My Top 30 Favorite Photoshop Features of All Time!

[Music] [Music] hey everybody happy Wednesday it's that time of day it's also an exciting day because it's photoshop's 30th birthday that's right it was 30 years ago today that Photoshop first launched in a 1.0 format and let's just say that a lot has changed since then I know in some cases some of you watching this broadcast whether you're watching it live or watching the replay aren't even 30 years old yet or you are in your thirties and you were a kid when Photoshop first came out you didn't know what a computer was or maybe you did at 30 but hey know how you you just it's a lot to take for granted especially when you can't go back to a time before Photoshop so we're gonna be taking a look at 30 of my all-time favorite features in Photoshop not just new features not just features that have been out in the last five or six releases like all time in the last 30 years my 30 favorite most of which could not live without today favorite features so with that said I see a bunch of people coming in I know we're a little earlier than usual on Wednesdays I do stream at noon pacific instead of 1 to make room for other shows that are happening at 1:00 so it is a little early for some of you but thanks for being here and I see a bunch of people that I know see Victoria over on on Facebook as well as Andrew over on Facebook thanks for being here and then I see Stephen nock InDesign jabbin Jesper Nadya and Colleen of course from South Africa thanks for being here and what I want you guys to do in the chat because I know a lot of people just sit in the chat there shouldn't watch the stream you never really say anything I wouldn't love for you guys to sound off and just tell me you know first name where you're from and version of Photoshop you started with for me it was Photoshop - I didn't actually start with one I started with Photoshop - and I was only on Photoshop - for a brief time before 2-5 came out so like I was in that in-between phase of - had been out for a while I started with two and then two five came out like a couple months later so really for me - and - five was my version what's yours what did you start with and what do you you know where you from tell me about that and they'll just be fun to read those - I won't read them all now would be fun to read those comments after the fact so with that said thanks barb for being here at Photoshop 3.0 and Victoria from Atlanta one point I said I was gonna read more so anyway let's keep going my starting with my thirty favorite features and I kind of rank them so we're gonna start at the end we're gonna start at 30 and work our way up to number one and and then like I said they're features across Photoshop for 30 years my favorites and let's go ahead and get to it so I'm gonna switch over to my desktop see you guys can see what I'm doing some images you may have seen before some most of which are new like I gathered them for this broadcast so that I can do that Wow a lot of Photoshop threes here but anyway this is gonna sound silly today but back in the day when this feature was like new and came out it was kind of like you saw it everywhere and the feature I'm talking about is gonna sound silly but one of my favorite features number three comes in at yeah I've got this layer selected we're gonna go into the effects panel we're gonna go down to yes drop shadow because every image it was government mandated that you had to have a drop shadow on your text or you had to have a drop shadow on something under image and you had to use the Photoshop drop shadow to do it and I know you know there are people of course still use it today there are certainly other ways to get shadows in your images now so it may not be as critical of a feature as it was back in the day but drop shadow yeah I used it quite a bit and also just a bonus tip you can move a little dial around and change the angle but one of the things I used to always show people's you could pick up the shadow and move it around you can actually dictate where the shadow is gonna come in and how it works so drop shadow love drop shadow have used it for many years we always use drop shadows always like a mandate all right that was feature number 30 feature number 29 is along the same in my practice in the same dialogue box so if I click OK I could have gotten to it right there but you can also go to effect and do it again bevel and emboss I use bevel and emboss a lot back in the day still you still good feature today I just don't use it as much so bevel and emboss gave you the ability to create these cool sometimes cool-looking sometimes funky looking bevels and embosses and things on your image and of course if you could finesse it just right which that was the whole point of this feature you could make some really interesting effect you can make a chiseled 3d look to your text or your image and just by applying this effect so I'm going to go to emboss actually and we're just gonna again we can increase or decrease the size I'm gonna bring the size of that down just a bit and you'd be hard-pressed to try and make that without this feature like it take you some time to make a 3d looking canvas bag text like that without doubling emboss and of course you can go in and continue tweaking things to get it to look the way you want it to look yeah babbling a boss number 29 I use that a lot back in the day I don't use as much now but I definitely use it a lot okay this next one I'm gonna switch images now I may come back to this image for something else but I switch images now and this is one that is fairly new it actually is a one-click button that combines two features so it's it's not really magic it's just like oh you know hey we can make this easier for people to not have to do it in two steps we'll just make them make it easier so you do it in one so here this I got this businessman on his image here and I've gotten uh if I turn off that layer I've got another office setting behind him you get where I'm going with this I would love to have him on this office setting instead of the office setting with a person in the window and the reflections I don't like any of that I like this cleaner look better so how would I do that well you'd have to select him you'd have to cut him out you'd have to then remove or mask the background blah blah blah and you'd be there now he doesn't have a lot of hair so cutting them out is pretty easy but again it would still be two steps for you to be able to do that so what the Photoshop team and did in this most recent set of updates is if you're on a layer and you go to your properties panel there's a one click button that says remove background what we wish for for 30 years and all that button does I'll do it watch one click boom done just like that but that feature that button is hinging on two things working its well actually one thing working its hinging on select subject so if you have a image that can easily be done with select subject then that feature will work perfectly if he had a long a lot of hair or it was a he or she or whatever had a lot of hair and I'm not gonna work so great because the Select subject part of that wooden works great and what that did is it created even though it's not one of my unlisted favorite features I use it all the time it would be a favorite feature it would be like it should be on the list but layer masks I use layer masks all the time so it created a layer mask