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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Adobe Photoshop continues to evolve and so should your skills. Written by Adobe Certified Expert Gary Bradley, Mastering Adobe Photoshop 2026 is the definitive guide for designers, marketers, and visual content creators looking to upgrade their editing capabilities with Adobe’s latest tools and features. Whether you’re refining product shots, creating print collateral, or animating social media visuals, this second edition delivers an expertly structured approach that blends professional techniques with hands-on practice.
Structured into four progressive parts, the book builds your skills from interface mastery and healing tools to branding mock-ups, video shorts, and surrealist artwork. This edition goes beyond basic image editing by teaching advanced workflows like non-destructive retouching, seamless masking, batch automation, and content creation optimized for multiple platforms. Two brand-new chapters help you embrace the future of image editing by exploring AI-powered retouching with Adobe Firefly and the latest updates and new features from Adobe MAX.
By the end of this book, you’ll have complete command over Photoshop’s powerful feature set, allowing you to craft stunning visuals that impress clients, employers, and online audiences alike.
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Seitenzahl: 530
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Mastering Adobe Photoshop 2026
Second Edition
Enhance your digital imagery skills with advanced photo editing and visual design workflows
Gary Bradley
Mastering Adobe Photoshop 2026
Second Edition
Copyright © 2025 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
Portfolio Director: Pavan Ramchandani
Relationship Lead: Mohd Riyan Khan
Program Manager: Divij Kotian
Content Engineer: Akanksha Gupta
Technical Editor: Vidhisha Patidar
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Proofreader: Akanksha Gupta
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First published: January 2024
Second published: December 2025
Production reference: 1281125
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
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Birmingham
B3 1RB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-80602-171-0
www.packtpub.com
For Luka and Alfie.
May you never lose the curiosity and joyful mischief that make every day an adventure.
– Gary Bradley
Foreword
When I created my first photo composite of my grandfather standing arm in arm with his younger self back in the early 2000s, I quickly realized something important: Photoshop’s basic tools could produce compelling results, but truly professional work required mastering the deeper workflows and hidden capabilities that most users never discover on their own.
That moment of creative possibility sparked a passion that would define my career path. What began as experimentation grew into formal graphic design training and eventually teaching Photoshop to professionals through courses and at events like Adobe MAX and CreativePro Week. Along the way, I met many professionals who found it challenging to move beyond the basics. Online tutorials offered scattered tips, but they rarely connected into complete workflows that could be applied in daily practice.
This book is exactly the kind of comprehensive resource I wish had existed during my own journey from curious experimenter to professional trainer. Photoshop is endlessly fascinating because its countless functions can be combined in infinite ways. Your learning journey truly never ends, since there is always someone discovering a new combination of tools that makes tasks easier or produces better results. Gary Bradley’s Mastering Adobe Photoshop 2026 does that by gathering proven techniques into one place, so you do not have to search for them yourself.
What makes this book particularly valuable is how Gary integrates cutting-edge AI workflows alongside established techniques. While Photoshop has incorporated intelligent features for years, the recent explosion of generative AI has changed how we approach complex tasks such as advanced retouching, seamless compositing, and brand mockup creation. Gary provides clear guidance on when and how to use these new capabilities effectively.
Whether you’re a seasoned designer looking to work more efficiently, a marketing professional seeking stronger visual results, or a content creator ready to expand your skills, this book offers workflows that will help you get much more out of Photoshop. It saves you the search for scattered information and brings together the best of both traditional and modern techniques.
What I love most about Photoshop is how it continues to grow with you. Whether you are just beginning with composites or already know every tool in the program, there are always new combinations to discover. The excitement you feel when a technique suddenly makes everything click is the same experience this book will give you, as you uncover methods you did not know existed.
Rob de Winter
Trainer, Author, and International Speaker
Foreword
It is a true privilege to introduce you to Mastering Adobe Photoshop 2026, and to the brilliant mind of experienced professional and seasoned educator, Gary Bradley.
I first met Gary in 2004, after starting as a 3D artist and animator at an agency in Sheffield. From week one, I knew Gary as “the Photoshop guy.” If you needed help with anything Adobe, Gary was an absolute fountain of knowledge. He didn’t just know the tools; he mastered the workflows. His workstation was packed with custom shortcuts, automations, and asset libraries he’d configured to support our intense production workflows, ensuring efficiency was always at the heart of the creative process.
I learned so much from Gary in those early days of finding my feet in a fast-paced, professional creative environment. He had a natural, supportive teaching style and always made time to guide you. And when he wasn’t on client work, he was busy building new templates and how-to guides for the design team or leading a training course for some of our clients. Following those 3D agency days, we followed different career paths—mine into customer experience and digital agency land, and Gary, unsurprisingly, moved heavily into the teaching field, quickly making a big name for himself in the Adobe circuit.
