PHOTOSHOP | 3 Photoshop Features for Surface Designers

Adobe Photoshop is one of the essential tools in any designers toolbox. It is a fully-loaded graphics editing program that works primarily with pixel-based images and photos. For surface designers, Photoshop has a collection of features that are must-haves in that they make life easy everyday. 

Photoshop features that I use in my surface designs:

1) Transform

  The ability to resize, rotate, flip, and distort objects for designs is crucial. With Photoshop, you just select it and then use the pull handles around the image to transform it. These powerful features are very intuitive and work well. I use transforms in almost all of my surface design files that I create from scratch such as chevron patterns, waves, crests, etc. 



 2) Adjusting Colors / Hue Saturation

Color is a key design element that is heavily utilized in surface design. Color sets the tone and mood of every design. Photoshop gives you maximum control over the slightest changes in color in images by using sliders. You can also work in different color spaces such as RGB, CMYK, HSB spaces. This is important for better color matching with different machinery used to print your design. I also like the Colorize option that recolors an entire image into a specific hue. Also, I love being able to control the color on channels namely the red, blue, yellow and green channels.

3) Filters: Texture

Texture filters are important for bringing life to any image. Photoshop has quite a few of these that can add artistic brushstrokes, glass, mosaic, and tiled appearances to pictures. (and that's just a few) In Photoshop Elements, there are built-in textures that can be automatically applied to a given file.  

It is important to understand that a texture does not often change the color but it changes the underlying pattern. Applying a texture is like putting an overlay on top of what is already there.  

 
I purchased my copy of Photoshop Elements 13 through the Amazon website. It was reasonably priced and since I am an Amazon Prime member, there was FREE shipping on it. Music to my ears!

* Adobe Photoshop Elements 13