Adobe's Creative Suite is the be-all, end-all for creative professionals, so when a new version comes out, it's a very big deal. And this time around, Adobe made its juggernaut Creative Suite software available to the masses with a Master Collection available to access at just $49.99 per month after committing to a full year. So those of us regular folk who don't who just like to dabble with Photoshop and InDesign for personal projects can still get full access to all of the powerful features we love from Creative Suite without paying gobs of money.
And speaking of dabblers, if you've been trying to wrap your head around how to use the new CS6, here are five quick tips to get you starters.
Now can find all the new and improved features.
To highlight what’s new in Photoshop CS6, head to Window > Workspace > New in CS6. Now all the menu items for new and changed features will be highlighted in blue, so they’re easier to find and fiddle with.
This photo was cropped and straightened all in one step, and those pixels are still around if we ever want them back.
Photoshop’s all-new Crop tool is now nondestructive--just keep the Delete Cropped Pixels box unchecked (as it is by default) so you can adjust or remove a crop later on. Click the Straighten button in the Crop tool’s Options bar and drag a line along the horizon to quickly straighten up an image while you’re cropping it, a huge timesaver. And the built-in overlays for Golden Ratio, Golden Spiral, Diagonal, Triangle, Grid, and Rule of Thirds help you make smart composition decisions.
Auto Curves can save tons of time.
Photoshop CS6 has vastly improved the Auto options in the Curves, Levels, and Brightness and Contrast panels, with algorithms based on a database of thousands of hand-edited images. For example, load up an image, then choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves. Click OK to create it. Choose Auto Options from the Curves Properties panel’s settings, then make sure the Enhance Brightness and Contrast option is selected and click OK. Then click Auto in the Curves dialog and watch as your image is automatically improved.
One set of content, two layouts.
Once you’ve designed some pages for, say, an iPad in vertical orientation, you can get a head start on redesigning them for horizontal orientation by selecting Layout > Create Alternate Layout. In that dialog, use the Liquid Page Rule setting to auto-adjust your page’s elements for the new orientation, then tweak each one by clicking the alternate pages, side by side with your original pages in the Pages panel.
Ready, set, trace.
If you have a raster image that you need to convert to vector art, Illustrator’s new tracing engine is a godsend. Go to Window > Workspace > Tracing, then click your image to select it, and experiment with the presets in the Image Trace panel--our screenshot shows High Color. Keep the Preview box checked to get a live preview of what your settings will produce, and click the eyeball to toggle between the original and the trace. Click Trace to make the changes.