This background is exactly why I can speak with confidence about the critical value of this book today. Our industry has undergone immense technological shifts in the last twenty years, yet the fundamentals of human connection, creative ideas, and execution remain central to any successful project.
In my current leadership role, focused on delivering world-class customer experiences at UNRVLD, AI has become a powerful accelerator – and an equally powerful challenge. We champion an approach that maintains the ‘human at the core,’ where technology serves, but never replaces, human creativity and judgment. The philosophy is simple: Start with the customer, not the AI. The technology must accelerate your vision and should be woven across all systems – from CMS to analytics and experimentation - to provide maximum context and deliver tangible business outcomes.
The human element is paramount. When an AI generates an image or executes an action, it operates based on learned logic and training data. It cannot, however, discern the ultimate creative quality needed for your specific assignment, nor can it supply the empathy, humor, and authenticity crucial for brand consistency in an accelerating, automated world. The human touch is what elevates the work, ensuring creativity and brand integrity remain intact. You are the creative director; the AI is your tireless assistant.
This brings us directly to the core of Gary’s expertise. Mastering Adobe Photoshop 2026 is far more than a guide to the latest features - including the powerful AI functionalities mentioned in Chapter 12. It is a foundation in the proven best practices required to truly leverage new technology. This book demonstrates how to use new tools to increase confidence, accelerate your workflow, and free up time and energy to focus on creative strategy and vision. Ultimately, Gary’s training provides the technical skills needed to command the Photoshop toolkit, ensuring that this cutting-edge technology serves your creative vision, and not the other way around.
I encourage you to turn the page and dive in. You are in the hands of a true master and a generous teacher.
James Carrington
Commercial Director at UNRVLD
Contributors
About the author
Gary Bradley is an award-winning graphic designer, creative director, author, and dedicated educator with over 25 years of industry experience and a passion for nurturing creative talent. Throughout his career, Gary has led multidisciplinary design teams across four continents and delivered innovative projects for clients such as Virgin Atlantic, the London Science Museum, Guinness, and Hugo Boss. His expertise spans print, interactive media, web design, visual effects, 3D visualization, and motion graphics.
Gary founded Creative Frontiers, a mentoring business that has supported thousands of designers across 26 countries, helping enhance the creative capabilities of companies including Microsoft, Burberry, and Walmart. In education, he serves as a Graphic Design Lecturer at University Campus Doncaster. Gary holds a BA in Graphic Design from Leeds Beckett University, a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education from Falmouth University, and professional certifications in Creative Thinking from King’s College London. He is also an Adobe Master Instructor, with over forty Adobe Expert Certifications in applications such as Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator.
I hope you found valuable tips and guidance on using Adobe Photoshop 2026 for your daily digital design work in this book. I want to express my deepest gratitude to all the people who were part of putting this book together: my long-suffering family, who supported me throughout and never complained during long evenings and missed walks in the Peaks. My good friends Steve Askey, Dave Ellis, and Neil Roebuck, who always make time to lend an ear. Special thanks to James Carrington for somehow finding time to write the foreword to this book, along with Rob de Winter. And of course, the Packt Team, Akanksha Gupta, Mohd Riyan Khan, and Vidhisha Patidar, for their patience and invaluable support, along with the technical reviewers Iain Anderson and Matthew Gibbon.
About the reviewers
Iain Anderson is the author of Final Cut Pro Efficient Editing and the upcoming book, AI for Creative Production. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Iain is an Apple Certified Trainer, a regular writer for ProVideoCoalition, a co-creator of the current Apple Certified FCP Training exam and curriculum, a plug-in developer for FxFactory, a lead trainer and writer for macProVideo.com, a regular conference speaker, a videographer, an editor, an animator, a designer, a photographer, a retoucher, and sometimes an app developer for iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. He’s created animations and live videos for clients including Microsoft and CoreMelt, designed virtual islands in Second Life for the government, and made screensavers for fun.
Matthew Gibbon is a Mac systems trainer and Apple Certified Support Professional with over 33 years of experience in advertising, desktop publishing, and design. Based in South Africa, he specializes in supporting and maintaining Mac IT environments, managing deployments, diagnostics, repairs, upgrades, and data recovery. Matthew provides comprehensive macOS and Repro training across Apple hardware, iPadOS and iOS apps, and leading creative tools including Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Lightroom, Camera Raw, Bridge, and Acrobat. A longtime Mac beta tester and technical coordinator, he delivers hands-on guidance to end-users and creative teams alike. Matthew has served as a technical reviewer for Mastering Adobe Photoshop 2024 and Mastering Adobe Photoshop 2026.
