Top 5* features from the Photoshop CC update
*IMHO. I got to try the new build of Photoshop for a couple of days; here are my favourite new features:
1. Artboards
After a lot of wishful thinking, artboards are here! This feature will change our workflow and alter the way we use Photoshop for digital design and especially, mobile app design. Similar to Illustrator or Sketch, artboards in Photoshop will work as you expected. Note the new darker group style on the layers panel that will group everything inside an artboard. They are easy to export, preview on device (see point 3) and a much better model to work with when designing multiple screens.
2. Multiple Layer Styles
This was a nice surprise…want two, three strokes? you got it! Two drop shadows? yes! You can now add and order multiple layer styles in a single object. This will make the one layer challenge a lot more interesting.
3. Device Preview App
You can now preview your design using the new live preview app from Adobe (available here) and because it connects via creative cloud, it works well, even with corporate wi-fi but you can just plug in a USB cable and you’ll be ready to go. You can swipe on the phone through all the artboards and if you have multiple devices connected, it will only display the right artboards for each device, nice!
4. Stroke Overprint
This might be a niche one, but I love it. If you have a stroke with transparency inside a coloured background, the stroke area will now pickup that colour according to it’s transparency.
You can find the checkbox under Layer Styles, Stroke:
5. Glyphs Panel
There is a new glyph panel for you to access all those em-dashes and special characters (Double-click to insert a glyph into a text field). It also works with icon fonts so you suddenly have easy access to an huge icon panel.
Bonus: Design Space
You can now enable the technical preview of what the Photoshop team is calling the ‘Design Space’. This is a new interface that optimises the UI of the app for digital designers hiding a lot of the functionality but with all the power of classic Photoshop. It’s very early days but it’s nice to play with and give feedback on and you can easily switch between ‘classic’ and ‘design space’ view under Window.
Thanks for reading. For more updates, follow me on twitter, here: @h1brd