and you could go in and tweak it and paint it if it miss spots or whatever you could fix it but boom one-click background rule okay that was number 28 number 27 and this is along the same lines I've talked about layers of indigo well on say lines adjustment layers came out in version 4 so we didn't get layers until version 3 and version 4 included adjustment layers these non-destructive overlays over your layers to make a layer look like a certain way so for example I could go in and click yeah see people are loving the background one-click background again if you got a good select subject subject 1 click background boom done it works very alright so for example if I wanted to make this whole seem a little more black-and-white there's a black and white adjustment layer so I can just click the black and white adjustment layer it makes the whole scene black and white and I can even target by just making it applied to the layer below so he's black and white and the background is it so or I could move the adjustment layer to the background both between him in the background so the backgrounds black and white but just having that adjustment layer that I can move mask turn-on turnoff adjustment layers rocked in version 4 and and it got better of course because now we have things like the target adjustments so it's showing me all the colors that are in this image and if I click the little target adjustment tool I could say it remembers what colors are what so I don't remember what was green what was blue what was yellow what was whatever but if I use that little target I can come over and say well now against this background he's a little bit in the shadows I'd love to brighten this up a bit so I can tweak and it will tweak the Reds in the image to just dragging left or right to make that part of the image a little brighter if I go over to another part of the image and drag it will adjust whatever color of that so that's more in the blues over there probably but by the sky so adjustment layers definitely rocked in version four and very much useful all the way through to now alright that was number twenty seven twenty six it's higher on the list that's why it's coming after this what could we do in Photoshop without layers in general so the fact that we have layers and we got layers in Version three you had to work for years without having layers at all on any level now we actually have layers we have the ability to turn things on and off we have the ability to change the stacking order we have the ability to delete a layer we have the ability to mask a layer we have the ability to delete a layer layers people wouldn't be able to do the things they do today without layers it's such a common thing and across all of our apps you would not even just like you wouldn't even want to use Photoshop today if you couldn't use layers alright so layers is definitely on the list and it should be higher but it's number 26 along those same lines when you start having more than a few layers you probably want to have them grouped together so you can do things to the layers so for example I've got these these three layers now I could select the first two and group them together so I could group them together and say that hey those layers are now in a layer set or a layer group and what's cool about a layer group is you can apply effects and filters and actions and things to the whole group without having to individually go and do things to the individual layers so a layer group is just that it's a group of layers but the reason you would do it is so you can move them all together so you can scale them all together so you can apply effects and turn them on off all together so layer groups is my layer sets which is number 25 all right I'm gonna switch over to a different image and you will recognize this next one because you see it every time I'm about to stream this one this is one of like 12 different Photoshop files that I use every day to set up the graphics for my live streams so the feature that I'm about to show you is actually a couple features number one you notice that there are different sizes for the different social media channels this is all using a feature called artboards and up until artboards came out I don't remember what version but it wasn't that long ago up until artboards came out you had one page you had one canvas you had one thing if you wanted to design like five of these you'd have five different Photoshop files you wouldn't be able to put five together or six together or ten together like I'm doing now so artboards huge benefit for people that want to book to build multiple things multiple pages multiple sizes multiple orientations all in the same file so having this definitely helps me because and I'll just I'll just digress for a minute let's say that I wanted to change the icon instead what we're doing Photoshop but let's say I want to change something else well I have that as a smart object which is on the list it's coming out anyway I'll double-click the smart object and let's say I wanted to also talk about illustrator I can add the illustrator icon and this smart object goes already later I just turned it on save it close it and it updates all my artboards and updates all the sizes mountains a little funky that one needs to move over but it updates probably use that one it updates all the sizes and makes it perfect for me so that I can just do it one time across the board so a feature I'm not going to put on the list but it's form it I use all the time and that is the new linking capability so you place something multiple times in your document or documents when you update it it updates all the links across the board so smart objects awesome we're gonna get to that that's it's on the list it's just now it's higher on the list actually but that's how I'm talking about now so artboards number one number or not number one artboards are number 24 23 because there's another feature we're going to use in this as well but 23 is actually something that is equally important to me so this one no not that one we're gonna get to that one but not that one yet oh did i close the one here on the go opening all right not that one I want I want this one all right I'm so a family photo old family photo that was actually restored in color by Deb petty this is my family photo she said I want to help you out with something give me a photo I like colorizing photo so she did this photo for me great Deb if you're in the room thanks for once again for doing his photo here's the problem though she did a great job the photo I gave her the photo I originally got was very low res it was like something I received from a relative so it was like wasn't a highest-quality and I wanted to make 8 by 10 prints of this once it was done blah blah blah you get where I'm going with this small file small image need to make it bigger so my 23rd favorite feature is when you go up to the image menu now and you come down to image size and you want to make something higher resolution now keep in mind it you know you get what you get it's not gonna it's not it's not gonna always be perfect if you're starting with something the size of a postage stamp and then you want to go to something the size of a billboard good luck but it will work for a lot of things well so let's say I want to make this 200 pixels per inch instead of 72 and what this will let me do is I can choose automatic where it will figure out the best