Dedicated to my family, Yolanda, Bianca, and Ryan, for their support and guidance and love.
Contents
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Download the example files
Get in touch
Free Benefits with Your Book
How to Unlock
Part 1: Raising Your Photoshop Game
What’s New in Photoshop 2026?
Free Benefits with Your Book
Technical requirements
What’s new in Photoshop 2026 on the desktop
Creating and applying adjustment presets
The all-new Adjustment Brush Tool
Adjust colors
Color and Vibrance
Remove background
Harmonize
Generate image
Contextual Task Bar updates
The new Photoshop app on iOS and Android
Summary
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Making Photoshop Work Harder and Smarter
Technical requirements
Creating a bespoke workspace
Modifying panels
Customizing the Tools panel
Saving a custom workspace
Modifying keyboard shortcuts and menus
Modifying preferences
Defining color settings
Quality-first approach
Image quality
Resolution
Pixels per inch
Vector graphics
Calculating PPI in Photoshop
Online resources
Unsplash
Pexels
Adobe Stock
Other notable stock resources on the web
An introduction to image usage and copyright
Creative Commons licensing
CC BY
CC BY-SA
CC BY-ND
CC BY-NC
CC BY-NC-SA
Attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)
CC0
Model release
Property release
Summary
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Non-Destructive Healing and Retouching
Technical requirements
Cropping and straightening images and extending the canvas
Straightening a crooked image
Cropping images
Extending the canvas with content-aware cropping
Quick cropping tips
Content-aware scaling
Healing and retouching
Removing cables from a photo
Removing large blemishes with Content-Aware Fill
Bending subjects with Puppet Warp
Using the Clone Stamp tool to remove unwanted content
Adding smiles to portraits with Face-Aware Liquify
Portrait retouching
Eliminating glare from glasses
Color and tonal editing with adjustment layers
How adjustment layers work
Quick tonal editing with adjustment layers and blend modes
Removing color casts
Altering the hue of multiple subjects
The simplest method for color matching
Matching subjects to new backdrops
Summary
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Masking and Cutouts
Technical requirements
Applying and editing a basic layer mask
Masking power shortcuts
Using masks to cut out image backgrounds
Applying masks to adjustment layers
Retouching with a layer mask
Working with gradient masks
Creating distressed photo edges
Masking with Blend If
Masking hair
Making detailed adjustments to layer masks
Unlinking images and masks
Masking layer groups
Working with vector masks
Creating an editable vignette with a vector mask
Creating a typographic mask effect
Summary
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Part 2: Bringing Brands Front and Center
Building Brand Mock-Ups and Prototypes
Technical requirements
Considerations for developing mock-ups
Applying branding to perspective
Adding a logo to a bag in perspective
Creating a mural mock-up
Wrapping artwork around curved surfaces
Applying a cylinder warp
Warping artwork across book designs
Replacing device screens with your own artwork
Creating an iPad mock-up
Creating a smartphone mock-up
Adding screen reflections
Creating clothing and soft furnishing mock-ups
Applying original designs to clothing
Adding pattern designs to a cushion
Creating the cushion displacement map
Applying the pattern artwork
Finessing the rippled surface details
Summary
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Creating Printed Marketing Collateral
Technical requirements
Creating new print projects
Color
Printers’ marks
Folds
Setting up a Photoshop grid system
Building a new A4 poster document
Creating a new business card template
Building a new Z-fold brochure
Importing artwork and formatting types
Creating a business card design using only vector assets
Synchronizing fonts from Creative Cloud
Adding type to the Z-fold brochure
Creating and applying paragraph styles
Adding artwork to the brochure
Exporting documents for professional print
Exporting to Adobe PDF
Exporting to the Tagged Image File Format
Saving as a JPG
Summary
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From Pixels to Post: Images for Social Media
Technical requirements
Creating new documents for screen and web
Examining artwork specs for Facebook
Examining artwork for X
Examining artwork for Instagram
Examining artwork specs for Pinterest
Examining artwork for LinkedIn
Social media sizes
Working with artboards
Adding a header image
Creating an X post template
Adding text to the artboard
Duplicating artboards
Exporting and scheduling posts
Batch export artboards
Scheduling posts with Adobe Express
Summary
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Creating Animated GIFs and Videos
Technical requirements
The Timeline panel
Video groups
AV file formats accepted by Photoshop
Video and GIF limitations on social media
Creating animated GIFs
Defining a new animation document
Adding brand colors, logos, and text
Creating frame animations
Creating tween animations
Working with video and audio in Photoshop
Creating a new document intended for video
Adding media to the timeline
Applying transitions to footage
Animating an Adobe Illustrator logo in the timeline
Adding a soundtrack to the timeline
Creating videos from still images and text
Setting up a duplicate document
Importing and animating an image
Copying and pasting keyframes onto the second clip
