photoshop CC Benefitting from Photoshop CC Exploring the new features of Photoshop CC If you are reading this book, you likely have access to one of the most intricate and extensive software applications available. Don't let that discourage you, though. Adobe Photoshop is also a powerful and extremely fun application to use. With throngs of fans all over the globe, over the years, Photoshop has become the pinnacle software application for image editing. In fact, if you look up Photoshop at www.wiktionary.org, you will find the term photoshoplistedasaverbmeaning,“todigitallyeditoraltera picture or photograph.” Photoshop draws such a big crowd because it provides amazing results when you are editing images and yet is fairly intuitivetousesuchthatevencasualuserscangetprettygood results without much effort. In addition, as digital imaging has advanced over the years, Photoshop has kept pace and even led the advancements in many areas. The chapter introduces Photoshop CC, shows you when to use it, and discusses the new features that have been added since version CS6. Chapter 2 dives into the details of the Photoshop application workspace. 59 Discovering the Versatile World of Photoshop The simplest description of Photoshop is “a digital image-editing application.” Photoshop provides the standard color- and lighting-correction capabilities historically associated with photo editing, but it also provides filtering, painting, masking, layering, and many more tools that allow you to take image editing to the next level. The following sections discuss how Photoshop interacts with the Creative Cloud, as well as how you can use Photoshop on its own and with other applications. The purpose of these chapters is to give you a glimpse of what Photoshop is used for before showing you how to use it. Of course, the only real way to understand the capabilities of Photoshop is to delve into them as you follow along with the next 30 chapters in this book. Introducing Photoshop Creative Cloud Interaction The CC in Photoshop CC stands for Creative Cloud. The Adobe Creative Cloud is an online service that provides file storage, application access, and several other developing features. With Photoshop CC, Adobe has moved away from a traditional software package such as the Creative Suite and into a subscription-based method where you subscribe for monthly access to the creative applications. Many people are asking the question, “So what does the Creative Cloud really mean for a Photoshop user?” It is really not all that complicated. The Creative Cloud has some advantages and one big disadvantage. One disadvantage is that you can no longer buy a Photoshop license and have the 60 software indefinitely. Another disadvantage is the functionality such as syncing settings to the cloud is impeded if you don't have an Internet connection. Also, for continued accesstothesoftware,youwillneedtokeepupasubscription to the Creative Cloud. The advantages of the Creative Cloud and the interaction points with Photoshop are broken down into the following list: • Installation. Rather than getting a license with a set of DVDs in a box, you subscribe to the Creative Cloud, which allowsyoutodownloadandinstalltheapplication.Duringthe installation, you need to be logged into the Creative Cloud to validate your subscription. • Signing in and out. Selecting Help⇒Sign In logs you into yourCreativeCloudaccount.Thisenablesyoutosynchronize your settings between computers and store files in your Creative Cloud account. Selecting Help⇒Sign Out logs you out of the Creative Cloud, which is extremely useful if you are sharing the computer with someone else because they can then log into their own account to synchronize settings and files. • Synchronizing settings. Photoshop allows you to synchronize settings and other data such as preferences, swatches, shapes, patterns, tool presets, and brushes to and from your Creative Cloud account. I love this feature because it means I don't have to set everything up again if I move to a new computer or have to re-install Photoshop. Photoshop allows you to synchronize the settings by selecting Edit ? Sync Settings⇒Sync Settings Now from the main menu or 61 from an icon in the bottom frame of the document window. You can also configure which settings should be synchronized in the Preferences dialog box, which we discuss inChapter 2. • Online storage. Adobe provides online storage with your Creative Cloud account. This allows you to upload project files you are working on or have completed to an online location that you can access from anywhere. • Sharing files on Behance. Behance is an online portfolio platform that allows creative professionals to showcase their work. It encompasses much more than just Photoshop files because it covers photography, graphic design, illustration, and fashion design. You