one but the algorithm that's newer in Photoshop is this preserved each eles 2.0 there's preserve details enlargement bicubic all the older stuff but it's these preserved details that are the new algorithms for making things bigger but still look ok and still look even good in some cases depending on what you're starting with so I now have a photo that's 200 pixels per inch if you look at it like this yeah you're gonna see the difference but on a wall as an 8 by 10 or in a frame it's gonna be great so preserve details making enlargements from when you have no choice because that's all you were dealt that was the hand you were dealt with ah awesome to have that capability so that was my number 23 now we'll go back to that image I opened up this one and we'll talk about my number 22 and this is one I use all the time cuz I do portraits and I retouch portraits all the time and when I'm retouching the portrait male/female doesn't matter one of the things I love about my portrait work or one thing I love to do in my port to work this route have really sharp eyes eyes are the key to the soul they make a difference so the sharper the eyes the better now of course we focus on the eye when we take the picture we want the eye totally in focus but that doesn't mean it can't be sharper so when i zoom into her eye there we go and this photo is unretouched by the way that's not one of retouched yet so there's some stray hairs and a few little lines of red and blah blah blah anyway things everyone would have I would go to my new and improved where is it here it should be in the list here there it is the sharpen tool the sharpen tool has a newer newer meaning not back in Photoshop three day is it has a newer algorithm as well called protect detail it's on by default I'm just showing you the checkbox but the protect detail is what makes the sharpen tool go from and don't really ever use that because it's going to destroy your photo - wow that really works I'm going to use that all in time now and it honestly used to be like that so for example if I turn off detail that turns it back into the 1990s version of the sharpen and if I were to go do do this to her eye it immediately like quickly Falls completely apart like pixelization introducing noise bad bad stuff so this is why you may have gotten one stroke out of it up can't do any more because it's going to destroy the photo and no one would use that tool undo put it back on this new default protect detail and now I can go in and here I was oom in a little bit more and I can really sharpen her eye up and even this jewelry that she's wearing great now that my overdid it here go back you can still overdo things just still fall apart as quickly there we go now you might say I can't really even tell a difference did that do anything well it's when you do the undo and you see it almost looks blurry by comparison even though it was totally in focus so when I redo the sharpen you can see a difference and it's those little details that make all the difference in the world because you add up a hundred little details and you've got a night-and-day portrait as opposed to what you had before so it's little things it's never really one giant thing that makes retouching great so sharpening the eyes with a sharpen tool that's got the new algorithm number 23 along the same lines one of my trade secrets for my portraits is just giving the person more definition more detail more contrast if you would say so for example one of the things I would do is I would duplicate this layer for example duplicate the layer and I'm going to set that layers blend mode to luminosity and now that I've set that layer which makes no difference meaning it looks exactly the same now that I've done that I'm gonna switch over to my dodge and burn so hers lighting is perfect I don't really need to a lot of dodging but I'm gonna do some burning to add a little more contrast let's go there and now we're gonna come over here I'm gonna make my brush just a little bigger let me turn on my thingy there make my brush bigger and now we're just gonna come over here and again doesn't look like I'm doing a lot it's like is he really painting is anything really happening and that's the whole point it shouldn't look like drastically different because it should be a subtle change now I did a little bit more so you can see it but it would be less than this and you're like I don't really see much of a difference until you see the before once I turn it off wow you can really see that detail and that kind of even just sculpting and curving the light on the subject to make that look better alright so dodge and burn okay I group those together as my number 21 couldn't live without now a lot of those same lines again something I don't necessarily use every single day anymore because there's just better ways to do things now not better but some some ways were better or not always better I was gonna say so let's say for example I needed another piece of this jewelry to be right here well we could copy it paste it but more than likely you're gonna reach for the clone stamp tool and that is my number 20 so the clone stamp tool will hit the letter S go to the clone stamp tool love-love-love have used the clone stamp - a million times literally especially since it came out because back in the day you really did how much of the choice if you wanted to duplicate things or clone things in your image you had to use the clone stamp tool now we can go ahead we can by the way create a new layer we can go back to our background and sample that if we want to or we could sell it to sample all layers but right now except the current layer and go back to the new layer now and I can come over here and say that I want that new piece of jewelry to be right about there and so when I just clone that in it will clone it in as much as I paint and because I created a new layer first so again something we could live without it is on its own layer so I could always turn it on and off and I went a little too much over there so I could undo the whole thing or I could just add another one of those hidden favorite features a layer mask to that and then I could use my paintbrush with black paint we go to to to mask out that little bit of edge that I got carried away with okay but clone stamp number 20 also next up while we're in the same image we can do the same thing adding text to an image is not on my list but it should be because it's one of the number one reasons people go into Photoshop in the first place because if you think about all your other tools there for making the image look better and improving and cropping and all that but if you ever want to add text that number of tools drops down because there aren't as many tools that add text as there are that edit an image you've got even the Photos app on your phone can edit the image to make it look better but it doesn't have a text tool so type is a favorite features not on the list but this next one is so I'm gonna grab my type tool I'll just click over here with a type her name Palin and we're gonna just make that bigger and now that we maybe that bigger will make it a different color we'll make it skintone color so we can see it alright great what I love in this this later these later releases let's make it a better font I'll go to my default victim script regular there we go what I love for this particular feature is alternate glyphs there's a glyphs panel so if you go to