Page 92 - Photoshop User March 2017

COLINSMITH >Photoshop Tips
BOOST YOUR PRODUCTIVITY & CREATIVITY
In this issue, I have a handful of really useful and cool tips for you to explore. Use them to speed up your workflow and open up new ideas. When you’re using these tips and a new idea or area opens up to you, explore it! That’s how you’ll master Photoshop. Don’t worry if it takes you off-track, this column will still be here when you come back.
SLOW MOTION VIDEO
Did you know that you could make slow motion video in Photoshop? If you didn’t know you could even work with video in Photoshop, now you know. To make slow-motion video, simply open the video in Photoshop (File>Open) just like a regular image. Make sure the Timeline panel is visible (Window>Timeline), then Right-click on the video clip in the Timeline and you’ll see a pop-up menu with Duration and Speed. Change the Speed to 50% to slow down the video to half speed. Adjust the Duration slider, as needed, so that you can still play your entire clip, since the duration changes when you change the speed.
CONVERT TYPE TO OUTLINE
Have you ever needed to modify some text and have had to rasterize it? Wait! Rasterizing your text will change it to pixels, meaning it will get blocky if you make it larger. Try this instead: Make a vector path out of the text rather than pixels—choose Type>Create Work Path. Now you have all the flexibility of vectors, such as scaling or altering the shape of the letters, without their losing resolution or quality.
RECENT FILES
Choose File>Open Recent and you’ll see the files you recently opened in Photoshop. (I don’t know how many times this has saved me!) By default, the list of recent documents is 20. What if your document was recent, but not within the last 20 documents? You’re in luck! Choose Photoshop (PC: Edit)>Preferences>File Handling and change the Recent File List Contains field from 20 to 100. Now Photoshop will show the previous 100 documents opened. Bonus: It shows them retroactively, so you’ll see the previous 100 files immediately without having to restart Photoshop.
ADJUSTMENT PRESETS
You’re smart and you’re using adjustment layers, right? They’re famous for being nondestructive and stackable. You can open these little gems and make endless adjustments to your images. What you may not have known (or known, and needed this little push to use them) is that you can cre- ate presets for your adjustments so that you can call up the same settings quickly. This is useful for processing similar images, or for getting a good starting point for frequently
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