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Adobe Photoshop CC - Advanced Training

Advanced CC Libraries tricks and tips Photoshop

Daniel Walter Scott

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Hi here, this video is all about CC Libraries. Even if you're using them already, we're going to go through some more advanced tips and tricks. So hang around, just so you know CC libraries don't work on all licenses of Photoshop. You might have what's called a Machine License. That happens at Universities often, some larger companies, there's no personalization, don't want to give my email address. 


So open them up, let's go to 'Window', and let's go to 'Libraries'. It's built into all Adobe products. What I'm going to do is actually, just click my little double arrow up here so it's fully out. You can see, I use libraries quite a bit. I'll drop down here, I've got all sorts of libraries going on. What we'll do is we'll create a new library. Going to give it a name, we're going to call this 'PS Advanced'. Just a little dummy one that I'll delete. And like it says, all you need to do is click, hold, and drag stuff in it. I'm going to give it a name to make it easier later on. 


So the cool thing about libraries is that they're interchangeable between other programs. So say, if you're using InDesign, in here you'll see my new library that I made. Photoshop Advanced, and I can start dragging images in between each other. Same with say, After Effects. 'After Effects', 'Libraries', there it is there. So all the Adobe products have CC Libraries, Adobe XD, Illustrator, Premiere,. Character animator, they all access the libraries. It makes it cool for sharing things that are normally hard to interchange, like Swatches, and say Character Style. 


So I'm in InDesign, I'm going to get my Character Styles, I'm just going to click on this. You can see, there is a little icon that says, go to my Creative Cloud. Here's my Character Style. For some reason Paragraph Styles aren't interchangeable between Photoshop and InDesign, but they are between InDesign and Illustrator. So you might find a couple of them grayed out, but let's say we like that. Also, we're in here, and we like this color, so I'm going to highlight the text here. And in here, under CC Libraries down the bottom there's a little +, it says, I want to highlight the text, no, just the text color. You click 'Add', let's just watch there, jump back into Photoshop, and then magic happens. Cool, huh? 


So I am going to change the text. I picked this random color earlier in the class, turns out it's exactly the same color I've ordered. So what I can do is click on 'Character Style', which is using the same color as this pink. But you get the idea. It's great for creating your, say corporate colors in one program, adding them to the libraries, and they're available in all programs. Another interesting thing you can do, let's say you've got a document like this, and there's lots of parts to it, what you can do here, in your libraries, there's this little option here that says-- what it does is it takes your document, and loads any Character Styles you've used, any colors, you have Layer Styles. Layer Styles are like Drop Shadows, really handy. Any Smart Objects. It depends on what you want to do. 


I'm going to turn this off, because what happens is that it takes them out of this document, and links them to CC Libraries. And that can be one of the, not drawbacks, but it's just one of the things to note, when you are using libraries, is that it really wants to kind of pull them out of this document and link them. The trouble is if you delete the library, or if you send this file to somebody else, it's going to come up with an error saying, "Hey, I can't find the library anymore." Much the same way InDesign works. So it's up to you, just know that you can turn it off if you need to. 


I'm going to 'Create Library', you can see over here, it's thrown in the images. And you can see, this one here especially, it's thrown in the image that's in this mask, but it's pulled it out of the mask, which is cool. It's put in the original of my paint splat, which is the red one, before the Adjustment Layer. It's up to you, you might want to-- I want to drag in the yellow one. Here's my banana, there's all the colors that I've used, and all the Character Styles. There's my Drop Shadow as well. That can be handy if you're jumping over here, and you're like, actually this text here, I want you to have a Layer Style, you can see here, I have a Drop Shadow now. Just a teeny tiny one, give me everything nice and consistent. 


The other thing to note is that, can you see, it created its own new library. So it didn't go into PS Advanced, it went into the name of this actual file that I had open, there it is, '08'. So there it is there. The other thing to note is that it didn't put the background image in. Why? Because the background image is locked, the bane of our Photoshop existence; why is it locked? Only causes trouble. Double click it, give it a name. If you name your layer, the layer name will be brought up in here. I'm just dragging it into this, you can see there. Awesome, huh? 