can set up an account on Behance that provides a portfolio location to showcase your Photoshop work. Then you can upload your final files to be shared on Behance by selecting File⇒Share on Behance from the main menu in Photoshop or from the Creative Cloud file storage interface. Knowing when to use Photoshop Photoshop has so many tools and so much power that it can do an unlimited number of things. The following list describes the most common tasks for which Photoshop is used to help you get an idea of when you may want to use it: • Photo corrections. Photoshop is able to correct digital images by restoring the original color and lighting, as well as to correct problems introduced by camera lenses. We cover these Photoshop features inChapter 13. 62 • Photo enhancements. Photoshop also provides tools that allowyoutoenhance photos.Forexample, youcanaddablur to soften a portrait or use a sharpening filter to remove camera jitter. Photoshop is also great at fixing scratches and dust marks on older images. We discuss these concepts in Chapters14and15. • Photo compositions. One of the strengths of Photoshop is the ability to combine multiple images to create a single image or composition. A common use of Photoshop is to take a headshot from one image and place it into another image. Photoshop also enables you to merge photos that were taken at different horizontal angles, from the same spot, and then turn them into a single panoramic image. We discuss photo compositions inChapter 21. • Artistic effects. One of the most enjoyable features of Photoshop is the ability to use different filters and warping tools to apply artistic effects to images. The combination of numerous tools and filters in Photoshop means that the only limitation you have when adding artistic effects is your own creativity. We cover the tools used for artistic effects in Chapters19and20. • Painting. Photoshop has always been a good painting application, but with the addition of the wet brush capability in CS5 as well as erodible and airbrush tips in CS6, Photoshop is now one of the best applications available to create digital paintings. What puts Photoshop ahead of the competitionisthatmanypowerfulfeatures,suchaslayersand masks, are also available for use with the painting tools. In addition, the painting brushes are integrated into many of the 63 other tools in Photoshop. Chapter 16 discusses the painting tools. • Creating vector artwork. Photoshop is also an excellent application to use when creating vector artwork. The path tools allow you to quickly create and manipulate vector artwork, and add vector artwork to raster images. We discuss vector artwork, including vector text, in Chapters 17and18. • Adding text to images. Photoshop provides tools that allow you to add text to images. You can resize, warp, and adjust the text to create some stunning visual effects. Chapter 18 discusses adding text elements to images. • Creating web images. Another area where Photoshop excels is in preparing images for the web. Photoshop provides utilities that allow you to quickly format images with the appropriate size, file format, and colors for use in web pages. Photoshop also provides some tools you can use to slice an image into clickable sections and provides the HTML code necessary to use the slices in a web page. We discuss outputting to the web inChapter 30. • Print preparation. Photoshop is often used to prepare images for printing by converting the color mode to CMYK, adding spot colors, and creating color separations. We cover these topics in Chapters11and29. • Creating 3D objects. The 3D tools in Photoshop just get better and better. Photoshop has the capability to create and manipulate 3D objects so you can incorporate them into 2-D images or video. We cover the 3D capabilities of Photoshop in Chapters22,23, and24. 64 • Adding textures to 3D objects. Photoshop has a big advantage over other 3D applications when applying textures to 3D objects. With the Photoshop filter and painting capabilities, you can edit the textures of your 3D objects in ways that you may not have thought possible. Chapter 23 discusses creating and enhancing 3D textures. • Video corrections. Using the color, lighting, and filter effects of Photoshop, you can quickly apply corrections to videoandevenaddsomeartistic effects.Chapter27discusses applying corrections and effects to video files. • Animating images. Another fun feature of Photoshop is the ability toaddanimation toyourimages.Animated imagescan give life to web pages and allow you to create short animated movies.Chapter 28discusses animating images. Understanding the limitations of Photoshop Believe it or not, Photoshop is not designed to do everything. Photoshop is not designed to function as a word processor like Microsoft Word, to create charts and graphics in presentations like Microsoft