Virtually every Photoshop project starts with Open (how often do you choose New?) and ends with Save. And unlike other apps, Photoshop treats all image formats as native. Open and Save are the alpha and omega of imaging.
Home to at least eight of the features Deke has mentioned so far in the Photoshop Top 40 Countdown, the Layers palette is command central—the place where most of the action in Photoshop happens. Were it not for this one palette, Photoshop as we know it would not exist.
The essential Image Size command lets you scale an image on screen or in print. In this week’s Photoshop Top 40 Countdown episode, Deke explains resampling and resolution, both of which affect the core quality of digital photographs.
Photoshop lets you modify your view of an image using a variety of tools, commands, and options. But you don’t need a single one of them. Learn a few navigational shortcuts and you’ll be working at maximum efficiency in no time.
Photoshop doesn’t sharpen focus, it sharpens detail using any of three remarkable filters: Unsharp Mask, Smart Sharpen, and High Pass. Apply them as smart filters, and you’re ready for any output scenario.
Photoshop doesn’t just support multiple color spaces, it supports infinite variations on the device-dependent ones. You can open an RGB photo, process it in Lab, and output it to CMYK, with certainty that the conversions will work.
The safety-net trio of Undo, History, and Revert protect the intrepid image editor from unexpected disasters. But they also let you toggle operations, compare before-and-after images, and move back and forth through time.
The ubiquitous eyedropper is simple in purpose and easy to use. But imagine a world without it, where you had to dial in every one of the 16.8 million+ colors manually. The eyedropper is Photoshops color ambassador.
The Levels command, and its cohort, the Histogram, let you adjust luminance levels on a channel-by-channel basis. The upshot is that you can increase contrast, correct for color cast, and make a bad image good.
The Color Settings command is your way of establishing reliable color management policies across the entire Creative Suite. While admittedly techie, it ensures that what you see is what everyone else sees, too.