Copying and pasting keyframes onto the third clip
Adding titles to the sequence
Exporting animations and video from Photoshop
Exporting animated GIFs
Export Video
Summary
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Part 3: Building Visual Components
Bringing Typography to Life with Effects and Styling
Technical requirements
Understanding typographic terms and principles
Synchronizing Adobe fonts
Creating cut and fold effects
Creating sliced text
Creating an embossed type
Creating cut and fold effects
Applying ink and paint effects
Creating dripping paint
Creating and applying the paint displacement map
Refining the paint effect
Creating a graffiti typographic effect
Formatting the underlying type layer
Creating long shadows
Adding spray paint effects to the text and shadows
Summary
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Creating Textures, Patterns, and Backdrops
Technical requirements
Creating new textures, gradients, and patterns
Creating a texture from scratch
Creating an atmospheric gradient backdrop
Creating pop-art-inspired artwork with custom patterns
Managing backdrop assets
Adding assets with Creative Cloud libraries
Importing and exporting assets
Simulating environments with filters and effects
Summary
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Creating and Applying Brushes
Technical requirements
Creating and managing brush tip presets
Creating a custom bird brush
Modifying brush properties
Creating the large Art History Brush
Creating the medium Art History Brush
Creating a small Art History Brush
Creating a reconstruction Art History Brush
Creating and backing up a brush preset group
Applying brushes for creative effect
Using brushes for retouching
Creating a snowflake brush
Creating a stubble brush
Summary
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Part 4: World Building
Integrating Artificial Intelligence
Technical requirements
Handy tips for text prompts
How to structure effective prompts
Describing the medium and subject
Describing actions, the environment, and props
Going deeper with your prompt
Generating images with Adobe Firefly
About Firefly image models
Getting to know the Firefly interface
Creating an image in Firefly
Generative retouching
Replacing drab skies
Replacing content with Generative Fill
Removing distractions
The Remove Tool
Partner models
Upscaling images with AI
Everyone is Bananas for Gemini 2.5
Replacing and expanding backgrounds
Extending the canvas
Generating new backgrounds
Summary
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Blending and Collaging Images
Technical requirements
Creating seamless panoramas
Building collages with texture and paint
Posterizing the source photo
Selecting and masking posterized regions
Adding texture and paint to the posterized sections
Creating double-exposure compositions
Blending unrelated images
Blending two exposures of the same image
Working with HDR images
Advice for shooting HDR source images
Installing Adobe Bridge
Creating an HDR image with HDR Pro
Summary
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Creating Surrealist Artwork
Technical requirements
How to approach a surrealist art project
Creating simple yet effective surrealist art
Transferring the Moon artwork
Scaling and distorting the Moon
Turning the pink balloon into grayscale
Replacing chair shadows
Creating moonlight effects
Creating and editing project-specific assets
Isolating the hands from the shot
Creating smoke effects with brushes and filters
Summary
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Index
Preface
Mastering Adobe Photoshop 2026 will guide you step-by-step through the in-demand skills required by the industry. This book will build on your existing Photoshop knowledge, helping you become a more productive image editor and improve the quality of your work. It will teach you about essential resources for graphic designers or marketers seeking transformative career growth, including the knowledge and skills to achieve jaw-dropping results with AI tools built into Photoshop and Adobe Firefly.
As a digital content creator, whether you’re working on projects for print, screen, or social media, having a solid understanding of Photoshop is essential. So, if you are ready to hone your skills and expand your capabilities, Mastering Adobe Photoshop 2026 will guide you there.
This book takes a step-by-step approach, breaking down each technique into easily understandable terms, which makes it accessible even to those who are new to advanced editing. Then, through a series of hands-on exercises, you’ll have the opportunity to practice these techniques and learn about each tool’s strengths and limitations.
In the book’s final section, you’ll bring everything together and learn how to produce your digital media projects from start to finish. You’ll learn how to plan your projects, maintain flexibility throughout the editing process, and prepare artwork for a range of outputs.
From creating captivating visuals for social media to mastering retouching and compositing, this book focuses on the knowledge and skills that will help you achieve a stronger workflow and a more refined approach to producing professional-quality visuals.
Who this book is for
This book is for people with a basic working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop who are determined to enhance their skills to a professional standard with proven industry techniques and workflows. Understanding digital media file types will be an advantage to help you gain the most value from this book.
