Category: Photoshop

Photoshop Mix for iPad

Adobe Photoshop Mix gives you powerful, easy-to-use tools that let you combine and cut out images, apply looks, and make nondestructive edits on your iPad — all compatible with Adobe Photoshop CC.

The short video at the top of the page shows the general idea behind the app. Looks pretty cool. I wish my son would let me use his iPad so I could try it out.

Font management with Suitcase Fusion & Adobe Creative Cloud

Font Management Webinar
A reader asked me if a downloadable version of the webcast was available for a recent font management webinar from Extensis.

At the time, I was not aware of one. Fortunately, Extensis has made that webinar available for viewing by everyone.

View this recorded webcast to learn proven techniques to help you focus on design rather than font management. You’ll learn how Suitcase Fusion 5 takes the work out of managing your fonts in Adobe Creative Cloud to improve your creativity.

Learn how to:

• Remove corrupt fonts from your workflow
• Dispel the dreaded “missing font” dialog box in Creative Cloud apps
• Efficiently organize your font collection
• Speed font prototyping
• Remove font duplicates
• Clean font caches
• And more…

Photoshop CC 2014’s blur on path among new features

You’ve probably heard about some of the features of the latest version of Photoshop CC 2014, but like my post about my favorite new InDesign features, it’s the little things that make upgrades worth having.

Rather than writing a repetitive post here, I’ll point you to an excellent look at a few of the new Photoshop CC 2014 features over at CreativePro.

Blur on path

I will note that I’ve not played with all the new features, but the ones I have are pretty cool. The new motion blur on path feature is nifty, and reminds me of the motion trail feature in Alien Skin’s excellent Eye Candy 7 plugin. That being said, I find the Eye Candy plugin much more flexible, and much easier to use.

The font rollover previews are extremely handy, as are the auto-updating comps and the new smart(er) guides. I have not tried the new Focus Mask feature, but I’m looking forward to putting it to good use.

In any case, if you haven’t upgraded yet, or aren’t aware of some of the smaller features in the new version, check out Steve Caplin’s excellent overview.

Extension compatibility with Adobe Creative Cloud 2014 apps

Adobe Creative Cloud 2014

If you’re an Adobe Creative Cloud subscriber, you’ve no doubt downloaded and installed the latest versions of the CC apps. Adobe has smartly opted to install the apps beside existing CC apps, so you now have two versions of the main apps. This is important because many extensions and plug-ins are not yet compatible with the latest versions of InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator.

Extensis has announced that Suitcase Fusion 5 font auto-activation plug-in updates are on the way (they currently don’t work in CC 2014) and will be free.

One of my favorite Photoshop plugins, GuideGuide, has been updated to work in PS CC 2014. AlienSkin’s EyeCandy, BlowUp and Bokeh (no longer sold) plugins appear to work fine simply by copying the plug-ins from the old PS CC plugins folder into the new version’s plugin folder.

I’m still waiting on an update for the incredibly useful FlatIcons extension to be updated.

If you rely on an extension or plug-in that hasn’t been updated to work with the new Creative Cloud 2014 versions, you can still use them in the older CC versions of the apps which are still installed on your hard drive – unless you un-installed them.

Adobe Bridge CC’s missing Output module: How to get it back

Bridge CC Output module

When Adobe shipped Creative Cloud, Bridge was missing a feature many designers and photographers use quite often – the Output module. The Output module allows you to select folders of images and create a customizable contact sheet in PDF or Web Gallery format.

Thankfully, Adobe has made the Output module available as a stand-alone install, which you can download here. It’s fairly simple to install, and of course, absolutely free to all Creative Cloud users.

Import free assets into Photoshop and Illustrator with BlendMeIn

BlendMeInBlendMeIn is a nifty new Photoshop and Illustrator extension that allows you to search thousands of assets, including popular icon packs, without leaving Photoshop or Illustrator, and place them in your document directly via a Panel.

Unlike FlatIcons, which I recently reviewed, the artwork available in BlendMeIn is free via Creative Commons Attribution license. Unlike FlatIcons, it works in Adobe Illustrator as well as Photoshop. I still prefer FlatIcons, but this is a great option.

Photoshop’s Align & Snap to Pixel Grid explained

When working with the vector tools (such as the shape tools), Photoshop has a preference to “Snap Vector Tools and Transforms to Pixel Grid”. This preference is extremely helpful when creating shapes that need solid, straight edges as it snaps the edges of the shapes to be fully aligned to a pixel, preventing soft, anti-aliased edges. Julieanne Kost explains it as simply as I’ve seen.