Photoshop_User_June_2017

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CURVES IN COLOR (RGB OPTIONS)
You may have discovered that Curves are the best way to
target specific tones in your image. They’re very powerful
and let you make very precise adjustments. What some
people don’t realize is that Curves can also be used for very
specific color adjustments too. Where it says RGB (or CMYK
in CMYK mode), you can choose the specific color channel:
Red, Green, or Blue (or Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, or Black).
Once you’ve chosen one of those options, you can use
curves in the same way as usual, but now you’ll be adjusting
the specific colors in the tonal range of your choosing.

CHANNELS IN COLOR
Why are your channels (Window>Channels) always dis­
played in black and white? Aren’t they supposed to be in
color? Well, yes, they are color; however, Photoshop displays
them as grayscale to make it easier to see the pixels and
the effects of your masking and other work. White means
more density on that channel, while black is the absence of
that color (unless you’re in CMYK, then it’s the opposite).
If you like, you can display your channels in color. Go to
Photoshop CC (PC: Edit)>Preferences>Interface. Near the
bottom of the dialog, under Options, you’ll see a box that
says “Show Channels in Color.” Guess what? (You already
guessed, didn’t you?) Check that box and you can view the
channels in color in the Channels panel. You don’t even
have to restart Photoshop to see these changes.

THE OLD NEW DOCUMENT WINDOW
When you’re creating a new document (File>New) in Photo­
shop, you’ve probably noticed the new giant New Document
dialog that pops up, which is packed with useful presets and
templates. You may love this new dialog, or you may not. If
you don’t like it, the good news is that you can make Photo­
shop work like it used to. All you need do is go to Photoshop
CC (PC: Edit)>Preferences>General, and check the box that
says Use Legacy “New Document” Interface.

MAKING GUIDES
Guides are a pain. I mean, they’re really useful, but they’re a
pain to set up. Say you want three columns: First, you have
to divide the page into thirds, but what if you want to add a
little margin around the edges? Wait, you’ll need a calcula­
tor for this. Stop the madness! You can make Photoshop do

all of this for you, including the math, and you don’t have to

drag out a single guide. Sound promising? Go to View>New

Guide Layout. Choose a preset, or enter the number of

Columns and Rows you want, as well as Gutters (spacing

between rows or columns) and margins. When you do this,

don’t forget to save it as a preset, so that you can reuse

these settings in the future. Just select Save Preset from the

Preset drop­down menu at the top of the dialog.

RESHAPING A PATH

There are lots of ways to make paths in Photoshop, but the

most flexible way is by using the Pen tool (P). Sometimes

you may want to resize your path, or reshape it slightly. It

would be very painful to watch someone drag each point

individually, or even select and drag multiple points. It

would be even more painful to do this yourself, knowing

there’s a better way. Here’s how: Choose your path with

the Path Selection tool (A). Tap Command­T (PC: Ctrl­T) for

Free Transform. Now you can use Free Transform to scale

or rotate your path. Right­click, and all your transforming

“friends” are there too, including Skew, Distort, and even

Warp. “Whaaa? Free Transform works on paths? I didn’t

know that,” you say. Yeah, you can also transform selec­

tions (Select>Transform Selection)—try it. n

ALL IMAGES BY COLIN SMITH