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Getting the correct distance between two objects is crucial in web design but it can be a tedious task to measure everything. With the Photoshop CC 2014 release, you longer do you have to guess the measurements between objects. The new Smart Guides are one of the most useful features because they show you the relative distance between objects and make positioning objects much easier. To use Smart Guides, hold the Control or Command key. A purple smart guide will appear and you can see the distance between your selected layer and the canvas. You can even measure the distance between two layers simply by hovering over the other layer. If you don’t see anything, make sure that you have the Move or any Path tool selected then try again.

Tip: If you want to change the measurements, simply press Ctrl/Cmd+R to enable the Rulers then right-click on the ruler and select the measurement you’d like to use.

Smart Guides also let you create matched spacing so that you can duplicate a layer to another position and repeat this with the same spacing you had before. For example, let’s say we want to duplicate this circle three times. Simply hold the Alt or Option key then drag it towards the right.

Repeat the same thing by holding Alt or Option and dragging another circle towards the right. Photoshop will automatically snap this circle so that the spacing matches.

A new feature in Photoshop CC that wasn’t found in Photoshop CS6 is Linked Smart Objects. This feature lets you embed a file to your Photoshop document and anytime you edit that Linked Smart Object, your file will save as well. This also works the other way around – you can edit your file then update your Linked Smart Object and it’ll update your Photoshop document with the new file.

If you wanted to turn the Linked Smart Object into a regular embedded one that isn’t linked, you can simply right-click on the layer and choose “Embed Link”. But in previous versions of Photoshop CC, you couldn’t do this vice-versa and turn an Embedded Smart Objected into a Linked Smart Object. Now you can do this in Photoshop CC 2014 by right-clicking any Embedded Smart Object and choosing Convert to Linked. When you do this, Photoshop will open a new window asking where you’d like to save the file. Save the file and your Embedded Smart Object is now a Linked Smart Object.

When you start using Linked Smart Objects, you’ll often find yourself having to organize where those files are stored in your computer. And if you have a document with many Linked Smart Objects, it can be a lot of work to organize all your files and send it to your coworker. Instead, you can now use the Package tool which will save a copy of your Photoshop document with all the Linked Smart Objects into any folder. Simply go to File > Package, browse for a folder where you want to save the files, and Photoshop will automatically save your document with all the Linked Smart Objects organized into the Linked folder.

What happens when you open a Photoshop document with a missing Linked Smart Object? Photoshop will let you know about the error and you can find the file.

If If you can’t find the file, Photoshop still has a raster version of the layer that you can use but you need to rasterize your layer. If you try to edit the layer, Photoshop will ask you if you want to rasterize the Smart Object. Click Yes and you can edit the layer.

The last update for Smart Objects are selectable layer comps. Sometimes you need to create multiple variations or compositions of the same artwork. For this, you can use the Layer Comps panel by going to Window > Layer Comps. You can create multiple layer comps and change the layer visibility, position, and appearance. In Photoshop CC 2014, you can easily switch between different layer comps on your Smart Object. To do this, select a Smart Object then go to Window > Properties. You’ll find a dropdown menu for you to pick the layer comps.

Photoshop CC 2014 brings a huge update to the Text tool. Firstly, you can pick your fonts quicker with the live font preview. Simply hover over a font from the options bar and your text will update. You can also do this by pressing the up or down button. Sometimes a font will have several styles – instead of pressing up or down multiple times until you get to the next font, you can hold the shift key while pressing up or down and it’ll skip the styles and go straight to the next font.

Another feature you’ll notice is the green icon beside the font. This indicates that the font is from Typekit – a respiratory of fonts that are free to use with your Creative Cloud membership. Simply click on the   button and the Typekit website will load in your browser and automatically log you in. From here, you can select the font you want to use and sync it to your computer. The font will appear in Photoshop automatically without restarting.

Back in the Photoshop font selection menu, you can filter the fonts list so that it only shows fonts from TypeKit.

 

You can also search for a font by typing. For example, you can type “bold cond” to find all the bold condensed fonts.

Finally, if you open a Photoshop document with missing fonts, Photoshop will automatically inform you if they’re available on Typekit and you can

With the new Path and Spin blur modes for the Blur Gallery filter, you can create realistic motion blur along a path or a circular motion blur. To access these, go to Filter > Blur Gallery > Path or Spin blur. First, we’ll show you the Path blur. This blur mode lets you create a motion blur along a path. Simply draw a path in the direction that you’d like the motion blur to move towards. You can also draw multiple paths in different areas.

The Spin blur creates a circular motion blur and it’s great for making the wheels look like they’re moving.

With the two new blur modes, you can create great looking motion blur car ads.

Here’s a photo of with a blurry background and let’s say we want to make a selection of just the areas that are in focus. We can do this easily with the new Focus Area selection tool. To use this, go to Select > Focus Area.

Adjust the “In-Focus Range” setting or checkmark the Auto box to have Photoshop guess it for you. The selection isn’t always perfect but you can use the add and subtract tools to fix it. When you’re done, you can further enhance the selection by clicking on the Refine Edge button. This will bring up the Refine Edge tool to improve your selection.

And just like that, we created a quick selection of the in-focus areas that we can use with any adjustment or fill layers.