Photoshop CS For Dummies

What’s New in ImageReady CS

There are so many improvements and enhancements to this version of ImageReady that it is hard to list them all! Here’s a brief list of the many new features:

• You can’t open a document in Photoshop and ImageReady at the same time. This tighter integration between the two programs means that you can easily work in one program then quickly switch to the other program for a specific feature. There are two ways to move back and forth between the two programs. Turn to “Moving back and forth between ImageReady and Photoshop” to find out the details.

• Many layer commands, including duplicate, delete, link, and merge now work over multiple layers.

• You can group selected objects. This feature lets you group related objects and move or transform them at the same time. In addition, grouping objects preserves their positioning in relationship to each other. Press Ctrl+G (z+G on a Mac) to group selected objects. Press Shift+Ctrl+G (Shift+z+G on a Mac) to ungroup objects. Groups of objects can be nested five deep.

• You can select more than one object at a time. Drag the mouse to marquee select multiple objects in the image window. This lets you move and manipulate multiple objects at the same time without having to select and manipulate each object individually.

• You can drag multiple layers to the buttons at the bottom of the Layers palette. This enhanced functionality enables you to instantly copy and delete multiple layers, and to create new layer sets quickly.

• You can change formatting of objects en masse. You can Shift+click to select several type objects at once, and then change their formatting settings at the same time.

• You can use smart guides to align objects. When dragging objects to line them up, new smart guides appear at the edges of objects to help with alignment.

• You can directly export images to the Flash SWF file format. Editable text and vectors created in ImageReady are preserved when exported to Flash. This is an extremely important feature for Flash creators who need to tweak and manipulate the images they use for Flash animations. Turn to “Exporting Images as Flash Files” for more information.

• You can save individual layers, layer sets, and animation frames as individual files. If you are exporting layers, you can choose the same format for the entire document or a different format for each layer.

• You can use the newly designed Table palette to quickly access to new ImageReady table formatting options. You can easily format border thickness, cell padding, cell spacing, and table dimensions.

• You can create layer comps (just like in Photoshop) to save multiple configurations of a document including object position, layer blending options, and visibility. (To find out more about layer comps, turn to Chapter 8.)

• You can create multiple slice sets, hide slices, and cut, copy, or paste slices using the standard commands.