5 Cool Features in Adobe Photoshop CS6

Adobe Photoshop CS6 has many cool features that make working with images easier. Many of the features in Photoshop CS6 take some of the older functions to a new level by correcting some of the bugs which take up too much time when working with images.

Although there are many features in Photoshop CS6, let’s take a look at some of the ones that will shave a lot of time off your work when editing and modifying images.

Auto Save
Previous versions of Adobe Photoshop did not offer a way for you to recover your work in the event of an application crash. With the new Auto Save feature you never have to worry about losing your work when you see the dreaded window that says, Adobe Photoshop CS6 has stopped working.

Auto Save will automatically save a backup copy of your Photoshop file every 10 minutes by default. You can adjust the frequency of Auto Save by going to Edit on the main toolbar and then clicking on Preferences. On the submenu choose File Handling and place a check mark next to Automatically Save Recovery Information Every… and then use the pull down menu to adjust the Auto Save time. Photoshop will then automatically save your files in the background as you are working.

Improved Layers Management
In previous versions of Photoshop, finding the right layers to work with took a lot of time and hassles. This feature has been improved with a new Layers Management palette. By clicking on the upper toolbar in the palette you can search for layers by Kind, Name, Effect, Mode, Attribute, or Color. For example, if you have a layer that contains Drop Shadows you can simply click on Effect and then choose Drop Shadow from the menu on the right hand side. When you are finished searching for layers, you can click the red button on the upper right hand side of the palette to turn off the layering search filter.

You can also easily duplicate multiple layers by using the Ctrl + J keyboard command shortcut. You can even select multiple layers to change the blending mode, blocking, opacity, and to apply color labels. Layer groups also work like layers since you can clip layers and apply layer styles to groups without having to convert groups into smart objects. You can also create dashed and dotted lines using Shape Layers. The Vector Layers have been replaced by Shape Layers which work similar to Adobe Illustrator.

Crop Tool
The new Crop Tool has been completely changed and it can be difficult at first until you get used the functions which doesn’t take much time at all. When you have the Crop Tool selected Photoshop CS6 will automatically create a crop box for your entire image so that you can just drag the corners to crop. Moving the crop area also works in the opposite direction. Instead of dragging the crop box as you would do in Photoshop CS5, you drag the image in relationship to the crop box. To disable the crop features simply place a check mark next to Delete Cropped Pixels on the upper toolbar.

You can also change the Rule of Thirds overlays to one of 5 different overlays and then cycle through the overlays by pressing the 0 key on your keyboard. The X key will help you to easily rotate the crop box 90 degrees and the R key will open the measurements window to easily enter the measurements for the Crop Tool.

To start over you can simply right click and choose Reset Crop Tool from the menu. If you do not like the new Crop Tool you can click on the Tools settings and place a check mark next to Use Classic Mode.

Content Aware Technology
The Content Aware feature in CS5 is great for removing objects but it tended to sometimes take sample from the wrong areas. Photoshop CS6 eliminates this problem this by letting you choose exactly where you want to sample. To do this you select the Patch Tool from the toolbar on the left hand side and then set the mode to Content Aware on the upper toolbar. Create a selection of the object you want to move and then drag the selection from the area you want Photoshop to fill. If you are not getting the fill effect you want you can play around with the Adaptation setting on the upper toolbar. This feature contains a drop down menu which allows you to choose from Very Strict, Strict, Loose, or Very Loose.

The new Content Move tool allows you to move an object from one area of the image to another using Content Aware technology. This feature works great on images with a simple background but not so great on complex scenes. You can use the Adaptation tool on the upper tool to tell Content Aware how precise you would like the adaptation to be when you move the object.

The Content Aware tool also doubles as an extend tool by simply changing the mode on the upper toolbar to Extend. You can think of it as changing from cut and paste mode to copy and paste. It works the same way as the Content Aware Move tool. You simply create a selection of the object and then drag to copy it to the new location on the image.

Text
The new text tool caters to web and graphic designers while adding a lot of time saving features. You can now paste random filler text known as Lorem Ipsum which is great for demonstrating the graphic elements of your document. To do this, simply click and drag to create a text area and then click on Type on the main toolbar and choose Paste Lorem Ipsum from the drop down menu.

There is also a new Type menu where you can choose from a wide variety of different text settings without having to use the menu in the characters panel. In the Character Panel open type characters are readily available at the bottom of the panel by clicking Type, choosing Panels, and then clicking on Character Panel. You then have the character and paragraph styles where you can save text styles to help create consistent typography throughout the work.

These are a few of the cool new features in Photoshop CS6. You can give the program a test drive by logging on to the Adobe website, creating an account, and downloading the trial version.

Need Photoshop CS6 training? Checkout our online video training course for Photoshop CS6 with over 12 hours of videos.

Simon Calder

Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!