Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition

A Filters Tour

With so many filters to choose from, it can be tough to get a handle on what they all do. That’s why, when you choose filters in several categories from the Filters menu—specifically, the Artistic, Brush Strokes, Distort, Sketch, Stylize, and Texture categories—Photoshop opens a large window called the Filter Gallery (Figure 15-2). (If you don’t see some of these categories in the Filter menu, the box on Recap: Stress-Free Printing Tips explains how to turn them on.) The window has a nice big preview of your image on the left (you can zoom in or out by clicking the + and – buttons below it), a list of all the filters in these categories in the middle (with cute little preview thumbnails), and the specific settings associated with each filter on the right.

Note

Several filters automatically open the Filter Gallery, but you can also open it manually by choosing Filter →Filter Gallery. However, if you do that, any filter you run via the Filter Gallery gets the generic name “Filter Gallery” in the Layers panel. To make Photoshop name the filter properly, choose the filter from the Filter menu and let it open the Filter Gallery instead. For more on this filter-naming conundrum, see the box on Repopulating the Filter Menu.

Once the Filter Gallery opens, you can test drive a filter by clicking its name and then tweaking its settings; Photoshop updates your image preview accordingly. You can even run additional filters while you’re in the Filter Gallery by clicking the “Create ...