> PHOTOSHOP USER>^ OCTOBER 2020[ 58 ]
- CLICK-AND-DRAG TO EASILY CONTROL TONES
WITH A CURVES ADJUSTMENT LAYER
This feature is exceptionally helpful for those who like to manipu-
late the image directly, so give it a try! In the Properties panel
(Window>Properties) of a Curves adjustment layer, click the icon
that looks like a finger dragging up and down near the top left of
the panel. This little guy makes a huge difference in editing with
Curves. Once selected, click-and-drag up or down on any tone in
your image and watch as Photoshop not only creates a control point
at that tone’s value on the curve, but it also automatically moves the
control point as you drag. Now click-and-drag away! Just remember,
less is still more with Curves, but this is pretty awesome power at
your fingertips, right?
43. GENERATE NEW FRAMING POSSIBILITIES WITH
CONTENT AWARE AND THE CROP TOOL
Need a bit more sky in your image for your killer composition?
Try this: After selecting Content Aware up in the Options Bar while
using the Crop tool (C), drag the cropping boundary beyond the
visible pixels at the top of the image. (If you’re compositing, make
sure to do this on your main base layer with the content from which
you want Adobe Sensei’s AI to analyze and generate pixels.) Once
you press Enter to commit the new-and-expanded crop, Photoshop
will generate it’s best guess at what the content should look like.
If Photoshop doesn’t nail this part perfectly, it often gets you in the
ballpark. If not, you may need to try adding less area with the next try.
This feature works beautifully for simple skies. - CONVERT MASKED LAYERS TO SMART OBJECTS
BEFORE APPLYING A BLUR
If you blur a layer that has the subject masked, you’ll inevitably blur
some of what lies beyond the edge of that mask, and you prob-
ably don’t want that masked-out content bleeding into the subject
(after all, it was masked out!). Instead, after you mask the subject,
turn that entire layer into a smart object (Right-click on the layer
and choose Convert to Smart Object). Now when you apply a blur
effect, it will no longer blur from outside the edges of the mask, plus
the blur will be applied as a nondestructive smart filter, so you can
return to it to make changes as needed.
If you need to edit the mask, simply double-click the smart
object’s layer thumbnail in the Layers panel to open a temporary
file that reveals the mask. Make your changes, save and close this
temporary document, and bam! The smart object will update in
your main document.
44. MAKE THE MOST OUT OF YOUR MOVE TOOL
Did you know that the Move tool (V) is actually a Swiss Army knife?
Next time you use the Move tool, investigate the Options Bar up at the
top. First, turn off Auto-Select. When you have complex composites,
Auto-select can trip things up by activating a different layer every time