Adobe Education Technologies

Russell Brown thought up a great Photoshop Touch hack that is just too darn cool! Check out this short video on how to use Photoshop Touch and a flashlight to create some AMAZING lighting effects.

In my last tutorial I showed you how to take an image and apply that image to a 3D object in Photoshop. In this tutorial I will show you how to publish a 3D layer to PDF.  Anybody with Acrobat Reader will then be able to interact with your 3D object.

1. Create a 3D object in Photoshop (tutorial here)
2. Right click on the 3D layer
3. Select Export 3D layer
   
4. Name the file and select U3D from the Format dropdown menu
   
5. Click the Save button
6. The 3D Export Options dialogue box will open.
   
7. Make sure that JPEG is selected from the Texture Format dropdown
8. Use ECMA1  for the U3D Options

The steps above exported the Photoshop layer to a U3D file.  The U3D file can now be published to PDF.

1. Open Adobe Acrobat X
2. Select File>Created PDF>From File
3. Browse to the U3D file you saved earlier
4. An Insert 3D dialogue box will open.  Select OK (You may want to check out the “Advanced” options by clicking on the Show Advanced Options check box.  There are some neat options to play around with).
5. Click on your 3D object to interact with it.  Also notice the 3D tool bar that appears.
   

Cool!  Now anybody with Acrobat Reader can view your 3D content!

Imagine a satellite traveling thousands of miles into space, flying around distant planets, snapping pictures of their surfaces, and returning the images to Earth.  Well, it has been done, and the images are amazing (Thanks NASA).

What is even more amazing is that you can find the images using a simple Internet search (keywords:  Jupiter, surface, map) and wrap them around  3D objects created in Photoshop!

This makes for a great student project.

Here is how…http://youtu.be/uqQ9TTALw7U 

In my next tutorial I will show you how to export the 3D layer to an Acrobat PDF file.  This will allow mom, dad, or another student to view and manipulate the 3D object using the (free) Acrobat Reader.