If you’re a designer or marketer looking to build upon a basic working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop, gain invaluable insights into professional editing techniques, and take your career to the next step, this book is for you.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, What’s New in Photoshop will guide you through the most impactful updates since the 2026 release, including innovative AI tools and streamlined workflows.
Chapter 2, Making Photoshop Work Harder and Smarter, provides you with new ways of working with familiar tools that will build upon and enhance your basic knowledge of Adobe Photoshop.
Chapter 3, Non-Destructive Healing and Retouching, teaches you how to hide unwanted content from images and apply essential color and tonal edits non-destructively, meaning that your edits can be edited multiple times without losing quality. This will first require quick and accurate selections with a variety of tools.
Chapter 4, Masking and Cutouts, showcases powerful tools for concealing and revealing layer content without permanent deletion. These skills enable you to extract intricate details such as hair from backgrounds and create montages.
Chapter 5, Building Brand Mock-Ups and Prototypes, teaches you how to bring ideas and concepts to life by creating realistic mockups. You will learn how to apply graphics to a series of surfaces, such as walls, device screens, t-shirts, and cushions, using smart workflows that allow you to re-edit your assets without losing quality.
Chapter 6, Creating Printed Marketing Collateral, provides an in-depth look at how to prepare new documents for print output for flyers, posters, and business cards, and how to create grid systems and print characteristics like bleed to expertly manage content such as text layers, branding, and photos.
Chapter 7, From Pixels to Post: Images for Social Media, takes you through a streamlined process for creating social media images. You will learn how to use artboards to manage multiple images in a single document, protect text and logos in smart object layers, and text styles for rapid type formatting. Then, you will see how to export your branded images with ease to multiple file formats and sizes, ready for posting online.
Chapter 8, Creating Animated GIFs and Videos, looks at how to create and edit video and animated GIFs in Photoshop. We will be using familiar tools to import video clips, add transitions and audio to a simple yet powerful timeline, and export animated GIFs or render video to common file formats ready for posting online or on platforms such as YouTube.
Chapter 9, Bringing Typography to Life with Effects and Styling, takes you through a series of typographic effects to make your text stand out. We will use editable layer effects to create paper folds, slices, dripping paint, graffiti art, and embossed paper, all while keeping your text layers editable. You will learn how to change characters, words, font families, and font size without compromising your final designs.
Chapter 10, Creating Textures, Patterns, and Backdrops, teaches how to create your own backdrops, from realistic textures to geometric gradients, pop art, and science fiction space scenes. All will be created from scratch without any source images so you can build visually captivating backdrops anytime.
Chapter 11, Creating and Applying Brushes, introduces you to the immense power and flexibility of Photoshop brushes. You will learn how to create your own brush tip shapes, from a flock of birds and snowflakes to sampled paint strokes and facial hair for retouching.
Chapter 12, Integrating Artificial Intelligence, explores the generative image technology built into familiar tools and the Photoshop interface, as well as the online platform, Adobe Firefly, to create an array of visuals from simple text prompts.
Chapter 13, Blending and Collaging Images, combines many of the professional-grade techniques in this book to successfully create image montages, seamless panoramas, collage self-portraits, double-exposure effects, and beautifully lit scenes using high dynamic range images that blend the lighting data of multiple shots.
Chapter 14, Creating Surrealist Artwork, challenges you and your new skills with two surrealist art projects. You will draw upon the techniques covered throughout this book to produce visually captivating, surreal artwork.
To get the most out of this book
Software/hardware covered in the book
Operating system requirements
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Bridge
Adobe Express
Windows, macOS, or Linux
Download the example files
You can download the example files for this book from https://packt.link/gbz/9781806021710. If there’s an update to the files, it will be updated at the link.
We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!
Download the color images
We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://packt.link/gbp/9781806021710.
Conventions used
There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.
CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, and user input. For example: “Open Shoreline.jpg from the 03-Retouch folder.”
Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see on the screen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. For example: “Zoom with Scroll Wheel allows you to avoid activating the Zoom tool altogether, while Animated Zoom and Flick Panning make the motion of panning and zooming less jarring on the eye.”
Warnings or important notes appear like this
Tips and tricks appear like this.
Get in touch
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Part 1
Raising Your Photoshop Game
We all discover Photoshop differently, often learning about tools and features that are relevant to our work. However, this can lead to knowledge gaps that may hold us back. Part 1 of this book will focus on essential skills and how to build upon them, starting with Chapter 1, which brings you bang up to speed with the latest features and updates announced at Adobe Max.
This part of the book includes the following chapters:
Chapter 1, What’s New in PhotoshopChapter 2, Making Photoshop Work Harder and SmarterChapter 3, Non-Destructive Healing and RetouchingChapter 4, Masking and Cutouts1
What’s New in Photoshop 2026?
