Making the move to Photoshop means joining forces with just about every image-editing professional on the planet. It's that ubiquitous. Figure 18.10. Adobe Photoshop is the undisputed Mac/Windows image-editing tool of choice.
Adobe has ensured that making the move from Elements to Photoshop will be easy. With the exception of some palette tab locations, the Photoshop workspace, shown in Figure 18.11, has a look and feel that's very similar to Elements. Figure 18.11. The Photoshop work space nearly duplicates Elements.
Although you get some real power in Elements, Photoshop offers much more flexibility and additional tools. Elements simplifies some processes with presets, but that limits creativity. Photoshop offers deep customizability . The Layer Style dialog box in Figure 18.12 ”very reminiscent of Premiere's Title Designer ”is a case in point. Everything you need is at your fingertips. Figure 18.12. Photoshop's Layer Style dialog box puts major functionality within one intuitive interface.
The drawing tools and Artwork palette in Photoshop virtually duplicate those in Elements. Using them, it takes only a few minutes to create a graphic like the one in Figure 18.13. Figure 18.13. Photoshop's intuitive drawing tools speed up graphics creation.
Photoshop adds some professional paintbrush tools ”Charcoal, Pastel, Oil Paint ”to that palette. Using them with a graphics tablet, such as the pressure-sensitive Wacom Intuos, means you can apply more or less texture as you draw. Other Photoshop features include the following:
Of primary importance to the scope of this book is just how strongly Photoshop is connected to Premiere and to video production. An obvious example is Premiere's Edit Original command. Place any Photoshop graphic on the timeline, right/Ctrl-click it, and select Edit Original. This opens Photoshop and lets you immediately edit the graphic. Once saved within Photoshop, the new version of the graphic shows up in Premiere. Here are three of my favorite Premiere/Photoshop connections:
Before you can start using these features, you'll need to learn the fundamentals. If you choose to add Photoshop to your digital video production repertoire , peruse the tips for first-time users provided by a Photoshop expert in the following sidebar. |