your Windows menu my number 19 is the glyphs panel and the glyphs panel has the ability to show you all the characters in your fonts so someone asked me on one of my streams are you gonna show us ever show us how we can make a copyright symbol or a a symbol that it's not really regularly on the keyboard trademark symbol well just go to the glyphs panel go to your font and it's there all the symbols are that you would I want you just double click on the one you want but that's not why I'm bringing this up why I'm bringing this up is because instead of seeing the entire font I want to see alternates for selection and when I do that and I highlight a certain highlight there you go I highlight a certain character it will show me the alternate if there is one there isn't always one depends on the font but if there is one I can switch to that version of the F and of course if I um we don't need the glyphs panel anymore because the Photoshop team has made it so that's interactive if I just hover over the character it will show me the alternate glyphs anyway so I can pick a different ending for this as opposed to to the default in that anyone else would get so having glyphs first of all the glyphs panel come over from InDesign into Photoshop and then having it work on the canvas is definitely my number 19 all right my number 18 I just make sure I'm keeping up here my number 18 do I see my number 18 up there let me see if it's open it might not be open it's not open all right let's go get my number 18 all right my number 18 is this one okay here's the deal this was an image shot on my iPhone a shot of my phone using portrait mode on the iPhone in portrait mode on the iPhone is an effect it's like a shallow depth of field effect you can even dial in the depth of field in the Photos app on the phone however it also has a hidden benefit if you bring that file over to photoshop as an HDI C file which is the native format that iPhones now shoot in it brings over something else for you we go to our channels panel it brings over the depth map that it made from portrait mode comes over with the file I didn't make that I just opened it us I open it up or exported from the Photos app to my hard drive and launched it just now that depth map is already there so what does that mean what can I do with that information now that that's there well as of today's update in Photoshop on the desktop funny how these things tie together and my number 18 is now the new improved lens blur filter so what the lens blur filter allows me to do is create and change my focal length change my point of interest for that image for what I want to be in focus and what I don't want to be in focus using that depth map let me show you how it works first and foremost if you want things to be non-destructive convert for Smart Filters remember that smart object thing I talked about it's gonna come up well I'm doing that again anyway filter menu now coming to blur and go to I can't do the carrot sorry can't do it with that filter sorry about that skip that we'll come back to that let's go to filter all right filter now we go to lens blur and lenzburg comes up and it already selects the depth map that was part of the file so now for example I could increase the radius to make things super out-of-focus so everything kind of looks out-of-focus like we're blurring the whole image but now I can go in and choose the set focal point tool click it it was already selected and then say hey I want this glass thing to be in focus and now that's what's in focus love it or hey this chair who's ever sitting in that chair is really the focal point make that in focus and everything else out of focus hey this thing on the table should be in focus make that in focus and everything else out of focus see where I'm going with this now what if you're saying hey I have an iPhone that shoots in portrait mode what am I going to do we'll do it down a tutorial on how you can do this with any image by creating your own depth map but my iPhone shooters you've already got this built into your phone as long as you shoot in portrait mode alright so choosing your point of focus just by clicking around in your image because of that depth map that was created on an iPhone amazing alright so that is number that's number 18 so number 17 is one I use literally every day so I'm gonna click OK on this by the way and what I use every single day is I I'm I do a lot on social media so I'm sharing a lot of stuff all the time and if I have an image like this that I want to put on social media well I can't share it as an hei see file I can't share it as a PSD I can't share it with all this all the layers intact the way I'd want to so you normally share it as a JPEG but more importantly if you're putting this on your website you're putting this on something that you want to be smaller because ah yeah uh we want things to be smaller when they can be then you probably want to make the file look as good as it can and be as small as a can and for that feature I use and still to this day prefer export even though it's called a legacy save for web I used save for web all the time now why is it called legacy because the Photoshop team wants you to start using quick export and export ask why do I prefer say for web still because it has features in it that these two don't have that simple as that soon as they catch up then I will stop using safer web until that time safer web is my default choice because when I do save for web it should bring up a dialog box eventually and when that dialog box comes up I'm gonna get innocent it's a slightly large file here but anyway when that definite lock box comes up there this it will and it's a it's a huge image so I'm gonna say eh let's drop the size let's change the format burst and say make it a JPEG ping jiff whatever so I'm on a JPEG high quality and I wanted to be my blog for example let's say I'm putting this on my blog the images on my blog are no wider than 650 pixels so if I say make this only 650 pixels wide it will do the rest to the height and now when I export this image out it will only be 62 K or 52 K as opposed to whatever it was gonna be if I need it to be smaller and I said well you know high quality would be great maybe medium quality is better that drops the size in half so if you care about getting a small file that it looks good on the Internet save for web is awesome and I still use it to this day it's also the way you would make an animated gif using Photoshop because you have to export it as a drift pile with all the animations in it all the frames in it and this is the dialog box that does that as well so save for web definitely my number 17 because I use it all the time all right you would click Save pick a location pick a file name we're not gonna do that cuz you get the idea you know how to save things okay next up we're gonna go back remember this I talked about these um so my secret weapon for getting my work done fast is to do as little as possible and let the computer do as much as possible that's my secret weapon that's what we should all be aiming for aiming towards it's a computer that's why we got them in the first place do things for us do it quicker faster better than us until they take over and we become their servants but anyway in the meantime I need this image for all those social media channels I'm streaming - I need one big for YouTube I need one smaller for Facebook I need one for Twitter blah blah