Productivity enhancements (JDIs) in CS6

Photoshop CS6 introduces over 60 productivity enhancements, also known as Just Do It (JDI) features. These small improvements address longtime customer requests and collectively can greatly increase your productivity.

• Contact Sheet II restored as an Automate option
• PDF Presentation restored as an Automate option
  
• Layer Comps to PDF restored as a Scripts option
  

Brushes

• Record brush strokes in actions with Allow Tool Recording option in Actions panel menu. (Because brush strokes are often unique to each project, be sure to disable this option after recording actions that require it.)
• Brightness/contrast slider for textures when painting
• Brush tip cursor reflects brush pose and jitter for round and captured tips
• Brush projection for static tips
• Color dynamics remain consistent for each stroke by default
• The heads-up display (HUD) for changing brush size and hardness can also change opacity: Press Control+Alt (Windows) or Command+Option (Mac OS), and drag up or down. (In the General preferences, you must deselect Vary Round Brush Hardness Based on HUD Vertical Movement.)
• Increased maximum brush size to 5000 pixels

Channels

• Enabled Split Channels for documents with single layer (so you can split simple transparency)
  
  

Color Picker

• Allows pasting into hexadecimal field with # (for example, #aabbcc) or 0x (for example, 0xAABBCC)
• Allows shortcut hexadecimal values (for example, #123)

Eyedropper

• Added option to ignore adjustment layers to Sample menu in options bar
• Added option to sample from current layer and below to Sample menu
• Sample size options now appear in context menu for various Eyedropper tools (black point and white point in Levels, and so forth)

File formats

• Reads more bit depths in TIFF files
• Adds options for addressing OpenEXR transparency when opening and saving
  
• Reads BIGTIFF format (TIFF files over 4 Gig)
  
• Reads common stereo image pair formats (JPS, MPO, PNS)

GPU

• Increased stability by prequalifying detected GPUs before use

Image resizing

• Bicubic Automatic option auto-selects the best resample method based on the type of resize
  

Importing

• (Mac OS) ImageKit scanner and camera support to import images from more devices
  

Layers

• Added Interpolation menu to options bar for Free Transform command
• Added dither option to Gradient Overlay and Gradient Stroke layer styles
• Added 00 and Shift + 00 shortcuts to set layer and fill opacity to 0%
• Simultaneously change locking, blend mode, or color label for multiple selected layers
• Ctrl/Command + J  duplicates selected layer groups (in addition to layers)
• Layer tool tips include layer name
• New Rasterize Layer Style command merges layer effects into layer
• Reordered layer styles to reflect the order in which they are applied (placing drop shadow, for example, below the other effects)
• Show Blend If/Blending Options badge on layer if Layer Style blending options have been customized
• Alt/Opt + click FX toggle arrows shows or hides all layer effects
• Correct opacity and blend mode displayed for hidden layers
• When renaming layers, pressing Tab goes to next layer; Shift + Tab goes to previous.
• Shape layer names reflect the tool name (for example, "Rectangle 1")

Liquify

• Added GPU video card acceleration
• Added Basic and Advanced user interface modes
• Improved Mac cursor visibility
• Added option to load last mesh
• Increased maximum Liquify brush size to 15,000
• (English only) Resize Liquify brush with bracket-key [ ] shortcuts, which now match increments elsewhere in Photoshop
• Ctrl (Windows) / Command (Mac OS) switches to magnifying glass
• Alt + right click + drag changes brush size (Windows)
• Ctrl + Alt + click + drag changes brush size (Mac OS)

Masks

• Enable Invert and Threshold adjustments for masks in 32-bit/channel images
  

Plug-ins

• Hold down Shift during startup to disable Optional and 3rd party plug-ins

Presets

• Added New Document presets for common devices (for example, iPhone, iPad, and so forth)
• Added new Gradient Map presets for traditional print toning and split-toning
• Reorganized tool presets remain after restart
• New HDR Pro presets from RC Concepcion and Scott Kelby

Printing

• Added Edit button for description field in Print dialog
  
• Allow Print dialog and print preview window to be resized
  
• Allow customizable preview background color in the Print dialog
  
• Allow manual repositioning of the printed area on page
  
• Hide color profiles that are inappropriate for currently selected printer when using Photoshop Manages Color
  
• Reintroduced Print Selected Area; you can modify selection in Print dialog

Saving

• Warning message indicates that 16-bit images cannot display their file size in the Save as JPEG dialog

SDK

• Added ability to access tool name associated with the tool preset name via scripting
• Added the ability to return an array of guides in a document from the scripting SDK

Selections

• Support for decimal feather values for Marquee tool, Lasso tool, and Mask panel (like the Feather dialog)
  
• Feather radius recalled in Make Selection from path dialog
  

Transform

• Layer thumbnail continues to show Smart Object icon when transforming a layer
• Improved dragging of vector curves
• Can rotate 90 degrees with even x odd pixel dimension to avoid landing on a half-pixel position. (To enable this behavior, Snap Vector Tools And Transforms To Pixel Grid must be selected in the General preferences.)
• Added File Handling > Ignore Rotation Metadata preference to disable automatic rotation of images based on file metadata

Type

• Added Type > Paste Lorem Ipsum command to quickly insert placeholder text
  
• Added Blend Text Colors Using Gamma setting to blend text layers using a gamma setting distinct from the document color space. To access this option, choose Edit > Color Settings, and click More Options at right. The default setting, 1.45, blends text more correctly than previous Photoshop versions, better matching other applications.

Note: When you select Blend Text Colors Using Gamma, text layers from Photoshop CS6 will look different in earlier versions of Photoshop.

User interface

• New/Open document commands available by context-clicking document tabs (longtime Mac OS feature now on Windows too)
  
• Added "Don't show again" checkbox to Purge warnings
  
• Removed the app bar and reduced the draggable title bar over 30%