The Filter Gallery

Introduced in Photoshop CS and not changed too much in CS2, the Filter Gallery (shown in Figure 9-7), is a one-stop -shopping depository for all 47 Gallery Effects filters. The germ of the idea for this feature can be found in Photoshop's younger sibling, Photoshop Elements. That application features a Filters palette which makes great use of the same little generic sailboat sample image that appears in Photoshop's Filter Gallery. But as often happens when Photoshop borrows an idea from Elements, the idea becomes immensely more useful. Users of previous versions of Photoshop will gasp at the ease with which you can jump from filter to filter, adjust filter settings, and even stack filters on top of one another (like layers ) ” all within a single dialog box. Why, it's so impressive, it might even make you reconsider your one-time dismissal of Mosaic Tiles.

image from book
Figure 9-7: The Filter Gallery makes it faster than ever to compromise the quality of your artwork through cheap and rampant overuse of the age-old Gallery Effects filters.

To access the Filter Gallery, either choose one of the Gallery Effects filters as you would any filter, or choose Filter Filter Gallery. One of the first things you'll notice about the Filter Gallery is the gigantic image preview area on the left side of the dialog box. As with the Lens Blur filter dialog box discussed in Chapter 8, you can adjust the zoom level of the preview using the “ and + icons or the pop-up menu that appears when you click the triangle to the right of the current zoom percentage display or when you click the displayed current zoom percentage itself. You can click the double up-pointing arrowheads (Windows) or the up-pointing triangle(Mac) to the left of the OK button to toggle the visibility of the filter area in the middle section of the dialog box and create even more room for your image preview. Also similar to the Lens Blur filter is the progress bar that appears next to the zoom controls during particularly time-consuming renders .

The middle section of the Filter Gallery dialog box is where you access the filters themselves . The filters are organized in an assortment of folders that correspond to their respective submenus inside the Filter menu. Twirl down the triangles (or simply click on a folder's name ) to reveal the aforementioned sailboat thumbnails, each altered to represent the effect of applying a particular filter. Click any of the thumbnails to apply the effect to your image and bring up its settings on the right side of the dialog box. After you've enabled an effect, you can adjust its settings as you would any other filter. From here, you can more or less go nuts ” hop recklessly from folder to folder or filter to filter in the middle section, or select a filter from the pop-up menu located above the settings.

The real power of the Filter Gallery, however, can be found in the bottom-right corner of the window, where the applied filters are displayed in much the same manner as layers in the Layers palette. They also work in a similar fashion, if only because the stacking order of the filters plays a large role in determining how the final affected image looks. By default, you've only got one layer of effects in the Filter Gallery, and selecting a new filter wipes away the last one you tried. But adding additional layers is as easy as clicking the new layer icon (it's the little page) at the bottom of the dialog box and then selecting a different filter from the thumbnails. Additionally, you can stack the same filter on top of itself, again and again, with different variations on the settings to create some interesting effects. Click the Eye icons next to the filter layers to toggle the visibility of any of the effects. Reordering the layers of filters in the Filter Gallery is as simple as clicking one and dragging it up or down the stack. To remove any of the filters, simply highlight its layer and click the trash icon. To remove all currently applied filters, Ctrl+click ( z +click on the Mac) the Cancel button, which changes to a Default button for as long as the Ctrl (or z ) key is pressed.

The only real downside to the Filter Gallery is the lack of an option to turn the thing off. As useful as it can often be, there are times when you'd like to quickly apply one of the Gallery Effects filters and be done with it. Admittedly, it was quite a bit faster to access individual Gallery Effect filters in previous versions of the program. Nevertheless, the Filter Gallery is a very positive addition to Photoshop, and we can only hope there will come a day in which we have a similar system for applying and organizing filters that we might actually want to use more than once in a blue moon.



Photoshop CS2 Bible
Photoshop CS2 Bible
ISBN: 0764589725
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 95

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