Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
TRAININGONSITE.COMpublishing training consulting
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP® CS6 EXTENDEDa complete tour of preferencesalso showing tool preferences and how to setup color management for workflow color accuracy
1 General PreferencesPhotoshop > Preferences (Cmd+K, Mac) or Edit > Preferences (Ctrl+K, Win). This is the first pane of the Preferences sections.
In the General preferences of Photoshop, I prefer to set the HUD Color Picker to Hue Wheel (Medium).
Image Interpolation set to Bicubic Automatic means that it will sharpen when you down-rez and blur when you up-rez. These settings are choosable under Image > Image Size.
The Options section leaves off several of the Zoom options. I turn them all on. I usually turn off Export Clipboard. You won’t miss it.
The History Log is turned on when you need to be able to prove, in a legal system, what was done when editing an image.
2 Interface PreferencesPhotoshop > Preferences (Cmd+K, Mac) or Edit > Preferences (Ctrl+K, Win), and click on the Interface pane; the second pane of the Preferences sections.
I generally prefer a lighter gray for the interface, but whichever Color Theme you use, they are all done in neutral black, gray, and white.
If you have changed the default workspaces, and would like to restore them, clicking the Restore Default Workspaces button is useful.
For those with diminished vision, being able to set the UI Font Size to medium or large is very helpful.
3 File Handling PreferencesPhotoshop > Preferences (Cmd+K, Mac) or Edit > Preferences (Ctrl+K, Win) and click on the File Handling pane; the third pane of the Preferences sections.
Photoshop CS6 at last includes an automatic backup for your file. I set it to save every 5 minutes.
Maximize PSD and PSB File Compatibility should be set to Always or Never, rather than Ask. If Always, it makes an extra composite layer inside the file. If Never, it omits the extra composite layer. When working in Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign, there is no penalty in setting this to Never. Your file sizes will be smaller, since there is no extra composited layer.
2 [email protected] complete tour of preferences Adobe Photoshop CS6
4 Performance PreferencesPhotoshop > Preferences (Cmd+K, Mac) or Edit > Preferences (Ctrl+K, Win), and click on the Performance pane; the fourth pane of the Preferences sections.
A major decision for Photoshop is how much system RAM to give it. Considering that 8–16GB is needed to run it well; then set the slider to at least 50% of available system RAM. If you adjust this, stay within the Ideal Range listed.
Generally, in 32-bit mode, Photoshop can only access about 3GB RAM. On fully 64-bit OS systems, Photoshop CS6 can access from 4GB and on up.
To test the memory settings, select the Efficiency setting from the Status Bar at the bottom of the document window (or in the Info panel), and then do some editing tasks. If only RAM memory is being used during these editing steps, then the Efficiency result will be 100%.
The percentage is time doing the operation versus sending data to the scratch disk. If it falls below 100%, Photoshop has run out of RAM and is using the scratch disk. Below 95% means that you need more RAM allocated to Photoshop (also you might close other programs, and/or install more RAM memory).
The Edit > Purge command can be used to free up RAM that is being used to store Undo, Clipboard, and History States. This command cannot be undone
History States are the amount of undo steps you have. I usually leave this at the default of 20, but it can range from 1 to 1,000.
Click the option that best fits your workflow to set both Cache Levels and Tile Size:
Tall and Thin—Best for users working with images with smaller document dimensions and many editing and enhancement layers.
5 Cursors PreferencesPhotoshop > Preferences (Cmd+K, Mac) or Edit > Preferences (Ctrl+K, Win) and click on the Cursors pane; the fifth pane of the Preferences sections.
When painting on an image, I prefer a Full Size Brush Tip, also choosing Show Crosshair in Brush Tip. The small window above models how that will look.
I generally tend to leave the Other Cursors in their standard appearance. When you occasionally need a precise Other Cursor, press on the CapsLock key to switch the look of the cursor.
Default—Designed for general use when a user will be working with a variety of document types. This is the default setting.
Big and Flat—Works well with large images and few editing or enhancement layers.
For maximum performance, use separate, dedicated physical drives for OS startup, data, and scratch drives. A Scratch Disk is a secondary physical hard drive. If you have one installed in your system, let Photoshop overflow onto this non-bootup hard drive.
I have never tinkered (successfully) with the Advanced Settings of the Graphics Processor. Photoshop is designed to run fastest when it has a powerful Nvidia OpenGL chipset video card that has a powerful GPU and lots of VRAM to share processing.
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq.html#tested_cards
Adobe Photoshop CS6 complete tour of preferences JetSetcom.net & TrainingOnsite.com 3
6 Transparency & Gamut PreferencesPhotoshop > Preferences (Cmd+K, Mac) or Edit > Preferences (Ctrl+K, Win), and click on the Transparency & Gamut pane; the sixth pane of the Preferences sections.
Here you have two symbolic uses of color; neither colors print, they only show onscreen. The gray and white checkerboard signifies nothingness; a hole in the picture; or transparency.
Click the Gamut Warning color chip in order to change it to a much louder warning color, like this monitor green color. You will find the Gamut Warning toggle under the View menu. It is there to show you when colors in RGB are too saturated to be reproduced in process color printing. Hence, it shows you the areas of the picture where the color will likely clip or shift.
