the image, skip this step.4 Choose Edit ⇒ Content-Aware Scale. Hold down the Shift key and drag the anchor points in the center of the four sides of the bounding box that appears to resize to fill the new canvas, and then press Return/Enter. (If you want to retain the original aspect ratio, don’t use the Shift key.) Hold down the Option/Alt key to scale from the center. If you’re resizing an image of one or more people, click the little “man” button to the right in the Options bar to protect skin tones. Before selecting Content-Aware Scale, you can also create an alpha channel (a saved selection) to identify areas of the image you want to protect. Make a selection, choose Select ⇒ Save Selection, and then select that alpha channel on Content-Aware Scale’s Options bar in the Protect menu, immediately to the left of the “man” icon. See Chapter 7 for more on alpha channels.
5 Flatten (optional). If desired, choose Layer ⇒ Flatten Image.
In this example, the original image is at the bottom. To the left, the image has been resampled from 6.67 x 10 inches to 8 x 10 inches using Image Size (with Constrain Proportions deselected). To the right, Content-Aware Scale does a much better job — in this particular case — of scaling the image to 8 x 10 inches, minimizing distortion of the subject.
Is Content-Aware Scale a substitute for properly composing in-camera before shooting? Absolutely not! Is it preferable to cropping to a new aspect ratio? Rarely. Is it an incredibly powerful tool for certain difficult challenges? Now we’re talking!
File Formats: Which Do You Need?
After working with your image in Photoshop, you need to save the changes. Choosing File ⇒ Save updates the current file on your hard drive, maintaining the current file format when possible. If you added a feature to the file that isn’t supported by the original file format, Photoshop automatically opens the Save As dialog box and shows you which features are not supported by the selected file format. In Figure 2-13, the lower part of the Save As dialog box shows the yellow warning triangles that identify options being used in the image that are not available when saving as a JPEG.
You can go ahead and save the image in that format, but your file will no longer contain those unsupported features. In the example shown in Figure 2-13, I can click the Save button and create a JPEG file, but that JPEG won’t have the alpha channel (a saved selection) or the spot colors (a custom printing color) and it will be flattened to a single layer. If I want to retain those features in the file, I need to choose a different file format, such as Photoshop’s own PSD format. (Read more about alpha channels in Chapter 7 and about spot channels in Chapter 5.)
FIGURE 2-13: Photoshop shows you which image features are not available in your selected file format.
In Figure 2-13, there’s a downward-pointing arrow to the right of the Where field. Click that arrow to expand the area for easier navigation to the folder in which you want to save the file. Also note the “Save to Cloud Documents” button to the left. Use that option to add the file to your Cloud storage.
Formats for digital photos
If you print your images yourself at home or the office, you can stick with the PSD Photoshop format when saving. (Remember that you cannot resave in a Raw format after opening in Photoshop.) If you send the photos to the local camera shop (or discount store) for printing, stick with JPEG — or, if the folks doing the printing accept it, TIFF. Here are the pros and cons of the major formats that you should consider for photos when saving:
PSD: Photoshop’s native file format is great for saving your images with the most flexibility. Because the PSD format supports all of Photoshop’s features, you don’t need to flatten your images — and keeping your layers lets you make changes later. If your file size is very large (400MB or larger), make a TIFF or JPEG copy before printing, flattening all the layers. Don’t send PSD files to the local shop for prints.
TIFF: Although the TIFF file format (as you use it in Photoshop) can save your layers and most other Photoshop features, make sure to choose Layers ⇒ Flatten Image before sending files for printing. Layered TIFF files generally are compatible only with programs in the Creative Cloud. The TIFF Options dialog box is shown in Figure 2-14.
JPG: JPEG, as it’s called, is actually a file compression scheme rather than a file format, but that’s not important. What is important is that JPEG throws away some of your image data when it saves the file. Save important images in PSD or TIFF and use JPEG only for copies.When should you use JPEG? When sending images to a photo lab that doesn’t accept TIFF files, uploading to most social media sites, and when sending images (perhaps by email or on CD) to people who don’t have Photoshop. Unlike PSD and TIFF, you can open JPEG images in a web browser and print from there — and so can Granny, and Cousin Jim, and that overseas soldier you adopted. When saving JPEGs, the lower the Quality setting you choose in the JPEG Options dialog box, the smaller the file, but also the more damage to the image. I discuss saving as JPEG in more detail in the sidebar “Resaving images in the JPEG format.”FIGURE 2-14: Remember to flatten TIFF files before saving when using them outside the Creative Cloud.
JPS: Jpeg Stereo is used to create steroscopic images that use the left half as one copy and the right half as another. It’s a specialty format for creating 3D-looking photos. You may or may not ever use the file format, but who knows what’s right down the road? (Remember the “old days” when only a few cameras could capture Raw and when nobody knew what HDR stood for? Check out Chapter 6 for info on Raw and Chapter 19 for info on HDR.)
PDF: It’s easy to overlook Adobe’s PDF format when talking about photos, but you should consider using this format. Although the local photo lab probably won’t accept it, it’s a great format for sharing your pictures with folks who don’t have Photoshop. Unlike JPEG, your images won’t be degraded when saving as PDF; and like JPEG, just about anyone with a computer can view the files. (Either Adobe Reader or the Mac’s Preview, which you can also use with PDFs, is found on just about every computer now, just like web browsers for JPEG.) Keep in mind, however, that PDF files are larger than JPEGs.
Large Document Format (PSB): Really, really, really big pictures — more than 30,000 pixels wide or long or both — must be saved in the PSB or TIFF file formats. Will you ever need this format? Consider that 30,000 pixels at a photo-quality resolution of 300 ppi is 100 inches long. At a resolution of 85 ppi, more appropriate for a long banner to hang in a hallway, you’re talking about artwork that stretches almost