PowerPoint, or to lay out brochures, magazines, or books like Adobe InDesign. For the following tasks, you would use another application: • Word processing. Most word processing applications, such as Word, allow you to add images to documents created with those programs, and although Photoshop supports adding text to images, it doesn't support text editing well and can't handle text flowing from one page to another. You should use 65 Photoshop to work with the images and then import them into the word processing application. • Business graphics. Photoshop doesn't do charts and presentations very well, but you can create great images in Photoshop and then use them in business applications such as Microsoft Excel or PowerPoint. • Page layout. Applications such as InDesign are much more adept at laying out brochures, flyers, and documents that are mostlytext-based.YoushouldcreatetheimagesinPhotoshop and then import them into the layout application. • Vector art. Although Photoshop has a lot of capability when it comes to creating vector paths, Adobe Illustrator is a much better application for working with clipart and designing advertisements, flyers, and one-page layouts that have multiple vector objects. Looking at What's New in Photoshop CC In addition to integration with the Creative Cloud, Adobe has added several great new features to Photoshop CC that make tools easier to use, extend capabilities, and add a lot of justification for subscribing. We discuss these new changes throughout the book. The purpose of this section is to describe the biggest changes and let you know where in the book you can find more information about the following new features: • Creative Cloud interactions. Photoshop is now integrated with Adobe Creative Cloud, allowing it to interact with other design programs in the Creative Cloud. Another major benefit 66 of Creative Cloud interactions is it is easy to synchronize settings as well as store and showcase your Photoshop work online. Figure 1.1 shows the interaction among Photoshop, the Creative Cloud, and Behance. Figure 1.1 You can edit in Photoshop, store in the Creative Cloud, and showcase on Behance. • Performance enhancements. Photoshop has added several performance enhancements to 3D rendering, filtering, and various other features to provide faster rendering and more responsive tools. 67 • Expanded camera and lens support. Adobe continues to update Camera Raw and Photoshop to support new cameras and lenses. • Retina display support. Camera Raw supports the Apple Retinausersgivingtheimagedisplaybetterresolution.Retina users can easily jump to 200-percent zoom by pressing while double-clicking the Zoom tool. You can zoom all documents to 200 percent by pressing Shift+ while double-clicking the Zoom tool. • JPEG support. Photoshop CC now supports opening and saving JPEG documents up to 65,535 pixels in width or height, more than double the 30,000 pixels in previous versions. • Conditional actions. A new feature in the Actions panel enables you to apply actions based on certain conditions such as document orientation, color mode, or layer settings. Figure 1.2 shows the new Conditional Action dialog box, which we discuss inChapter 5. Figure 1.2 You can now apply actions in action sets based on various conditions in the document or layer. 68 • Camera shake reduction. Photoshop CC provides a new specialized filter for removing camera shake from images. The Shake Reduction filter, shown in Figure 1.3, allows you to easily and effectively remove camera-shake blur from images. Photoshop allows you to define regions in which it can evaluate and correct blurriness. We discuss this tool in more detail inChapter 14. • Camera Raw filter. The new Camera Raw filter enables you to perform Camera Raw adjustments on images that are not in a Camera Raw format, as shown in Figure 1.4. It does not replace Camera Raw for files that are in a Raw format; however, it does provide a great interface that allows you to perform a variety of adjustments all at once. For more information on the Camera Raw filter, see Chapter 13. For more information on the Camera Raw tools available in the Camera Raw filter, seeChapter 8. • Camera Raw Radial filter. Adobe Camera Raw has added a new filter called the Radial filter. The Radial filter applies adjustments to a region of an image in an elliptical shape. 