Interface and Performance Improvements

Quick reference

• 00:04 For years, users have asked for
• 00:06 more customization, especially with the color scheme.
• 00:09 Adobe has delivered, providing four color schemes for you to choose from.
• 00:12 These new color choices can be accessed in Photoshop's preferences.
• 00:16 On the Mac, head up to the Photoshop menu, down to preferences, and then interface.
• 00:20 On Windows, it's under the edit menu, preferences, and then interface.
• 00:24 Once you're in Photoshop's interface preferences, you can preview and
• 00:27 choose any one of the four choices.
• 00:29 I found that designing against a darker workspace allows me to focus more on
• 00:32 the projects that I am working on, but every user will have different taste.
• 00:35 And just like on previous versions of Photoshop,
• 00:37 you can separately change the canvas color by right-clicking anywhere outside your
• 00:41 current document.
• 00:42 In this release, you can choose from any one of the four basic colors or
• 00:44 you can bring up the color picker to set a custom color of your choice.
• 00:49 Another UI change is the exclusion of the app bar,
• 00:51 which was at the top of your workspace in Photoshop CS5.
• 00:55 This bar contained buttons for bridge, document layouts, and screen modes.
• 00:58 Personally, I felt like this bar was taking up a little too much space for
• 01:02 buttons that weren't used very often.
• 01:03 In Photoshop CS6, the screen mode button, which can also be triggered with the F
• 01:07 key, has been moved to the bottom of the tools bar.
• 01:09 The document layout feature has been placed under the window arrange menu, and
• 01:13 mini-bridge has been nicely integrated at the bottom of your workspace.
• 01:17 Double-clicking on the mini-bridge tab will pop up a panel allowing you to
• 01:20 browse your files and folders.
• 01:22 Another panel that was added in this release is the properties panel.
• 01:25 This is an interesting addition to the UI.
• 01:27 It's basically a dynamic panel that molds to the layer that you have selected.
• 01:31 It's able to display mask properties, adjustment layers, and 3D elements.
• 01:36 If you don't see your properties panel visible,
• 01:38 you can activate it under the Window menu at the top.
• 01:40 Once it's up, you can leave it where it is or drag it anywhere in your workspace.
• 01:44 So, now instead of having three panels taking up valuable space,
• 01:47 you now have one.
• 01:48 As you select adjustment layers, masks, or
• 01:51 3D layers, the property panel will update to display the necessary adjustments.
• 01:55 Moving down the workspace, the layers panel has gotten a really nice update,
• 01:58 which now includes layer filtering.
• 02:00 When you're working on a document that contains layer after layer after layer,
• 02:04 things tend to get messy.
• 02:05 The layers panel in Photoshop CS6 allows you to
• 02:08 tell Photoshop exactly which layers you want visible.
• 02:11 This drop down menu triggers the type of filtering that will occur to your layers.
• 02:15 You have options such as kind, name, effect, mode, attribute, and color.
• 02:20 Selecting kind will allow you to filter by the different layers that are available in
• 02:23 Photoshop, such as pixel layers, which is basically non-vector layers,
• 02:27 adjustment layers, type layers, shape layers, and smart objects.
• 02:31 Of course if needed, you're free to choose more than one filtering method.
• 02:34 If you want to only view adjustment layers and shape layers, you can easily do so.
• 02:38 The next option is name, and as you may have guessed,
• 02:40 selecting name will allow you to search for a specific layer by name.
• 02:44 The effect option allows you to filter your layers by layer style.
• 02:47 For example, if you want to see all layers that contain an outer glow,
• 02:50 it's as easy as selecting outer glow from the drop-down.
• 02:53 The next option is mode.
• 02:54 Just like effect filters by layer styles, mode filters by blending options.
• 02:59 The attribute option contains many self explanatory variables for
• 03:02 you to choose from.
• 03:03 Do you wanna see only visible layers?
• 03:05 How about only hidden layers, locked layers,
• 03:07 layers with layer effects and so on?
• 03:10 And finally, if you're an organization freak, you're gonna love color filtering.
• 03:13 This allows you to view only layers of a certain color.
• 03:16 If you've never color coded a layer before,
• 03:18 it's as simple as right-clicking on the layer and choosing a color.
• 03:21 Another neat UI change I wanna point out is the addition of rich cursors.
• 03:25 Whether you're cropping your image, making a selection, or creating a shape, a nice
• 03:29 overlay will accompany you showing you the dimensions of the area you're creating.
• 03:33 If you want a different unit to be displayed in the overlay, you can change
• 03:36 it by going into your units and rollers preferences and switching the rulers unit.
• 03:40 Photoshop CS6 has also received a lot of performance enhancements.
• 03:44 Let's do a quick comparison using the liquefy filter.
• 03:47 Here we are back in Photoshop CS5.
• 03:49 This image here is a 4,000 X 4,000 pixel image.
• 03:52 It's pretty large.
• 03:54 Adding the liquefy filter is a painful process.
• 03:56 Once it's finally loaded,
• 03:58 the changes that we make to the image are equally as painful.
• 04:01 The response time is incredibly slow.
• 04:03 Now, hopping back over to Photoshop CS6, adding the liquefy filter is
• 04:07 a much quicker process, and the response time when making changes is instant.
• 04:12 On top of that, we can finally use brushes which are larger than 1,500 pixels.
• 04:16 The last thing I wanna mention is that Photoshop CS6 now has background save,
• 04:20 auto save, and auto recover.
• 04:22 If you're working on a huge project, you no longer have to wait until Photoshop
• 04:25 finishes saving before moving on to something else.
• 04:28 It all happens in the background, but
• 04:29 probably the most exciting is auto save and auto recover.
• 04:32 If you head into your file handling preferences,
• 04:35 you can tell Photoshop how often to save recovery information.
• 04:38 Now, this doesn't replace your original file.
• 04:40 Instead, Photoshop stores this information in case Photoshop crashes.
• 04:44 When you open up Photoshop after a crash,
• 04:46 your file is going to be right there waiting for you.
• 04:48 And those are a few interface and performance updates in Photoshop CS6.

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