Now one of the problems, or at least what I found trail lunging at the beginning was, when I drag this in, it is a linked file. I click 'Return', awesome, it's linked, but then I send it to somebody else, they don't have a connection to my CC Libraries. So it comes up with a missing link, or one of the kind of perks, and one of the problems is, if I change this original, it's going to change in every document that this is linked to. Let's say I want to make this unique for every image, so I don't want them connected to the library anymore. You can get around it by just going up to here, and sending this one that says, Share Link or Collaborate. That will allow whoever you send it to, to have access to the CC Library as well, so the links will work. 


It's great if you're working with a colleague, but let's say you just don't want it to connect, you want it out of here, you don't want it connected. There's two ways, if you've already dragged it out, you can just right click it and say 'Embedded Link'. And that little icon will change, and just show you that it's a Smart Object now, but not connected. Another easier way is while you're dragging it out, instead of just dragging it out like this, which gives you the cloud, hold down the 'Option' key on a Mac while you're dragging, or the 'Alt' key on a PC. And what happens is it dumps it in full size, with no link to the library. 


Now we've talked about some of the problems and how to get around them. Why are we using libraries for graphics? It's for handy things like this. So if I go into Illustrator, let's say we've drawn this amazing fox. Hands up, who's done my Illustrator course, and you remember the fox. We want to use them in other programs. Let's say we want to use them for Photoshop. So I'm going to go to my 'Libraries', I am going to click here, and I'm going to say, my 'PS Advanced' course, I'm just going to drag him in. There he is there, but in Photoshop, the cool thing about it is, if I go to my 'PS Advanced', there he is there. Drag them out, he's all vectory and good, but I'm going to not hold down any keys. I want it to be actually connected to the library, because I want to double click the library item. It opens that up in the original program it made. It's just kind of a temporary file here. 


Let's say I just go through and change one of the colors. Something obvious. 'Save', hit 'Close'. Go back into Photoshop, and it should have updated. The reason it's not, and I guess I want to leave this in there, because you can see down here, it's trying to. I'm on a really slow internet connection here at the moment. Waiting for fiber to get installed, so we're dealing with mobile broadband. There's my peer reality, so the Creative Cloud is actually going via the internet to get updated. And you can see, it's uploading all of these things, and these things that I created, and they're quite big files. So it's busy doing that before it goes and does my small little vector adjustments. 


So what I'm going to do to try and hopefully speed it up, is go to this one here and say, sorry buddy, I'm going to delete you. Sorry about that. Select the swimsuit as well, because there's a big file, and you can see, instantly it got round to my little vector file. Hover above it. It gives you like, "Hey, I've almost done that." I'm at 24% for my library stuff. There was something I put in my library, what was it? Can't remember. But I guess it's useful to know. When I had fiber I didn't even know that that was an issue. It's only since I've been in this new office here getting set up, but I realized its reliance on the internet, but you can see, it updated. 


Now one thing I want to share is that, say you are working on a file, and you're working with somebody else, and you're like, actually I'd love to share the files. There's two options here, there's Collaborate and Link. So Share Link is what I'd share too with somebody that-- I want them to have access to the files, but I don't want them to be able to delete, modify, and edit them. So Collaborate would be somebody who is a colleague, somebody trusted, and this might go to a client, or just a junior designer, or just somebody, I just don't want them to mess with my library. And all it does is send them an email, telling what permissions they have, what they can do. Once you have collaborated though, what you might find is that you're working on a document and it just disappears. 


So if you collaborated with somebody and they've gone and gone, "I don't want this," and deleted it, like we did that swimsuit image, it's going to throw up an error when you open the document, and you'll see a little question mark here in this little cloud here. What you can do though is go, "Hmm, wonder what images have gone." Go up to this little burger menu, and go down where it says 'View deleted items'. It launches this page and you can see here, all the stuff I've deleted from my libraries. So it's never gone forever. You can go in here and say, "Actually I want this thing here, and I want to restore it." Or you might go through and permanently delete things, because this archive is taking up some of your hard drive space. With my Creative Cloud license I get 100 Gigabytes. I don't think that's normal, I think I've got a special one because I'm at a Certified Instructor. But anyway, I can click on it, hit 'Restore', and it will appear back in my library. 