blah well I could X I could make my changes like I just did so we're gonna go back and turn off that it will leave it on for now leave it on for now I could export out each one of those artboards and that's a manual process I could do that each time and it would work it would do it or I can use one of my my actually my sixteenth favorite feature in Photoshop which is image generator so image generator is actually a kind of a two-step process you open up a photo you open up a Photoshop file and then you go you have to turn it on so it's on in the preferences on out and now I think by default but if not you have to go turn on the Preferences of one time once it's on your preferences then you have to then enable it for each of your documents so for an example under generate if image assets is not checked it's just not enabled for that document because you don't need it on for all your documents you only need it on for this feature so it is turned on for this feature and what that means is that if you look at my layer groups the layer groups that these layers are in are named a certain way they're named with whatever the text is that I want the name to be but notice they end in something you normally don't name a layer you don't normally name a layer with a file extension like jpg or ping or jiff but I named this these layers these layer sets png-24 meaning ping 24 quality because what that's telling image generator to do is to make files from all those layer sets every time I make a change so if I make a change boom it's made all the files for me so let's go look I'm going to go so it creates wherever you saved the file once image generator is turned on it will make this folder for you so I created this Creative Cloud assets folder and notice they got updated at 3:15 my time which was about 15 minutes ago when we turn on that straighter logo so now if I were to twirl that down all the files are there here we can expand this out a little bit all those files are there from all those layer sets and even a layer set can make multiple files because you just name it multiple things with commas in between and you can generate all your assets quickly so if I were to look at one of these assets that I did not export it I did not make a change to remember we added that illustrator logo there it is if I were to now go back to photoshop turn off that illustrator layer because it really isn't about illustrators day it's all about Photoshop save it close it it makes the change and it instantly instantaneously updated all the files so as quick as you can make the change it will go ahead and output your files and it'll just keep outputting and replacing those files for every single change you make so imagine if you had those files in a shared folder like a Dropbox or a critic files folder and you're sharing them with your team every time you make a change they've got the latest assets or you're referencing those images on your server and on your your websites and whatever every time you make a change those those images are updating so I use this every single day could not live without it so image generator is my number 16 I've done tutorials on how to set that all up it's really easy once you get going all right number 15 number 15 I don't know that I have an image for number 15 let's see what features I don't know if I made an image for all right I did make an image for that what's number 14 okay all right I don't know if I saved these or not or they just not open turn turn turn alright I think I was just gonna wing it off other images for the rest of those features okay so no problem let's go to that one um so my number my number 15 I remember setting this up it's driving me crazy because I remember setting up an example for this let me see what this is it's gonna drive me crazy one second I just want to check I want to waste an image if I did make one for this feature yep that's it that's that one alright anyway we'll just we'll do it on this one my number we're doing on [Music] I'm just trying to decide where I want to do it I don't want to do it on all right we're doing this save time alright so my number want my number 15 favorite feature is oh I know I remember doc nevermind remember what I was going to nevermind let's sit down because it came back to me let me go to aridif let's go back to this one for a minute it was this image so my number 15 is the fact that if I go to the right library here we go there we go so my number 15 is when I bring in an image a layer or whatever that and I know this is controversial that some people don't like this and some people do I'm one of the I like it so that's what that's why it's my number 15 proportional scale by default so what that means is I'm not holding down the shift key to scale that proportionally and if you're if you're complaining about it it's probably because you're used to not having to hold down the shift key unless or add no time shift key and not holding it down we wanted to store things I prefer it not not to have to hold it down every single time so proportional scale by default is my favorite now if again probably we heard loud and clear some people don't like it so two things number one and the latest updates you can now toggle it off here and it's sticky so if you turn it off here it stays off do you turn it back on or you can disable it permanently in your preferences you can say nope I never wanted to do it turn it off in the Preferences so we gave you two ways to turn it off if you don't like it I like it so that's my number of 15 my number 14 this is why we're using this image but I wanted to put this here I don't want the white background I don't feel like cutting out all the little individual things it's not that important of an image I'm just gonna stick it over here and what I would love to do is blend it in so my number 14 is actually live blend modes so if I just hover over the blend modes I can see which blend mode is going to work best visually without having to guess or pick my default choices for what I would normally do so for example I could do that one and my multiply does a great job in this for what I need to do so live blend those number fourteen number 13 Smart Objects so finally it finally got there so Smart Objects is basically a container in your layers panel for whatever layers you put in it for whatever objects you put in it so if we go back to this for example that totems layer you notice it has a little cloud icon well any little icon in the lower right hand corner whether it's cloud or another icon usually means as its highlighting that that's a smart object so smart object means that I can go in and edit whatever is in that smart object to turn on let's say we turn on a little straighter before InDesign turn on things and when I save and close that smart object it updates everywhere else so that's one use the other use is I can scale that smart object and non-destructively work with it apply filters to it so forth and so on and it doesn't ever change the contents of what's in that smart object so smart truck another example that I can show you is one we kind of started with over here well that text I don't want it to say canvas bag but we'll notice that it's too late I've already applied filters to it I don't have to undo all that stuff or effects to it well that's a smart object so if I go into that smart object there's my actual text and I can change that to the Photoshop bag and now when I