PS favorites

joshhuntnm

What are your favorite/ most commonly used tools in photoshop? What do you find yourself going to over and over?

For me:
Levels
Auto levels
Filter / Noise / Median for scanned pics-- removes little dots

aktpics

Probably Curves and Gaussian blur the most.

I used to HATE the pen tool and only clicked on it by mistake. But, I am starting to like it and use it more frequently for isolating an object.

ShepsMom

I love magnetic lasso and and hate pen tool. I just can never figure it out Of course layering and masking, shadow/highlghts, and curves/levels, eyedropper for selecting exact color, clone and healing brush

jfriend

joshhuntnm wrote:

What are your favorite/ most commonly used tools in photoshop? What do you find yourself going to over and over?

For me:
Levels
Auto levels
Filter / Noise / Median for scanned pics-- removes little dots

I do so much more of my processing in ACR now. When I do bring an image into Photoshop, it's most often for one of the following:

• Shadow work (shadow/highlights), often combined with a mask
• Color correction (curves adjustment layer)
• Localized contrast enhancement (curves adjustment layer with a mask)
• Custom sharpening (Smart Sharpen and USM)
• Cloning to fix imperfections or sometimes to extend an edge
• Localized brightness adjustment with mask (curve with mask)
• Color enhancement (LAB mode, curve adjustment layers)
• Color enhancement often for skies (selective color adjustment layer)
• Blending of different exposures to fix high dynamic range challenges (layers and masks)