Photoshop has plenty of fantastic tools, although there are some that many of us never use. Similarly, there are some tools that photographers would love to have, perhaps instead of those “useless” ones. Unmesh Dinda of PiXimperfect suggests 16 tools that should definitely become a part of Photoshop and make our editing workflow way more efficient.
Now, Unmesh isn’t a developer (and neither am I), so maybe some of these things aren’t possible. But, as a Photoshop user, here are the features that he’d love to see:
1.Sharpening as an adjustment layer: if you sharpen your images with a high pass filter or any of the sharpening filters, it can be a bit tricky if you use Liquify on your base layer or scale it. You need to apply the sharpening all over again. Because of this, it would be much more convenient if there was a possibility of sharpening the image by using an adjustment layer.
2. Define specific folders for quick export: if we could define folders for quick export, it would be quicker and more efficient to export the files that we want to share on social media. Unmesh suggests adding an option that would let us define specific folders for a specific type of work: one for social media, one for portfolio, etc.
3. HEIC file support on Windows: for people who use both Mac and PC, iOS and Android, HEIC support on Windows would be a useful feature that would make photographers’ life easier.
4. Scrubby Zoom in Liquify: Scrubby Zoom is a very handy tool, but unfortunately, it’s not available when you use the Liquify tool. Unmesh suggests that Adobe adds it here, too.
5. Separate masks for each Smart Filter: you can stack up as many Smart Filters as you like, change their order, turn them off or on… But one improvement that Unmesh suggests is enabling separate masks for each of them to make the editing process much faster and more convenient.
6. “Select Source” for Blend-If: Unmesh suggests that if we could choose a source for Blend-If, we would be able to create smoother and more realistic results when blending two layers.
7. A Clipping Mask for a Clipping Mask: this sounds a little silly when you read it, but it’s one of the small adjustments that could make editing simpler and more efficient.
8. Groups as Clipping Masks: If we could group adjustment layers based on what they do, it would make complex edits and composite work better organized.
9. A dedicated 4K document preset: When you open Photoshop CC, you’ll find presets for creating documents of a certain size. There’s 1080p, which is great for YouTube thumbnails, for example. But Unmesh suggests adding the 4K presets as well, since it’s slowly becoming a standard.
10. Live Preview for LUTs: it would be handy to add a preview as we scroll through presets when we create a Color Lookup adjustment layer. That already exists in Lightroom, so maybe it would be possible to make it in Photoshop as well.
11. Updated and non-destructive Match Color: when creating a composite, there is an option to match the color of the subject with the background. However, it doesn’t do the job so well in all cases, and it’s destructive and doesn’t work with Smart Objects.
12. Increase file size limit for PSD format: since modern cameras can capture pretty large images, Unmesh suggests that it would be ideal to increase or remove the size limit for PSD files.
13. Lens Flare as an Adjustment Layer: Lens Flare filter does a pretty good job, but lets’ say you want to remove it from certain areas or blur it. It would be useful to have it as a separate layer so that you could adjust it independent of the image you’re editing.
14. Vanishing Point for curved surfaces: you can’t create Vanishing Point for curved surfaces in Photoshop right now, so it’s another one of the features that could be useful for many photographers.
15. Updated Displacement filter: creating a Displacement map takes a lot of steps, and it would be much quicker if there was a shortcut for selecting the source.
16. Smart Filters not turning off while transforming objects: when you want to transform an object that has a Smart Filter applied, Photoshop will turn off that Smart Filter. This is another thing that Unmesh wishes were changed.
Do you agree with Unmesh and his Photoshop wish list? Are there any features you would add?
[Dear Photoshop Team: 16 Features We Actually Need! | PiXimperfect]
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