click OK save it close it it updates I would now be able to scale it not holding down the shift-key and get that just the way I want it right there and I could tweak and play with it all day long and the smart objects remain smart so scaling making smaller oh I decide tomorrow and make it bigger it doesn't have to upscale it cuz it never actually affected the pixels anyway okay so smart objects are awesome that is my number 13 my number 12 and as well now I've got so many documents open I just wanna make sure I'm in the right one there's my number 12 so my number 12 is everything content-aware fill so there's content-aware fill four just filling in the background there's content-aware fill in the crop tools content-aware fill as a tool there's a content work tool and so it's content aware throughout cuts or scale its content aware throughout Photoshop yep unlimited command Z well it's not unlimited it is limited by memory still but it's a lot and it's just command Z so yep that is another favorite but anyway back to content aware fill so I want to get rid of the railing in this dock in this image the problem is the railing is flooding right up against my subject on both sides so I made a selection already that's best I could select load selection the railing and so we see the marching ants and again I did an okay job selecting around my subject on both sides I even yeah I'm screwed it up there so let's grab a tool and hold down my shift key and add two selection where I messed up a little there we go we'll add that in and now that I got this selected what I want to do is remove the railing but of course use the buildings to fill it in so I could do a content-aware fill by hitting backspace or delete slice it on the layer and it'll do that but there's a better way now that if you really want to control what it's going to do you can go on to your content aware feel workspace that is fairly new and with that workspace I get a preview of what it's going to do and that looks pretty good already you can also change the settings you can change the color a bit adaptation you can that will give you various results and more importantly you can go either you can say no no don't use any of the sweater at all even if I accidentally did it and that didn't help that actually made it worse but the fact is I can see this now and play around the color adaptation to see what's gonna give me the best actually I'm gonna just undo that if I can there we go undo it I like it the way it is click OK and that will give me my new results and you can even say put your new results on a new layer if you want to and so that is my number 12 content aware fill workspace and content work feel just in general my number 11 I use this everyday as well and this is one that is it was like thank God they did this as you know the Photoshop toolbar is huge it's got lots of things in it and lots of things most people will never use some people use some things some people won't some people use other things that other people won't so the fact that we can now edit the toolbar under the Edit menu my head's blocking it there we go edit toolbar you can now customize your toolbar change the order put things in the toolbar where you want them I put the sharpen tool up there closer to the top I separated it from the blur tool and I'm sorry floor tool wherever that is somewhere in here the blur tool I separated it and I basically there's my magic wand tool I need to move that up move them two up so I'm customizing this even on the fly and as I do it it's doing it on the fly wherever I move that now just got a higher so you can save these you can load them in you can move them to a different computer and you can get your own toolbars and you can have as many as you want for the kind of work you're doing so I have a add this as my retouching toolbar with all my favorite retouching tools on it and the tools I don't use off of it so you drag the tools here I didn't show that but the tools you don't use ever you can drag them over to the right so all these tools on the right are not in my tool bar cuz I never ever ever ever ever use them so there's no reason for them taking up space and being in the way now let's say there's one day I need that note tool dang it I took it off the tool bar does that mean I have to edit the tool bar and put it back no it does not all I have to do is go to my flyout menu here and it will show all the tools that are hidden if you really want need to get it temporarily you can okay so that is my number a lot of number 10 all right let's go to this one for number 10 and this is kind of a cool one love it use it a lot and YouTube are you guys okay over there someone says bad connection can you guys still see me over there on YouTube chime in if you can still see me area if I don't leave anything I know you can't all right I don't see anything okay so we know making selections as part of Photoshop it's been part of Photoshop since day one Photoshop always gets new ways to make selections that give you more options and the new object select tool is one of those new ways so with this tool it works in the form of a two lasso or a rectangle I'm just going to use the lasso for now and I can just go in and say I want a tomato and I didn't draw it very well but it figured out what I wanted hey I want half a bagel so I'm not drawing it all that great but it figures out what I want so the objects select tool using Adobe sensei machine learning is awesome so somebody said I want to eat them on YouTube so that means you're seeing this you're hearing that's great okay and now you got to keep in mind - it's only as good as your image so there's a little poppy seed or something right there so if I I'm not careful it may think that I'm trying to select the poppy seed in that case it didn't it worked but just know that it's only as smart as it can be right now it's only smartest computer for me so the new object select tool it's freaking amazing next up that's number ten number nine we're getting there number nine I did not make an image for this I know I didn't here let's go ahead and open up this one cropping something I do all the time grabbing no I don't want the slice tool delete slice I want my crop tool grabbing my crop tool hey sorry folks yes delete the slice did I say delete no hey sorry folks so what happens we need to click on a tool with a slice tool alright anyway I've got the crop tool selected now and first and foremost they added the ability way back when to not delete your crop pixels that means your crops are non-destructive if you just turn that off the other one is content-aware that is my number nine or whatever number I said I was on number or not yeah content or crop because what content of where crop does we're used to cropping in to an image what if you need to go the other way and you need it to fill in the space or the image let's say I need to make a ad where I need more space on the right side of this person and if I just uncropped it like that it's just gonna give me blank space but because of the content aware feature when I click OK it will use the existing background I know it's white it's easy but it does work on long as the background is consistent it works really well so to just give me that extra background as if hey we shot this really nice wide angle lens and you really didn't you just use content where crop where I really use this a lot is when I'm doing a portrait image don't tell