Another little tip is, let's say this-- you can kind of tell the ones that you've shared with other people. See the two little heads there, that means I've collaborated with them. So I'm going to go to Adobe Logo, so I share this with my colleagues, because we all are certified and we all use the Adobe Logos. Let's say I want to bring in-- let's use the Photoshop one, but instead of bringing it in that way, what I'm going to do is hold down my 'Option' key or my 'Alt' key on a PC, and I get my logo in here, and it's perfect. But the link is broken, but I want to link it again. I liked that connection, but that connection is gone. Well you can go in here, right click it, and say 'Relink to your library'. It can actually relink to another file, which is kind of cool. 


Say you've got an updated version of the Photoshop logo, you can go link to it on your desktop, kind of like InDesign does with its linking folder. Here though I can go 'Relink to Graphic', and this is one of the weird ones, you're like, "Hmm." Kind of tells you, this is like a warning, and then you're like, "Oh, I do." Let's say I want to link to this one. Let's say it's a different product and it's a different design, and I'm relinking to-- instead of relinking it back to Photoshop, I'm relinking to Animate, this is the hidden thing down the bottom here. That's really important, Relink. Kick back, relax. And the different sizes. Not bad. But you get the idea, right? That guy is now relinked to the library, it's got a cloud again. I can undo and actually I might just relink it to the Photoshop file. Just to prove that it can be done. And because Photoshop is the right size it's going to match up. 


More advanced CC Library stuff is this little option here. It's this Search Adobe Stock. Or you can use this little version up here. It's bigger, I was going to use this version in here. And let's say I need a picture of the Sun to complete my project. And it's going to go to Adobe Stock. I've got a license, so it's really easy for me. I get 10 a month, I think that's my license. It's about $35 a month, US, I think, all kinds of things. The cool thing about it is I don't have to go out to the site, I can actually just go to here and say, 'License and save to my library'. And I've got it open, right? So if I go to my PS Advanced, and now if I click on this, it's going to actually take a credit off my account and download it, or I can just do this option here and just do a preview. And it's going to download it to here, but it's going to be a watermark version. I can hover above it down here to see how long it's going to take. It's done, which is good. 


Cool thing about it though is if I do this and I get it out of here, it's got a watermark in it, that's fine, I'm getting a proof for my boss or my client. And I do some stuff to it, let's say that I do some adjustments to it, make it black and white for no reason. I go and add a filter like Liquify, so like some serious stuff. Can't liquify the actual mask, you need to liquify the actual Sun. So I go and do some serious modifications. Spend a reasonable amount of time, right? Beautiful! And the client says, "Yes, I like option A, go and do it." Instead of downloading it and trying to kind of mock it all up again, what you can do is just right click this and say, 'License Image'. This goes off and you don't do anything. I'm not going to waste one of my graphics from my credits now, but it's just, the watermark disappears, and it becomes a high-res document, this number disappears, it's pretty cool. 


So if you are using something like Shutterstock, or iStock, or any of the other stocks-- I use Adobe Stock, I love it, it's got video as well. What's also cool about it is, let's say this image down the bottom here, the background image, a lot of stuff above it. Oh, a little tip, if you hold down 'Option' key and click on the Eyeball, it's the 'Alt' key on a PC, it turns off every other layer, but the one you had selected. 'Alt-click'ing it again turns all the rest of them back on. So it's 'Alt' on a PC, 'Option' on a Mac, just click on the Eyeball. 


Another tip about Creative Cloud Libraries. Let's say we like this image, like this one's from Unsplash, The photographer is Greg Kantra. I like the image but I need either another one or something similar. The client's come back and say, "I like it, it's got the right feel, but it's not the right image." Maybe they're not the right pose. So what you can do is you can add it to the library, then do something crazy where you can right click it and say 'Find Similar'. Goes off to Adobe Stock again, remember these are paid, like I paid my $30 a month, I should know that. But it's going to go off and try and find images that match this one. And it's scarily good. Like Photoshop should have no idea what's happened to that image, but Adobe have been working on this thing called their Sensei, which is their name for their Artificial Intelligence. Man, the searching within images has become like scary. Colors, the pose, some of them are like perfect. 


So I could now go and download previews or the high-res versions, and start working on them. Just so you know, within this little guy here, you can click and say, actually I only want videos, not photographs, and will go off and do that as well. Vectors, editorial stuff, premium stuff. You can see they're loaded, and if mine wasn't super slow, it would start playing as I rolled over, like you can scrub back and forth, but poor little internet is struggling, you can see down here, trying to do its little thing. So I'll turn videos 'off', twirl it back up, and when you finish though, to get back to your libraries, just click this little cross here to say, go away visually similar. 


