Lesson Info
8. Smaller Changes
Lessons
Lesson Info
Smaller Changes
Adobe always makes little changes to Photoshop that rarely make the headlines. So let's take a look at a series of changes that have recently been made that improve Photoshop but you might not have heard of. First, I'm gonna start in Adobe Illustrator. In here, I have a complex illustration and some text. In previous versions of Photoshop, if I were to select things like this where I had all these layers set up in Illustrator, and I were to type Command C, Control C in Windows to copy, and then I were to come over here to Photoshop and paste it. The whole thing would either turn into a smart object or would be what's known as rasterized. Rasterized would mean being turned into pixels. And when you did this in previous versions you would still get this particular set of choices, but now if you choose the choice called Layers, instead of getting the generic layer that has everything merged together and doesn't look at all like what you had in Illustrator, here when I choose Paste, it's g...
onna bring this in, and if you look in the Layers panel, and I expand the group that is here, maybe collapse down some of these other things so you can see these are all the layers that you ended up seeing when were in Illustrator, and we can still make changes to the colors, the strokes, and all of that type of thing. And the text that comes over is actually a type layer that you can come in and edit the text. So that's a dramatic improvement in the newer versions of Photoshop, but I'm gonna choose undo 'cause I just didn't need some Illustrator graphic in there. Another change they've made is if you go to the File menu and I choose Save a Copy, or Save As if I have a compatible image, then you're gonna find a new file format. I'm gonna tell it to save to my computer, and here I'll find the new file format, it's called WebP. As far as I know, WebP was designed by Google, and it's designed to make smaller files. So, if I use WebP, I wouldn't suggest doing it on a huge image, 'cause it's mainly for the web, I'll hit save and these are the options. We have two kinds. We have lossless and we have lossy. And this can replace both the old PNG file format, also known as a PING file, that would be the equivalent to using lossless, or JPEG file format if we use lossy. And this ends up supporting transparency, even when using the lossy setting, which JPEG file format would not end up supporting. This new file format is supported by the following browsers that I know of: Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera, and many others. It's just a lot of people who have never heard of it. And this is gonna end up creating files that are about 30% smaller than a PNG or a JPEG file at the same quality. And so it's something new to try. And you're only gonna find it in Save As and Save a Copy. I don't believe you're gonna find it in Save for Web or in Export As yet, but hopefully they add that support soon. Then if you ever make gradients, either using the Gradient tool or you come down here the bottom of your Layers panel, and you create a Gradient Fill layer like this. There are some new choices. Well, one new choice, and that's down here at the bottom. The choice called Method. If I end up making a gradient that would have some vivid colors, you're gonna find the transition looks more natural in here. And that's because of this new choice that is called Perceptual. If you need to create things the way it used to be made in Photoshop, then set it to Classic and you'll get what it looked like in previous versions of Photoshop. Or if you're used to using other programs like Adobe Illustrator, we now have the choice called Linear, which works more like them. But you're gonna usually gonna find that the choice called Perceptual is gonna give you the visually smoothest gradient, and it's gonna maintain more vivid colors in your image. The filter called Camera Raw Filter, and the plugin called Camera Raw, will deliver their results a bit faster if you have a compatible graphics card because it now uses your GPU, your graphics processor to do so. Also, under the Filter menu, if you go to Stylize, the choice called Oil Paint is back, and it is now accelerated also using your graphics processor, so on large images, you should find it works a lot better. Then there's a new preference. If you go to Photoshop Preferences and File Handling, and that is there's a choice called Enable legacy "Save As," 'cause Adobe made a change where Save As would only show you file formats that was compatible with what you've done to your picture, which means if you open a JPEG file and you add a layer to it, JPEG doesn't support layers. So when you chose Save As, JPEG just wouldn't show up. Well, the old version would've had it show up, and if you want it to act like older versions you can turn this on, which I do. And then there's also this choice called Do not append "copy" to your file name. I've never wanted the word copy in a file name. All right, so that's a nice welcome change. Then, not every change is positive. As technology presses on, sometimes certain features get out of date, and the Adobe has a choice of either spending the time to update them or just remove the feature. And they've decided to remove a few features that weren't used quite as often, and here's what they are. If you went to the Filter menu, there was a choice called Sharpen, and within that menu was a choice called Shake Reduction, which is where you could try to get a slightly sharper image if your image or if your camera was in motion a little bit when you captured the shot. Well, that no longer works with the newest kinds of graphic software, and so they removed it. And related to that, the 3D features in Photoshop are going to be removed. The Adobe has announced that, and right now you're gonna find they don't work as good as they used to. If you still need to work with 3D in Photoshop, then you can always install an older version of Photoshop. Also, you can install more than one version of Photoshop at the same time. So you could just have another version for those times when you need to get to those 3D features. Adobe is coming out with some new, more dedicated software for 3D that that's their new solution.
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Ratings and Reviews
Jennifer Basford
Holy cow! I hope you already know everything about these programs before you start this class, and are ready to be off to the races! I watched the first part twice and still didn't quite catch everything. Ben slowed down a bit afterward and was fairly easy to follow throughout the rest. I appreciated the updates, but would like to be able to take a few notes next time.