me I don't have any portraits in here they're all landscape I mean I'm not talking about images of people I mean physically portrait at all image where I use this a lot is when you shoot an image that's like tightly crop normally in the camera and you need to make it bigger to make it a specific size like a 4 by 5 8 by 10 for Instagram content where crop really comes in handy for that okay content where crop definitely my number nine number eight let's also go back to I know which image I want to use I just can't remember which one it's called let's go back to the sharpen image one more time let's go back to Balan there we go and get out of the crop tool and let's say that I want to do that dodging burn that I did before remember I created that layer I set it to luminosity I did those things I'm gonna throw it away now cuz I don't do it that way normally I don't do it that way every day the way I do it is I know what I wanted to do duplicate the layer set the layer multiple in or set the layer blend mode to luminosity select the burn tool three things I wanted to do just I don't want have to think about it so my number eight is actions actions have been around in Photoshop for a very very long time and now if I just go to my dodge and burn action all that does is set it up for me so if I click it duplicate a layer said to the luminosity and it automatically switched to the burn tool for me so I'm going to start painting so again just actions let you do those things quickly and automate multiple steps all you have to do is record the actions set it up one time and do multiple it will do the multiple things for you okay my number seven is this one so number seven I've shown this image before this is a stock image I don't know this guy but he's perfect for this because he has one eye slightly more I'm just gonna say more open than the other one bigger open whatever so the ability to go in to your first of all convert that into a smart object second of all go into your filter menu coming down to liquify and we could play around liquify and do things but that's not what we're here for because what liquify also has is face detection so it's automatically figured out that that's a person and it's figured out where the eyes are figure out where the nose is figure out where the chin is where the mouth is so forth and so on so that I I can either do it in the sliders or can come right up into the canvas and I say can we just close that up a little bit there we go baby clothes that just down just ever so slightly so it's just not as noticeable alright so with that said click OK because I did that as a smart object I can always turn it off turn it on or go right back into it and keep editing it another reason we do Smart Objects Smart Filters alright number number six since we've already got this smart object here number six don't turn menu we're going to go into Camera Raw filter in the Camera Raw filter it's like bringing Lightroom editing capability or Camera Raw editing capability to any layer so that way you can go in and you can tweak you can adjust you can get this image looking just right all kinds of effects all non-destructive if you apply a smart object first and so I can say you know what really bring the exposure down this image a little bit more I might bump up the shadows just a bit or just add a little bit more contrast I might make the overall image a little bit more vibrant I can tweak to my heart's content click OK and it again it only applied it to that layer and it applied it non-destructively so i can turn it off turn it on or double click on it to get right back into those settings all right so the Camera Raw filter is my number six were getting up there my number five is I don't use it as much because it's been we got newer things but I still use it and that is the quick select tool so the quick select tool is for example if I said select subject well what's the subject of this photo I would assume it's the bodybuilders or the people working out but what if what if my idea of the subject is the weights so select subject wouldn't work for me here so I couldn't use that now I could use the object select tool that's what I meant by we got newer ways but before the optics slick tool I have the quick select tool so the quick select tool allows me to just quickly drag around and select the things that I want to select and it automatically doesn't add by default and it's shallow depth-of-field that one's gonna be harder and I just keep adding to that selection and it will keep magically figuring out it grabs too much I can hold down the option or Alt key and tell it to no no deselect some of that I don't need all of that so quick select it is my number five because I've used it for so many years it's awesome yep cs5 so then said that came out in so next we're getting there my next one is this one so we got two layers here apparently we would want to have her not standing in a field not at least not that field and we would not want it to look like it looks right now so we need to a since she has no more leg that we can see we need to first of all scale this down now hold down the shift key now that we've done that weird and we can make just move it down or we just make her I'm smaller I don't know I never get the proportions right on this image but there we go and now what I want to do is cut her out so first and foremost select subject is now under the Select menu so I can just say select subject and that will figure out what the subject is and next and it even did a better job than usual so next up I would go to number four which is select and mass the selected mask workflow for cutting this image out using my refine edge brush to really work with the hair and cut that background out of the hair there we go bring back any hair that wasn't being selected by select subject and now I'll click OK a little bit more there hang on there we go click OK we want to output that to a new layer with a mask and click OK and that becomes our new layer so selected mask couldn't live without it today I use that way way way too much now and I did number 3 already and so number 3 was select subject so that once again just the ability to not have to use quick select not have to use object selects for Doby sensei to figure out what the subject is and just choosing choosing hanging off the wrong layer there we go choosing select subject and it's saying oh she's the subject of the photo boom done did it so select subjects my number 3 my number and we turn that layer back off my number 2 and my number 1 I use hand in hand all the time let's go to one of these other images that I have randomly open here we'll go to Trevor alright so we have a logo of deer moose or something whatever that is and we're gonna submit this to Adobe stock and we can't have that brand on it because we can't sell that brand so I need to I don't want to I could back in the day I would have used a clone stamp tool to kind of remove that and then strike the stripes are kind of jagged moving around no problem my number to the patch tool I use the patch tool all the freakin time so I'm just gonna go ahead and make a selection around this not very tight as you can see and the reason I love the patch tool was because now when I move that selection to kind of blend it in with the stripes that are already there I can see a preview before I let go all right and there we are so now I can see I can know when to let go know that I