One last thing, it's not quite CC Libraries, but it's worth mentioning because a lot of people don't know about it. If you go to your Creative Cloud app, on a Mac it's up the top right, on a PC I think it's bottom right, you're looking for that kind of curly CC cloud thing. Go to 'Assets', and go to 'Market'. Market's really handy, basically all it is - I'm going to turn that off. Yours should load up like this. - it's free, absolutely free, commercially usable graphics. So there's not going to be any images like this, but there is lots of useful stuff in here. Say you need some, I don't know, social media icons, because you're doing a mock-up. You can see here, a bunch of different icons, mock-ups, vector graphics, all sorts of stuff that we can use. Maybe we just need something like, I don't know, sometimes you just need like an arrow, and you're like, I know I can go find it from some free vector site, but cool thing is, you're like, ugly. 


For some reason arrows are more important than they sound. I spent hours looking for the right arrow. Go on this little download, it will go into my CC Advanced Libraries, click over here. Give it a second, come on internet. There it is there, don't even worry about the-- see this thumbnail's taking forever to download, you can drag it out without worrying about it often. And it doesn't do anything, this thing. The preview takes longer than actual. So now I have a scalable vector, and what I might even do is hold down the 'Alt' and drag it out. So that it is - or 'Option' on a Mac - so it's not connected. And now I can add some colors and graphics, I can double click it. It will open up because it's vector or an SVG, in Illustrator, life is good. It gets even better. 


How could it get better? Come out of Illustrator, back to Photoshop. It's when you start looking for say, say you're doing mockups, we're going to do mockups properly later on. Let's say, in here I need-- we're doing a mock-up for a book. Instead of Googling 'white book', you're looking for a template book, you're doing an e-book graphic. So in here I'm going to go 'All Categories', I'm actually going to go to 'For Placement'. For Placement's really cool, you can see these different search categories, I'm looking for For Placement because, see these, they're ready to go PSDs. You can tell if they're PSDs or not if you click on them, see it says there. "I'm a PSD," ah, it's all masked, and ready to go. 


I'll show you one I've downloaded already because, you could see these things are taking a while. I'll jump into-- which one has it? For some reason I have lots of my libraries. Here you go, so this one here, Hardcover Book. I'm going to double click it to open it. It opens up in the file that was created, in this case it's Photoshop. What's really cool about it is, can you see, background is separated out. It's already kind of masked, and what gets even better is, let's have a little look. Which book am I looking at? I'll look at the front book, so that's a cool thing. I'm just going to turn the other book off, but let's say this one here, it says, "Your design here." I think it even tells you if you make it bigger, like, double click this layer, drag him back in. 


So double click the Smart Object icon. It opens up that Smart Object in a different window. It's saying, I'm missing some of the fonts. You could hit 'Resolve', I'm going to say don't resolve. You can see here, that is all the bits and pieces that make up that front cover, so there's the book, it's opened up in a new tab, all the bits that are inside of it. I'm going to bin it all. I'll leave one layer in there. Let's say we make Dan's, 'Dan's Amazing Book'. It's going to win lots of design awards. Especially when this happens. Oh yeah. I'm going to save it. And I'm going to close it down, and because it's already been mocked up on the book, look at that, it's been distorted and moved around. Oh man, even the Drop Shadows in the background are all separate layers. There is shadows that are on the top, even a shadow layer, look at that. 


You'll find lots of these kind of whiteout things, they're commercially usable for free. Just up there in Market. Man, I got to calm down. If you already know about it, it might not be as exciting, but it excites me, I remember when I first found it. Man, what a time saver! There's bottles of wine in there, lots of notebooks, post cards, business cards. Have you ever been like, "Oh man, there's people that mock up those business cards real quick." Now you know, there's a cheap trick that most people don't know about. Keep it to yourself. 


The last thing we're going to do is go straight into the next video, because we're going to move into Typography in the next section. So we'll go up to here and we'll start working at things like Typekit, and getting the most of that. Going up here to say-- I'm going to go back out of this. We're going to start working on fonts, but we'll do that in the next video. 


All right friends, I hope you found something useful or new in CC Libraries. Let's jump into the next section, which is Typography.