As a young designer in the late 1990s, I greeted new versions of Adobe Photoshop like a kid in a candy store. Updates were shipped on a CD-ROM every two years, so there was a fair amount of anticipation. In between, little was known about how Adobe’s digital tools would evolve until they were installed.
These days, things are very different. Social media provides a constant drip feed of teasers and posts covering features that haven’t even appeared in the full application, thanks to Beta versions. Updates can now pass you by, often installed automatically without your knowledge, which could lead you to miss out on valuable time-saving enhancements to your workflow.
In this chapter, we’ll examine updates and new features in the desktop version of Photoshop 2026 (version 27.0) and the recently launched smartphone version of the application.
In this chapter, we’ll cover the following topics:
What’s new in Photoshop 2026 on the desktopThe new Photoshop app on iOS and AndroidFree Benefits with Your Book
Your purchase includes a free PDF copy of this book along with other exclusive benefits. Check the Free Benefits with Your Book section in the Preface to unlock them instantly and maximize your learning experience.
Technical requirements
The project files for this chapter can be found at https://packt.link/gbz/9781806021710.
What’s new in Photoshop 2026 on the desktop
In October 2023, Adobe implemented the first of several changes to the Adjustments panel and the methods for editing color and tone in Photoshop. These modifications mimic some of the editing concepts found in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), where multiple edits can be applied simultaneously and saved for future use. Let’s explore how this works in principle, starting with an updated Adjustments panel.
Creating and applying adjustment presets
You can now add layer adjustments to an image and save one or more of them as a preset for later use. This can be particularly handy if, for example, you need to boost color and enhance contrast in your images quickly. To achieve this, click on the text tab named Single adjustments, apply one or more adjustments to your image, and edit their respective settings. As in previous versions of Photoshop, every single adjustment is added as a separate layer in the Layers panel.
Figure 1.1: Creating presets in the Adjustments panel
When you want to save them as a preset, head to the Layers panel and target (make active) the adjustment layers you wish to include in your preset by clicking on them in the Layers stack. Alternatively, hold Ctrl (Windows) or Cmd (macOS) as you click the layer name to add additional layers. Then, click on Create Adjustment Preset, which is shown as a plus icon at the top of the Adjustments panel.
The new adjustment preset will be automatically added to the active preset group in the Adjustments panel. If, like me, you prefer to keep your presets organized into specific sets, I recommend creating a new preset group. It’s possible to accidentally add a new preset group to an existing group, which can be frustrating. Ensure that no existing preset group is active by clicking in an empty space at the bottom of the Adjustments panel. Then, click on the Create Group icon, represented by a folder icon at the top of the Adjustments panel. Name your group and click OK.You will then be able to drag and drop the presets and groups as necessary at the bottom of the Adjustments panel.
To apply an adjustment preset, click on the thumbnail of the corresponding preset. You can also hover your cursor over a preset thumbnail to reveal an on-image preview of what the edits would look like on your active image before applying them.
The all-new Adjustment Brush Tool
If you’ve worked with adjustment layers in Photoshop, you’ll know that not every edit to color and tone is required across an entire image. The addition of a layer mask is often necessary to conceal edits where they are not needed. The new Adjustment Brush Tool aims to expedite the masking part of this process. In previous versions of Photoshop, you'd often have to create a selection of the region you needed to affect, then add an adjustment layer, which subsequently used your active selection as a layer mask.
Select Adjustment BrushTool, located in the lower half of the Tools panel. Next, from either the Options bar or the contextual task bar, choose an adjustment from the Adjustment Type drop-down menu. There are 16 adjustments available that replicate those found in the main Adjustments panel. Since this is a painting tool, you can then adjust the size, hardness, or brush tip shape from the Options bar before applying brush strokes.
Figure 1.2: The new Adjustment Brush Tool with settings in the Options bar and Contextual Task Bar
As you drag the Adjustment Brush Tool across your image, a magenta overlay will appear, indicating where your edits will be visible, with the adjustment’s default settings applied in a new adjustment layer in the Layers panel. The Properties panel will also appear, where you can fine-tune the adjustment settings once you release the mouse. You find it necessary at this point to deactivate the colored overlay (B in Figure 1.2) so that you can see the impact of your edits on the image.
To edit the adjustment layer mask, choose either the Add to Mask or Subtract from Mask modes in the Options bar/Contextual Task Bar (A in Figure 1.2) and drag in the region of the image you wish to edit with the Adjustment Brush Tool.
