Adobe has added some incredibly useful new features to Photoshop CC 2014, especially where productivity is concerned. Graphic designers will be especially pleased with all the new features and timesaving goodies, although there’s also a lot of good stuff for photographers, too.
Perhaps the first thing you’ll notice is that Adobe redesigned most of the program’s dialog boxes to accommodate Retina displays (Apple’s super-high resolution monitors, called HiDPI on PCs), so they’re noticeably shorter and wider (they’re also a darker gray and the buttons are square, so they look more Windows-like than Mac-like in their design).
Here’s a quick overview of all the new stuff (don’t worry if you don’t yet understand some of the terms used here—you’ll learn them as you read through this book):
New blur filters. This version of Photoshop CC sports two additions to the Blur Gallery family of filters that let you simulate motion in a photo that doesn’t have any (or that doesn’t have enough). The Path Blur filter lets you create the appearance of motion along a path that you draw—it can be straight or riddled with curves—and then fine-tune the blur’s direction, angle, speed, and even how much blurring occurs at the path’s start and end points. And the Spin Blur filter lets you put an incredibly realistic spin on any object by using a simple set of on-image controls. Both filters let you customize how blurry the object appears.
Typekit access, font searches, and instant font previews. One of the great benefits of having a subscription to Adobe’s Creative Cloud service (see the box on Meet the Creative Cloud) that it gives you access to hundreds of fonts via the online font service Typekit (www.Typekit.com). In this version of the program, you can get to these fonts right from Photoshop’s font family menu and—once you install them (which is incredibly easy)—you can use them in any program on your machine that sports a font menu. Also new in the realm of text is the ability to search all your installed fonts by typing part of a font’s name (or attribute) into the font family menu. And when a type layer is active, you can point to any font in the font family menu and Photoshop previews your existing text in that font, right there in your document.
Better smart guides. These incredible layer alignment helpers are now turned on automatically, and now show you a lot more info about the spacing in your document. When you have the Move or Path Selection tool active, you can ⌘-click (Ctrl-click on a PC), and then point anywhere in your document to see distance measurements between the currently active layer’s content and everything else in the document (even its edge). By Option-dragging (Alt-dragging) an object, you can both duplicate that layer and see the distance between the duplicate and the original object as you drag.
Sync layer comps and access them in smart objects. Layer comps let you create multiple versions of an image or design without having to duplicate the document. New in this version of the program, you can update layer comps by syncing them with the layers you updated (a big timesaver when you make a global change to your project), plus you can access a document’s layer comps after you’ve placed it into another document as a smart object—without opening (editing) the smart object.
Linked smart objects. Instead of embedding smart object content into your documents, you can now link then to external content. This is great news for both designers and photographers who routinely combine large files into a single document. You can now also convert an embedded smart object into a linked one, or vice-versa. The Properties panel, Info panel, and status bar can all display handy info about linked smart objects, as well as help you fix any broken links (caused by renaming or moving the linked file on your hard drive) and update any content that you changed while the Photoshop document that contains it was closed. Finally, the new Package command copies the Photoshop document and all its linked content so you can easily hand the whole shebang off to someone else.
Select in-focus areas with Focus Area. This new command summons a dialog box that automatically selects the in-focus parts of an image. It does a great job if the photo has a strong focal point and a blurry background, and the dialog box includes a couple of sliders and brushes that you can use to fine-tune the selection. You can also send the selection straight over to the Refine Edge dialog box for more tweaking.
Better color blending with content-aware tools. All of Photoshop’s content-aware tools now work faster and do a better job of blending colors, especially when you use them in an area that’s a gradient (think skies, water, and so on). These days, instead of having adaptation presets for the Patch and Content-Aware Move tools, you get a Structure and a Color field that let you enter precise settings for more realistic blending. Adobe also updated the Fill command’s Content-Aware option to perform better blending, and it now includes a Color Adaptation checkbox.
Editable scripted patterns. Scripted patterns are a fantastic way to create new textures and backgrounds, although editing the JavaScript that powers ’em was a real pain. Now, choosing one of the eight built-in scripts summons a dialog box that lets you easily customize the pattern’s density, size, and color variations. You can apply scripted patterns to paths, too, as well as save your customizations as handy presets that you can use again later.
Perspective warp. This command lets you change the perspective of an image, but only in certain areas that you specify. By drawing a grid atop your image, you can warp that area to make stuff like buildings and flat surfaces look correct (in other words, straight instead of angled).
Editable masks for Camera Raw’s Graduated and Radial filters. Camera Raw’s Graduated and Radial filters are perfect for applying gradual changes to a photo in a linear or circular fashion (respectively). And you can now edit the masks made by both filters by using a brush. (Camera Raw is discussed throughout this book, but the bulk of the coverage is in Chapter 9.)
Export web graphics with Generator. To the delight of web designers worldwide, the new Generator feature lets you instantly export web graphics that you’ve designed in Photoshop—and even create subfolders to organize them—just by using certain layer names. You’ve got to try this feature to believe it.
3D printing. You can now print 3D objects on a local 3D printer or send your file off to a 3D-printing service from inside Photoshop. The print preview that you get is incredible and even shows you the areas Photoshop filled in to make the object solid enough to print. If you go the printing-service route, the preview even estimates how much the project will cost. Chapter 21 helps you get started working in the increasingly popular realm of 3D.
There are also tons of little changes in Photoshop CC 2014, the direct result of Adobe’s customer-feedback initiative called Just Do It (JDI). Here’s a list: You can unlock a background layer by single-clicking its padlock icon (hooray!); you can turn the Color panel into a Color Picker that’s always open; you no longer have to unlock a background layer to add a vector-based layer mask to it; you can create gradients with a single color stop; and the process for syncing your settings to the Creative Cloud is simpler and now includes workspaces, keyboard shortcuts, and menu customizations. You can also export 3D color lookup tables for use in Adobe’s pro-level video editing apps; and the Copy CSS command now understands inner-shadow layer styles. When using the Liquify filter, you can pin the image’s edges down so they don’t get warped. The Brushes panel displays the last 30 brushes you used at the top of its panel for quick access, and uses a special highlight color to let you know when you’ve modified a brush’s settings. There’s also an Experimental Feature Manager tucked inside Photoshop’s preferences that lets you access “not yet ready for prime time” features that Adobe periodically releases.
Unfortunately, Adobe removed some useful panels because they were Flash based, including the Mini Bridge, Kuler, and Adobe Exchange panels (though, as Other Color Scheme–Generating Tools explains, you can download Kuler from the Adobe Add-On website as an HTML-based panel). The Oil Paint filter also went the way of the dodo bird in this version due to outdated code (easy come, easy go!).
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