Mastering Workflow with Libraries in Photoshop CC
Are you getting the most out of your Adobe CC subscription? If you are not using libraries in Photoshop CC, you probably aren’t…
Libraries aren’t the sexiest topic we can talk about on f.64 Academy, but if you know how to use them, it can be pretty hot. Uh-hmm, my wife said that I promise! Libraries come with your Adobe Photoshop CC subscription. You know that 20 Gigs of space you get when you sign up, that’s one of the things it can be used for. But with things like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft’s One Drive, is this space really helpful or just redundant?
I find the Adobe Library Creative Cloud storage space to be invaluable. I do have a colossal Dropbox drive for my business, and I store most everything there, but Adobe’s Creative Cloud is not necessarily for business documents, it’s for creative assets. Let’s bust a quick myth about Photoshop CC.
MYTH
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CC is a Big Brother program to monitor everything you do in Photoshop on the internet, and all your data is stored in the “Cloud”?
There is almost no server in the world that could even handle that much data. Imagine that, some of my photos can be nearly two gigs in size or more. Now multiple my usage by the amount of people processing images in Photoshop. Let’s say the average Photographer processes 1000 Gigs of images in Photoshop a month, multiply that by let’s just say 4 Million active users. That would be nearly 4 Billion gigs of data that would need to be stored per month. I don’t even think Amazon’s servers are that big!
So, if you are holding back from buying a CC membership because of this myth, you may want to reconsider. The only data that goes into the Cloud from Photoshop is the data that YOU tell to go into the cloud.
In your Creative Cloud account, you get 20 Gigs of data (the standard configuration, you may have more). That means you can store images, graphics, PDFs, Color Swatches, and even layer styles in your account.
You can then access these items in Photoshop in the Libraries Palette. I use this feature all the time, and quite frankly, I think it is worth its weight in gold! In this video tutorial, I am going to show you how I use Libraries in Photoshop CC to speed up my workflow. Here are the three things I will discuss:
- Using your Libraries in Photoshop CC to call up commonly used images (like the f.64 Color Wheel)
- Using your Libraries in Photoshop CC to insert your Watermark on the fly
- How to save Adjustment Layers in a group into you Libraries to quickly edit multiple photos with full control in Photoshop.
For Blake, it's all about the art and process synergy. He dives deep into complex topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside-the-box thinking so that you can use these tricks in your workflow today!
Good tip! Thanks.
Very useful,Thanks Blake
I was already using libraries but did not think of putting adjustment layers there. Great tip that saves time!
It is pretty awesome! I am loving it.
I haven’t given the library module much thought and now see its value. Thanks
Funny I have put all my skies and textures in the library but forgot they were there until I watched this. Now I will add my color wheel as well. Great to see that I can add and remove from the cloud account itself. Thanks for this
Thanks, Blake. Excellent information and presentation.
Thanks a lot Blake ! Is it a way to store Camera Raw adjustments made on a smart object in the Library ? That would be really blilliant. I’ve tried but didn’t succeed. I follow you since a long time and like your cool approach very much
Hmm, I think the best option would be to just make a preset folder called “Smart Object Adjustments” and store them as presets in ACR.
OK, thanks.I’ll try it next time and continue to follw you .
I echo Tim’s comments above. Thanks Blake!
Some much good knowledge with a great attitude. THANKS AMIGO!
OMG, thank you.
Can’t believe I never used this before.
Dont laugh — I used to put PSD files on a USB stick to transfer to my laptop HA HA HA, i KNOW, how said is that?
No problem with that! Sometimes you need to move a PSD from one place to another, I still do it 🙂
this is just for saving resources you use often.
Really I appreciate the effort you made to share the knowledge. This is really great stuff for sharing. Keep it up. Thanks for sharing.
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