7 Units & Rulers PreferencesPhotoshop > Preferences (Cmd+K, Mac) or Edit > Preferences (Ctrl+K, Win) and click on the Units & Rulers pane, the 7th pane.
I usually set the measurement to Picas with the Type being measured in Points. On the other hand, outside of preferences; whenever you wish to change the measurement system, simply right-click on the rulers, and change it to inches, pixels, or metric.
Column size is useful for newspapers and magazines with columnar layouts. Defined here, the column width and gutter size becomes a unit of measure.
Why doesn’t that old pica stick from your print shop measure accurately? It turns out that metal-type-era picas are slightly different from electronic-type-era picas.
8 Guides, Grid & Slices PreferencesPhotoshop > Preferences (Cmd+K, Mac) or Edit > Preferences (Ctrl+K, Windows), and click on the Guides, Grid & Slices pane; the eighth pane.
The only time I visit this section of the preferences is when I am doing forensic work and studying document fraud. When you change the Gridline Every to 1 Point with 10 subdivisions, then you can accurately measure to the tenth of a pixel.
This accuracy is seen when zoomed in to a maximum of 3200%, and you can see where the typesetting spacing is off, thus indi-cating the possibility of a falsified document.
4 [email protected] complete tour of preferences Adobe Photoshop CS6
9 Plug-ins PreferencesPhotoshop > Preferences (Cmd+K, Mac) or Edit > Preferences (Ctrl+K, Win) and click on the Plug-Ins pane; the ninth pane of the Preferences sections.
Here you can designate a folder on your system for any custom plug-ins you may be operating within Photoshop. You can control whether they are allowed to access the Internet or not; and also whether they load or not.
For Filters, you can opt to show all Filter Gallery groups and names.
10 Type PreferencesPhotoshop > Preferences (Cmd+K, Mac) or Edit > Preferences (Ctrl+K, Win), and click on the Type pane. This is the tenth pane of the Preferences sections.
Each active font on your computer requires system resources. Photoshop CS6 also uses resources to render each font in the font and style menus in the Character panel and in the Options bar.
To maximize performance, use font management software to activate only the fonts that you need. Also, adjust the size of the font menu previews by choosing Font Preview Size. Or deselect the option to turn previews off altogether.
11 3D PreferencesPhotoshop Extended > Preferences (Cmd+K, Mac) or Edit > Preferences (Ctrl+K, Windows) and click on the 3D pane. This is the eleventh pane of the Preferences sections.
To operate Photoshop as a 3D tool, you need the very top end of RAM amounts, and video card strength. It is recommended that you choose a video card with at least 512 MB of video RAM in order to run this 3D software effectively.
Adobe Photoshop CS6 complete tour of preferences JetSetcom.net & TrainingOnsite.com 5
12 Eyedropper Sample Size Preferences
Photoshop > Tool Panel > Eyedropper Tool > Options Bar > Sample Size, and click on the dropdown menu; an application tool preference.
Setting the sample size to 3 x 3 Average or higher helps the Magic Wand to work more efficiently.
The default setting of Point Sample is only sampling the numeric color of one pixel, whereas 3 x 3 samples and averages the numeric color value of nine pixels. This helps factor out digital noise pixels.
13 Color Management PreferencesPhotoshop > Edit > Color Settings (Shift+Cmd+K, Mac) or (Shift+Ctrl+K, Windows) and click on the More Options button; to show the entire dialog box.
TK
6 [email protected] complete tour of preferences Adobe Photoshop CS6
14 Workspace PreferencesPhotoshop > Window > Workspace > New Workspace, and type in a name and click OK. This remembers the position of your panels.
Any arrangement of panels, bars, and windows is called a work-space. You can adapt each application to the way you work by selecting from several preset workspaces or by creating one of your own.
You can also select these options: Keyboard shortcuts: Saves the current set of keyboard shortcuts. Menus or Menu Customization: Saves the current set of menus.
15 How to reset ToolsThe Tool Preset icon on the Options bar can be used to reset the tools to their defaults. Right click on the Tool Preset picker in the Options Bar or the Tool Preset Panel. Select the desired Tool and Control-click (Mac) or right mouse click on the Tool Preset Picker to select “Reset Tool” or “Reset All Tools”.
16 How to reset PreferencesUnexpected behavior may be damaged preferences. If you suspect damage to preferences, restore preferences to their default settings.
To reset, trash, or re-create the preferences files for Photoshop, start the application while holding down Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift (Mac OS). Then, click Yes to the message, “Delete the Adobe Photoshop Settings file?”
Note: Using this shortcut, preference files for custom shortcuts, workspaces, and color settings will also be reset to default.
You can manually delete: Adobe Photoshop CS6 Prefs.psp
(Mac) Users/[user name]/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop CS6 Settings
(Win7) Users/[user name]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop CS6/Adobe Photoshop CS6 Settings
Adobe Photoshop CS6 complete tour of preferences JetSetcom.net & TrainingOnsite.com 7
JETSETCOM.NETpublishing training consulting
InDesign | InCopy | Adobe Creative Suite 6 | Photoshop | Acrobat
Section 508 Accessibility | Illustrator | FrameMaker | Dreamweaver | Flash | ePub
[email protected] | Adobe Certified | [email protected]
train with us at JetSetcom.net and TrainingOnsite.com in the classroom
version March 3, 2013
8 [email protected] complete tour of preferences Adobe Photoshop CS6
