palette

If you're anything like me, you sometimes make mistakes. For example, a few weeks ago, before recording the Photoshop 20th anniversary Martini Hour, I broke my foot falling down a short flight of stairs. Which was fun, because years ago, I had broken the other foot falling down a long flight of stairs. Not to mention the time I busted my teeth on a the bar of a trampoline. Or accidentally yanked a speaker down onto my head and bled so badly I had to replace the couch.

Then there was that time I cautioned a woman not to help a group of us lift a heavy object (it was a car) because she was pregnant (she wasn't). Or the time I called that other woman "Sir." Or when my buddy and I were trash-talking this guy for half an hour---I mean, really laying into what an absolute jerk he was---and then strolled out of my dorm room and found him sitting in a near fetal position by my door. Read more » 

Just as most of us take for granted clean water and fast food, we give little thought to the fact that Photoshop offers an eyedropper. Press the I key to get it. Then click in an image to sample a color and use it elsewhere. The tool is simple, ubiquitous (the target adjustment tool is the most recent derivation), and it's not even an Adobe invention. When Photoshop first set the Macintosh world on fire 20 years ago (three years in advance of the PC version), all 12 of the program's competitors offered some kind of color-dipping "dropper."

But a couple of years later, after Photoshop proved itself the only pixel editor with a future, its eyedropper was virtually the last one standing. And just picture a world without it! Even the most run-of-the-mill JPEG image offers 16.8 million color variations. Imagine the time you would waste if you had to dial in every one of those colors numerically or select it from a science lab-style color field. And as the video shows, lifting a foreground color is merely one of the eyedropper's many abilities.

For those of you tracking the contest, this week's winner is ovityons, who guessed "The eyedropper tool" within 15 minutes of the contest going live. Congratulations, ovityons!

Now it's time to guess Feature #7. Hint: You can't save this trio of functions, but they can save you. (How's that for a riddle?) Read more » 

Were I inclined to be purely objective, I would tell you that the ages-old Hue/Saturation command is growing somewhat long in the tooth. For example, if your primary purpose is to increase the saturation of an image, you're better off exploiting the Vibrance command or the Lab mode.

Even so, Hue/Saturation continues to do something that no other feature does: It lets you edit one range of colors independently of all others--without defining a selection or mask--all from inside a single dialog box or palette. And it does this so very easily and so very credibly, that you can get in and out of an image without anyone being the wiser. Read more » 

Actions are Photoshop’s oldest and most essential form of automation. Simply put, an action is a recorded sequence of events. Which is pretty wild when you think about it. You click the record button, work your way through a series of oft-repeated steps, and then click stop. From that point on, the Actions palette can play back exactly what you did at breakneck speed, several times faster than you could ever hope to repeat the steps yourself. Test the action to make sure it works and it may serve you well for years to come, from one version of Photoshop to the next. As I’m fond of saying, invest an hour or two in actions now and your future self--lying on a beach while Photoshop works away as your obedient digital slave--will thank you. Read more » 

If you know anything about Photoshop's brush tool, you know it paints smooth lines in the foreground color. You can control its behavior to the nth degree from the options bar and Brushes palette. And it responds to pressure-sensitive input.

Those attributes alone would earn it a place in the coveted Photoshop Top 40. The fact that it also excels as a masking tool merely cements the deal. Read more »