69 Setting the feathering allows you to soften the adjustment around the edges of the ellipse. We discuss the Camera Raw Radial filter, shown inFigure 1.5, in detail inChapter 8. Figure 1.3 Removing blurriness caused by camera shake from images is now easy and effective. • Blur Gallery supports Smart Object layers. A great new feature in the Blur Gallery is that it now supports Smart Object layers. This allows you to apply Blur Gallery filters in a non-destructive way. The Blur Gallery adjustments can be turned on and off just like any other Smart Object adjustment. We discuss the Blur Gallery filters in Chapter 14. • Default type styles. If you add a lot of text to your Photoshop images, you will love the new Default Type Styles 70 feature. The styles for paragraphs and characters that you define in Photoshop CC can be saved as the default settings. Any new document that you open in Photoshop automatically uses the default settings. You can also apply the default settings to existing documents. We discuss type styles in detail inChapter 18. • Multiple path selection. Finally! If you have ever worked with vector paths in Photoshop, you probably hated the fact that you have only been able to apply stroke, fill, mask, and other path operations to a single path. That meant that you had to either join multiple paths together into a single path first or apply the path operation one path at a time. In Photoshop CC, the Paths panel has been updated to work with multiple paths. Pressing Shift+Ctrl/Shift+ when selecting pathsinthePathspanelselectsmultiple pathsjustas in the Layers panel with a multiple-layer selection. You can delete, duplicate, and re-order multiple selected paths. You can also press Alt/Option while dragging with the mouse to duplicate one or more paths in the Paths panel. We discuss vector paths inChapter 17. Figure 1.4 Making a variety of adjustments to a non-Raw photo is super easy in the new, powerful Camera Raw filter. 71 • Copy to CSS. The new Copy CSS feature allows you to generate CSS code from text and vector shape layers. The Copy CSS feature captures size, location, fill color, gradient, stroke color, and even drop shadow information using layer styles. For text layers, it also captures font family, font size, font weight, line height, underline, strikethrough, superscript, subscript, and text alignment information. You can use the Copy CSS feature by selecting Layer⇒Copy CSS from the main menu, as we discuss inChapter 30. • Read swatches from HTML. The Swatches panel now allows you to load a swatch directly from a CSS or HTML 72 file. This allows you to automatically generate a swatch that is compatible with a webpage or website that you are creating image elements for. We discuss this new feature in Chapter 30. • Isolation mode layer filtering. The Layers panel now includes a filter option that allows you to filter the active selected layers in a document to a specific subset of the layers. All other layers are visible, but tool changes are restricted to just the filtered layers. You can filter on layer type, effect, name, mode, attribute, color, and whether the layer is selected. We discuss the Layers menu in Chapter 10. Figure 1.5 Applying a vignette or other radial effect is very simple using the new Radial filter in Camera Raw. 73 • System and System Gray rendering. Photoshop now includes two new rendering options to increase performance and results. The System option is similar to subpixel rendered text, while System Gray is similar to old non-subpixel rendered (monochrome) text. For example, in OS X, when “System” is selected, you see extra stroke thickness for glyphswithun-hintedtext.ThesenewoptionsuseOSAPIsto stroke the glyph instead of the Adobe Type Engine, providing better accuracy when rendering the text in popular browsers like Safari and Internet Explorer. • Image upscaling. Photoshop CC includes a new algorithm that better preserves the crispness of edges when increasing the size of images. We discuss resizing images in Chapter 3. 74 • 3D Live Painting. The new performance enhancements in the 3D engine have enabled Adobe to provide a much better method to paint on 3D objects. This new method, called 3D Live Painting, involves opening the 3D document as well as the Texture view. As you apply brush strokes to the texture view, Photoshop also updates the 3D document live. This allows you to see each paint stroke in both views as you drag the paintbrush tool. We discuss 3D Live Painting, featured in Figure 1.6, inChapter 24. Figure 1.6 When using the Texture Paint System, you can paint on a texture document and see the brushstrokes on the 3D document. 75 Summary This chapter introduced Photoshop CC by discussing the general uses of Photoshop and the new interaction with the Creative Cloud. You can use Photoshop for a variety of purposes, from photo editing to digital art to adding artistic effects. In this chapter, you learned that • Photoshop can be used to edit, enhance, and create images in several ways • Photoshop CC provides interaction with the Adobe Creative Cloud that allows you to store files online, synchronize settings between computers, and showcase your work on Behance • Adobe has added new features such as the Camera Raw filter, Live 3D painting, shake reduction, and much more to increase your editing capabilities
