Julieanne Kost's Blog

As many of you  know, this morning Adobe announced Photoshop CC. Although it’s not yet shipping, here is a video of my favorite features that will be available soon!

In this episode (Adobe Photoshop: Favorite Features for Photographers), Julieanne Kost will demonstrate her top 5 favorite features in Photoshop CC including the new Upright perspective correction, Radial Filter, and Spot Removal  features in Adobe Camera Raw 8, Image Upsampling and Smart Sharpening, Live Shapes for Rounded Rectangles, and Camera Shake Reduction.

If you own Photoshop CS6 and are moving to Photoshop CC, you might also want to watch this video (Julieanne’s Top 5 Features for Photographers in Photoshop 13.1 ), to learn about the new features that were added to Photoshop 13.1 (released back in December exclusively for Creative Cloud Members).

In addition, here is a great article with insights about Breaking from Tradition written by Maria Yap, Sr. Director of Product Management at Adobe.

And if you have questions, Jeff Tranberry provides answers in this FAQ – for Photoshop and Lightroom Customers.

And the Creative Cloud FAQ.

And information about Lightroom and Creative Cloud.

In this Quick Tip (How to Remove Unwanted Collections when Exporting Catalogs in Lightroom), Julieanne demonstrates how to quickly clean up an exported catalog of any extraneous collections.

Just as an FYI – I had a great talk with the engineer who works on the Import/Export as Catalogs (after I recorded this video), and he provided an excellent synopsis on why those extra collections are there. As it so often turns out, the topic is much more complicated than my little brain imagined:

The idea is that for every single photo that is included in the export, all information related to that photo is included. Let’s take for example that you have a collection of “Tree”. One piece of information that is related to some of these photos is “I’m in the Tahoe collection” so the Tahoe collection appears in the collection panel, containing those photos.  The Tahoe collection doesn’t contain all of the photos it contained in the original catalog of course, but only the photos that were part of the source (Trees) that was selected for export.

Perhaps this behavior seems odd.  We could change the behavior, but it’s a dangerous, slippery slope.  For example, what if the source you selected for export wasn’t “Trees” or “Tahoe” but instead was a folder that contained photos, some of which appear in both Trees and Tahoe?  Should neither of the collections appear in the exported catalog?  I think if we start dropping information from catalog exports, we’ll quickly hit scenarios where we’re dropping things that customers don’t actually want us to drop.

Hence, you now have a simple work around to quickly remove the collections that you don’t need, while still making sure that you still have the option to see all of the information related to those photos when you do choose to export a catalog. : )

Here are links to my top 3 features in the Lightroom 5 Beta!

Upright (Automatic perspective correction) - Discover how to automatically fix common problems such as tilted horizons as well as converging verticals in buildings using Lightroom’s new Upright controls for perspective correction.

The Advanced Healing Brush - Discover the new enhancements to Lightroom’s advanced Healing Brush including the ability to heal and clone non-circular brush spots as well as remove easy to miss sensor dust using the new Visualization slider.

The Radial Filter - Learn how easy it is to apply any and all of Lightroom’s existing local adjustments including dodging and burning, adding vignettes, selectively sharpening and more to one or more completely customizable, nondestructive, circular Radial filters – anywhere in  your image.

For additional information, check out the Lightroom Journal and the photoshop.com blog.

In this episode of The Complete Picture (How and When to Rename Files in Lightroom ), Julieanne provides several suggestions for file naming conventions for creating templates for import, Batch Renaming, Export and Editing in Photoshop as well as recommendations for how and when to rename your files.

By default, when creating Virtual Copies, Lightroom automatically gives each Virtual Copy a sequential copy name: “Copy 1”, “Copy 2”, “Copy 3”, etc. To create a custom name for each Virtual Copy, in the Metadata panel (in the Library module) type the preferred name in the “Copy Name” field.

Note: to see the custom file name in the Grid or Loupe views, you may need to make a change under View >View Options. In the example below, I have set my view options to “Show Grid Extras: Expanded Cells” and my “Expanded Cell Extras” to “Copy Name or File Base Name”. Note that you can also choose to see both Copy and File name.

For more information on Virtual Copies, you may want to watch this video tutorial (When to use Virtual Copies and Snapshots in Lightroom).

Layer Groups – they’re not just for organizing your layers! In this episode of The Complete Picture (5 Reasons to use Layer Groups in Photoshop), Julieanne demonstrates 5 ways to use Layer Groups to create special effects in Photoshop.

In this episode of The Complete Picture (Lightroom, Photoshop, Image and File Size), Julieanne explains how Lightroom determines the file size and resolution of a file when using the “Edit in Photoshop” command.

In this episode of The Complete Picture (Cyclical – The Creative Process) , Julieanne reveals her Lightroom to Photoshop workflow used to create the still life “Cyclical”.

A percentage of my Essential Training videos on Lynda.com are available for free. Click here to learn the Difference between the Resize and Resample options in Image Size.

I’m hoping to clear up some confusion with regards to Retina display support in Photoshop CS6. In December,  Adobe released Photoshop update version 13.0.3 (for Mac perpetual customers) and version 13.1.1 (for Creative Cloud members, Mac and Windows). So, if you have PSCS6 – through either the perpetual (“box copy”) or Adobe Creative Cloud membership (“subscription”), and you run the updater, you will have Retina support.  Here’s how to get the update:

1. In Photoshop, choose Help > Updates.

2. The Adobe Application Manager will launch. Select Adobe Photoshop CS6 and choose Update.

How to confirm that the Update worked

1. In Photoshop, choose Help > About Photoshop (Win), or Photoshop > About Photoshop (Mac)

2. For Mac perpetual customers, the version at the top should be Version: 13.0.3

3. For Win/Mac Creative Cloud members, the version at the top should be Version: 13.1.1

If you have a Creative Cloud membership (subscription),  there are additional features in Photoshop version 13.03. Click here to watch my Top 5 Features for Photographers in Photoshop 13.1 (Exclusively for Creative Cloud).

I’m reposting this video (Creating Transparent Logos for Watermarks and Overlays in Photoshop), because it’s still one of the most popular questions that I receive at events.  Although the video covers the topic in detail, in a nutshell, the technique is to use the Fill slider on the Layers panel to hide the content on the layer while maintaining the applied layer styles.

Shape Layer with Fill slider set to 100% in the Layers panel.

Shape Layer with Fill slider set to 0% in the Layers panel.

In this episode of The Complete Picture (The Difference Between Duplicating a Smart Object and Creating New Smart Object via Copy), Julieanne explains the difference between duplicating a Smart Object using the Layers panel to create multiple instances of a layer and creating a copy of a Smart Object using the application menu for independent editing.

Last year I created a short slideshow (The Red Thread) of the images that I took with my mobile phone. I found it to be an enjoyable way to look back at the year and reflect upon the places that I’ve gone, the people I’ve met and the things that I was paying attention to. So, I decided to do it again this year and here it is – Moments Alone. I’m sure that the images will mean more to me than they do to you, but I would encourage you to create a collection of your own images and look at them as a complete body of work for the year to see what you can discover about yourself.

In this Quick Tip (How to Paste into a Layer Mask in Photoshop CS6), Julieanne reveals a simple technique to paste content directly into a layer mask in Photoshop CS6.

If you weren’t able to tune in to the Create Now event but you’re interested in the Digital Publishing Suite, Single Edition, then be sure to take a look at this video (Publish your Photography for iPad with Creative Cloud)! I’ll provide an overview showing how pro photographers can use DPS SE to create your own branded app making it easier than ever to express yourself with the Creative Cloud and your iPad.