Adobe Announces Preset Sharing and Layer Panel Enhancements for Photoshop

Adobe Announces Preset Sharing and Layer Panel Enhancements for Photoshop

on Feb 22nd 2012 with 15 comments

Today, Adobe released their 5th sneak peek video that explains what they are working on for the next version of Photoshop. This sneak peek shows off several new features including the ability to share your presets between computers, as well as some enhancements to the layer panel. In this article, we will take a look at some of these announcements and analyze them to see what they mean for you. Let’s take a look!

If you work on several computers (a laptop and a desktop, for instance) you know how irritating it can be to save your settings onto both machines. This update to the preset manager looks like an easy way to quickly export your settings and install them onto all your machines. In addition, it will make the upgrade to the next version that much easier.

Adobe also introduced some new features available from the layers palette including the ability to duplicate several layers at one time using Command/Ctrl + J, as well as the ability to add color labels for multiple layers at once. This is a pretty big time-saver for anyone who has had to apply the same setting to multiple layers one-by-one.

In addition to those announcements, Adobe also revealed some features that they didn’t spend a whole lot of time explaining. For instance, take a look at the layers panel and compare it to the layers panel from CS5. You’ll notice some really big changes. Notice the options at the top. Could these be new ways to manage your layers? What do you think these new options do?

Also, take a look at this screengrab from the JDI section of the video. It may be hard to read, but they’ve included quite a few quick fixes in the new version.

What do you think about these new changes? Are you excited about the new version? Will you make the upgrade?

 
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Grant Friedman is a veteran blogger, social media addict, and design enthusiast. Grant has been blogging about the design industry since 2008 and is currently the editor of Psdtuts. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about Psdtuts, feel free to direct them to Grant's Twitter account.  

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  • PSDGUY

    Nice changes. They are always two steps ahead of us. Awesome changes. Will help workflow a lot for the pros.

  • Trevor

    Way over priced upgrades I will stick with CS4

    • http://www.pebaro.co.uk Robert Masters

      I think content aware fill, content aware scaling, content aware spot heal, and the new refine edge in CS5 are worth more than the cost of the upgrade to CS5, but that’s maybe just my opinion.

  • graphicartist2k5

    as usual, adobe is making photoshop that much better! i personally like the ability to be able to duplicate layer groups, as well as the possibility of being able to de-blur pictures!

  • http://www.moonboy.info MoonBoy

    you can duplicate group even in CS4, Alt+Up arrow. ;) , but sort layers should be handy

    • M

      I didn’t know that. It’s always nice to learn something new.

  • protypo

    That new option is the filter for the layers panel.

  • http://www.jonathanpatterson.com Jonathan Patterson

    Search by Layers is another thing everybody is hoping is added.

  • http://www.scrappersworkshop.com SWJenn

    I just need to say that I HATE that they’re changing the interface to the darker look like PSE. As a person of ‘a certain age’ the dark interface is hard on my eyes. It’s hard to see which layer is highlighted, among other things. Even if they give you a lighter option, it’s still not contrasty enough to work well. I may just have to stick with CS5 for quite some time.

    • http://psd.tutsplus.com/ Grant Friedman
      Author

      You can change the color of the interface if you don’t like the darker version.

    • Tom Prager

      I’m pretty sure they said in a previous Sneak Peak that you can still choose the old standard light gray interface we all know and love. They’re just giving us a new default, and the ability to choose and customize. Hope so, anyway.

  • http://diekisdreamings.com Dieki Noordhoek

    The JDI list is extremely poorly formatted, and almost painful to read. Not to worry, though I’ve transcribed the entire thing here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1msNPf46mUkYlfbnbBFWpO9BAEKYnlvgIvSo4IhzYUgo/edit

    • http://psd.tutsplus.com/ Grant Friedman
      Author

      Wow, thanks for doing that.

  • http://www.pebaro.co.uk Robert Masters

    I always get excited about any updates Adobe make to any of the Creative Suite software. I can’t wait to see what CS6 will bring as I have been amazed with CS5

  • http://solayo.com Drulia

    What i can not understand, is why things like exporting/importing your settings aren’t done already. Now it looks like people actually thinking thats awesome, but it is awesome, as well as all stuff what you expecting to have with any other modern software. What makes me sad, is that it is old and very known feature in many software, and they describing in a way, apple use to describe theirs “new” ability to have video call with iPhone 4.
    i just believe they should concentrate on the things they actually should do, and make sure, all of those main software features are on photoshop.