You can change the adjustment type by selecting a different option from the Adjustment Type dropdown. To add more adjustments, click the Add new adjustment button in the contextual task bar, select your adjustment type, and begin dragging the Adjustment Brush Tool over the image. Alternatively, you can click on the Apply to Object button in the contextual task bar. Then, hover your cursor over an object in your image to reveal the overlay, and click to create a new adjustment layer with the object masked.
Adjust colors
The Hue/Saturation adjustment panel now identifies the six most prominent colors in your image to simplify editing, replacing the fixed color ranges once available in a drop-down menu. You can access the Adjust colors feature from the contextual task bar when you have a pixel-based layer or smart object active in the Layers panel. Click on the Adjust colors button.
Figure 1.3: The Adjust colors option in the Contextual Task Bar
Once Adjust colors is activated, Photoshop will detect the six most prominent colors (A in Figure 1.3) in the image and display them in the contextual task bar. In addition, a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer will be added to the layer stack. By default, all colors are active for editing in the image, and by clicking on the far-left icon in the contextual task bar(B in Figure 1.3), you can edit the hue, saturation, and lightness.
To change a prominent color for an alternative of your choice, click on an unused color slot (A in Figure 1.3). Then, click on the Sample color icon (C in Figure 1.3) in the contextual task bar, hover your cursor over the desired color in the image, and click.
To change the appearance of a prominent color, click on it in the contextual task bar to reveal a pop-up containing the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness sliders. Then, drag the sliders accordingly to make the necessary changes.
Figure 1.4: Adjusting the six most prominent colors in your image with Adjust colors
Edited colors display a dot under their swatch icon (A in Figure 1.4) with a split showing the original color and the edited color. The same settings can be found in an updated version of the Adjustments panel.
Color and Vibrance
Another adjustment to undergo a boost is Vibrance. Now renamed Color and vibrance, it includes controls for Temperature and Tint in addition to Vibrance and Saturation for non-destructive editing. Temperature allows you to adjust the warmth of an image; negative values result in a cooler blue/cyan appearance, whilst positive values give a warmer yellow/orange appearance. The Tint slider lets you change the balance between green and magenta, with negative values giving a green cast, and positive values a magenta cast.
Alternatively, you can select the White Balance tool (A in Figure 1.5) next to the White Balance drop-down menu to set Temperature and Tint automatically. Once active, hover the White Balance tool over a neutral region of the image containing no color, such as the shaded white window surrounds (B). Then, click to set the white balance.
Figure 1.5: Color and vibrance allows non-destructive editing for Temperature and Tint
Remove background
First introduced in 2019, the Remove background feature sped up masking by detecting a subject and adding a layer mask that concealed the rest of the image, thereby removing the background. In later versions, selecting a subject could be processed either in the cloud for better results, which took longer, or on the active device for faster processing but with less reliable results.
In Photoshop 2026, the results of both cloud and device masking have taken an enormous leap forward in quality. You can now use either the cloud or device method to achieve high-quality cut-outs. In the example shown in Figure 1.6, the device produced a better-quality mask than the cloud version:
Figure 1.6: Remove background now produces far better masking results
Even with a background color that was similar to the subject, Photoshop could correctly identify the foreground object and keep fine details such as the spokes intact. Only a feathered edge around the chain would have required me to make further refinements to the mask.
To remove the background in an active image, click on the Remove background button in the contextual task bar (Window → Contextual Task Bar).
You can set a default method for processing selections when using Select subject and Remove background. Go to Edit → Preferences → Image Processing (Windows) or Photoshop → Preferences → Image Processing (macOS). Click the Select Subject and Remove Background dropdown, then choose Cloud or Device (default) from the list of options.
Figure 1.7: Choosing a default method for selecting and removing backgrounds in Preferences
Photoshop’s Preferences settings allow you to modify the application’s appearance, performance, and behavior. From the painting cursors to units of measure, we’ll take an in-depth look at Preferences in Chapter 2.
Harmonize
In Chapter 3, we’ll look at a technique for merging a subject into a new backdrop, a process that can be time-consuming and require editing the color, tone, shadows, and reflections to achieve a convincing result. Now, Harmonize promises to do this in one click.
In each instance, you’ll need to remove the background of your subject and then juxtapose it with a new background.
Figure 1.8: Juxtaposing the subject within a new background
With your subject placed accordingly, click on Harmonize from the contextual task bar. Photoshop will then analyze the background and create a copy of it and the subject, merging them into a new layer. Generative AI will match the color and lighting, as well as create shadows and reflections cast by the subject.
Once complete, the Properties panel then displays three variations that you can click on and choose your final composition from. The original background and subject layers will be maintained lower in the layer stack, with the new Harmonized layer at the top. This allows you to delete the Harmonized layer and refine the placement of the original assets, if needed.
