Adobe Photoshop is a complex program with tons of features. Some of them are familiar to everyone, but there are some which even the experts don’t know about. Nathaniel Dodson from Tutvid gives you an interesting and fast paced tutorial. He presents you with 10 features you probably didn’t know existed in Photoshop CC, but which can make your editing job much faster and easier.
This tutorial covers ten (plus a bonus!) tips, tricks and hotkeys to use in Photoshop CC. They are all lesser known features, so you may not have heard of them by now. Also, there are some quick additional tips. When we count it all, there’s actually more than just ten of them. Watch the tutorial, try it out and after these 20 minutes you’ll be able to speed the editing process up. And you’ll be richer for some knowledge, of course.
1.Revert reconstruction + show backdrop
If you overdo the Liquify feature, this serves to tone down the changes. You can find this under Filter > Liquify > Reconstruct. You’ll get a dialog box where you can dial down the changes until they look perfect.
Also, under the View Options in Liquify dialog bow, you can go to View Options and click Show Backdrop, which will show you all the changes you’ve made in the photo.
2.Rubber Band
When you choose Pen feature, you can tick the Rubber Band box to get more precise selection and fine curves when selecting a path.
3.Preserve Transparency
This example relies on the previous one after cutting out the subject. If you want to fill in with the foreground color yet preserve transparency, you can click on “Lock Transparent Pixels” feature. This way you’ll only color the area where there are actual pixels, and all you need to do later is choose the blend mode.
4.Spring-Loaded Zooming
If you hold Space Bar, whichever tool you’re using, it will get temporarily replaced by a hand. Similarly, if you hold Space Bar + Alt key (Space Bar + Option for Mac users), this gives you a temporary zoom tool whichever tool you are using at the moment.
5.Creating Black and White from a Channel
This feature is one of the ways to create a black and white photo. Go to Channels and choose the one you like best. Right click on it > Duplicate Channel. After this you’ll get to choose the name and the destination of the new black and white image you created.
6. Preview Adjustment Layers
When you create a new adjustment layer, you can preview the changes you’ve made by simply pressing and holding the backslash key.
7. Load Channel as Selection to Create Mask (Hotkey)
When you want to apply a certain filter (or whichever change) only to a specific channel, there’s a simple hotkey for doing it. There’s a number next to every channel of the photo. Hold Ctrl + Shift + Alt + the number, and you’ll get the selection of the channel whose number you pressed. For Mac users, it’s Cmd + Shift + Option + number.
8. Scrubby Sliders
Wherever you have an input box for values, there is also a scrubby slider. If you hover over the name of the box, you’ll see arrow keys that enable you to scroll left and right to change the values. If you hold the Shift key while doing this, you’ll change the values ten by ten, which speeds you up a bit.
9. Exact Lens Flare Placement using the Info Panel
Open the Info Panel and use Move Tool. Place the arrow key over the place where you want to place lens flare – and the Info Panel will give you coordinates. Remember them and go to Filter > Render > Lens flare. When you click on the flare, you’ll get a dialog box where you can write the coordinates.
10. Repeating Filter with Options
When you want to apply the last filter again, you’ll get the same values. And if you don’t want them, you can apply the same filter and get the dialog box at the same time. Hold Alt (Option) key and click on the last filter – and you’ll get it along with the dialog box where you can adjust the options.
BONUS: Ruler Tips & tricks
Nathaniel gives some extra tricks at the end of the video, and they include moving the rulers and guides. You can put the zero of the ruler into another place in the photo by clicking in the corner between the rulers and dragging. When you double click in that corner, the zero goes back. When you hold the Shift key and drag a ruler, you move the Guide along the photo.
This tutorial is quite fast-paced and packed with useful information and features. It definitely needs to be watched because Nathaniel illustrates the tricks with the examples. I learned some new stuff when I watched it. And you? Did you know of some of these features? Or it was all new to you? Let us know in the comments.
[10 Things You Never Knew About Photoshop CC (Tutorial) via Lensvid]
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