did it just right and away we go all right so my number one and again could not live without it would Photoshop would be a very very sad thing if I couldn't use this and that is the Spot Healing Brush I used the Spot Healing tool all the time now I this is a friend of mine son Trevor I took his graduation pictures Trevor has some acne that day and it's not permanent so those things should not be on his permanent record so to speak so we would go in and we'll grab our spot healing brush and we could just go in and just start removing that stuff that he doesn't even have today just a bad acne day that day that's what happens when you're a kid and you don't want to have to look at that photo when you had the bad acne that one time that's gone already we get to see Trevor look the way he looks now as a grown man because this was a few years ago so like I said that acne is gone all right so I keep doing that but you get the idea saw the Spot Healing tool the fact that it's so automatic then the fact that it just works so well I use that all the time yes those are my order of personal preference I could always trade a few I didn't Lee I didn't mention every single one but those are my 30 top favorite things about Photoshop over 30 years and there's always where I could add a 30 first I can like I said masking I didn't talk about that that would certainly be on the list and it could even bump some of the other stuff off but those were the first 30 that came to mind all right before I let you go I already published this video that I'm about to show you a little quick thing here I already published this as a video so you can go look at my recent tweet and Facebook post to see it I'm gonna hide Photoshop for a second and hide all these folders now hi this chat now and I'll just get out of this and I'm gonna go in and move this image over now when I move this image over this is not an image actually this is Photoshop 1.0 this is an emulation window running Mac OS no I'm sorry not Mac OS system 7 in emulation on my iMac and it's system 7.5 there's Photoshop 1.0 there with its preferences and it's a generic icon I'm a double click on it just to have a little nostalgia but there it is Photoshop running that was it that's what it looked like when you ran Photoshop 1.0 back in 1990 if I got a file and open the other thing that was driving me crazy if I go to click I can't can't see what it's doing because it doesn't stay down and that's the way the operating system used to be back in the day so you had to hold it down drag to what you want it and then choose it and I go and switch out to a different Drive here and go grab an image there's my image you saw it paint on the screen that's what it used to do we can zoom in a little bit it's kind of fuzzy because they weren't really high-res back then and these are all the tools you have there are no layers there are no smarter of objects there's no content-aware there's no Adobe since a there's no selection features like select subject or any of that stuff this is ways to be if you wanted to make a selection you got to kind of really be good with the lasso tool because or the magic wand because that's all you could do there was only one undo you you you couldn't have multiple undos back then there wasn't enough memory if I move that over it's gonna leave a hole so I would copy it deselect and paste it and then move it down there's no preview I have to guess oh no not quite oh no move it over here I have to keep guessing moving an outline and then I have to go in and and by the way if I deselect that there's no layer so I'd have to clone stamp the areas where I didn't do good so just keep in mind the next time you're wishing or complaining or thinking something is not great this is what we used to do think about how good it is now compared to this by the way what made people laugh out loud last time I show this I want to add some text to this oh I know I would click the type tool click on the image right no no click the type tool click on the image and get a box because you don't see what you're gonna get till you type the box type in the box so Photoshop 1.0 with whatever system fonts I had at the time let's go to good old times roman and let's make it nice I don't know I don't know because you can't see it how about 40 point I don't know if that's right or not I'm guessing and click OK and you get an outline that you can move around temporarily and then once you let go and deselect it that's now pixels on your image there's no I can undo it but if I forget made a typo whatever I know I gotta clone it out or not save the image or hope I can figure out a way to get rid of it because there's no later it's just the word Photoshop 1.0 s pixels on the image so again if you really like this and looking back I've got a whole video on all of this and everything I showed in it you can go look at it and away you go alright so there was also an update to photoshop on the iPad I'm gonna hold you much longer but just so you know I'll show one thing that it got quickly let's go to did I quit out of that quit or never launched it hang on let's quickly go to never launched it okay here and here and here and there it is waiting for it waiting for it waiting for it there it is enough room oh yeah it's waiting for some hang on I know you don't see it yet alright bring this over so here's Photoshop running on my pad right now and again I undo a whole demo because I've done a whole demo before imposed up on the iPad you can go watch that but a couple other quick new things number one the object select tool is made its way in to push up on the iPad so if I go there I can grab the object select tool and do the same thing that you saw me do on the desktop is now on the iPad version as well so it works the same way just a speedy just as smart it is making the selections based on this next up if I were to deselect that and then grab my type tool last thing add some text let's make it the word bagel and let's select it put the keyboard away more type control people are asking hey it's great that I can choose a font make it a different size whatever I want all the same letting kerning tracking all the stuff you love on the desktop has made its way in from a making things look better in text mode so I don't want to control the tracking I can do that go and change the color I can do that I'm grab a color from the tomato for example there it is go right back to it and get to all the same stuff and even this Photoshop on the iPad is creating a layer for the text cuz we wouldn't have it any other way all right so with that said that's a long one I know but it was a lot to talk about in Photoshop deserved every bit of its 30th anniversary yet you got a chance to see today so I want to thank you guys for being with me for many of those 30 years and it's been a blast and I can't wait to see what Photoshop is like I know they'll be around for another 30 years to see it but it'd be nice to see what it's like in the next decade let's let's say that alright so with that said cheers everybody thanks for watching we'll catch you on the next one it was fun if you missed any of this you can always watch the replay bye everybody a great one and we'll catch you on the next one Cheers [Music] [Music]

Channel: Terry White

Views: 6,509

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Id: -TptrsppqZ0

Length: 71min 29sec (4289 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 19 2020