Harmonize tends to add shadows and reflections as though the subject were touching the surface, which may be problematic if your subject is leaping in the air, for example. It might take a few attempts to achieve the desired look, but for a one-click solution, this could be a dramatic time saver.
Figure 1.9: The subject and background blended with Harmonize
Generate image
A simplified version of Adobe Firefly is now available within the Photoshop interface, used for creating new AI-generated images for use in your project work. Go to Edit → Generate image to open the dialog.
Figure 1.10: Creating AI-generated images in Photoshop
When the Generate image dialog appears, enter a description of the image you want to create in the Prompt field. Choose whether the image should look like a photo or art by clicking on the corresponding button under Content type.
You can also specify an effect from one of the eight topics shown on the right of the dialog, such as Materials, Technique, Themes, and Concepts. Like the web version of Adobe Firefly, you can upload an image for a Style and Composition reference. Style will attempt to match a visual theme from the uploaded photo or the pre-supplied library. Composition will try to match the angles and overall structure of the reference image.
Figure 1.11: An example AI-generated image
Generated images are inserted into your active image in Photoshop at a maximum resolution of 2048 x 2048 px. The Properties panel will display three variants. Click on each thumbnail to display the variant in the image window. You will learn more about Photoshop’s generative AI features in Chapter 12.
Contextual Task Bar updates
Since its first appearance in the 2023 Photoshop release, the Contextual Task Barhas expanded to include new, convenient options. Along with features already discussed in this chapter that can be edited via the contextual task bar, such as Harmonize and Adjust colors, you’ll now find more Type options (A in Figure 1.12), including Leading, Tracking, Faux Bold, Faux Italics, and Faux Underline. You can also toggle Dynamic Text on or off (B).
Figure 1.12: New and updated features found in the Contextual Task Bar
If you’re looking to add new content to your image, you can now add or generate new images from the contextual task bar, which includes access to Adobe’s free-to-use stock images. Click on the Add or generate images button in the contextual task bar (C), and you will be presented with three options: Add from device, Add free Adobe Stock images, or Generate image. When you choose to add Adobe Stock, you will be taken to an in-app browser window. You can scroll through a list of stock image thumbnails displayed in categories such as Animals, Fabric, and Celestial, or use the search field to perform your own keyword search. Click the image you want to use, then click the Add button to add it to your active document.
Turn on Always Create Smart Objects When Placing to prevent a loss in quality when scaling layers, including those downloaded from Adobe Stock, by going to Edit → Preferences → General (Windows) or Photoshop → Preferences → General.
The new Photoshop app on iOS and Android
Adobe released Photoshop for mobile for iOS in February 2025, with the Android version following in June 2025. Photoshop for mobile is available in both free and premium versions. The free version includes access to over 64,000 free Adobe Stock images, selection tools, unlimited layers, Spot Healing tools, Generative Fill, and Generative Expand, as well as limited color and tonal adjustments.
Figure 1.13: Examples of the Photoshop for mobile interface and tools
The Welcome screen behaves much like the desktop version. You’ll find a series of handy video explainers for getting started with the app. Jump back into previous files, create new documents, or start with Adobe Stock content and generative images from the Let’s get started section.
The Premium plan for the Photoshop mobile version also includes the web browser version with full access to all features on both platforms. Edits to your files automatically sync between the mobile and web versions. You can benefit from familiar tools such as Object Selection Tool, Magic Wand, Remove Tool, Clone Stamp, and Content-Aware Fill.
I found that the touch-screen gestures took a while to get used to, especially when using the retouching tools. I often found myself accidentally brushing across the image rather than panning, pinching, and zooming. But what surprised me the most was the speed and simplicity of the user experience. I was afraid it might feel fiddly working on a small screen, but it felt intuitive quickly, and edits such as retouching worked quicker than on the desktop. A simple, scrollable menu system at the bottom of the screen allows you to jump between selections, color and tonal editing, retouching, actions such as remove background, text editing, and paint. The only downside is the limited screen space, which means having to pan more to view different parts of the image to inspect my edits.
The layer features are also impressive and relatively simple to access. You can lock, duplicate, mask, and transform content and alter the stacking order. You can export to a range of formats, including PSD, TIFF, JPG, and PNG.
I think the mobile version of Photoshop, in particular, will be a welcome addition for people accustomed to working on their mobile devices, perhaps managing social media accounts on the go. This is an impressive first release.
Summary
In this first chapter, we have taken a look at the most significant updates and new features across the Photoshop editing ecosystem. Changes to the desktop application included an enhanced workflow for painting color and tonal adjustments with the new Adjustment BrushTool, which acts as a masking tool to restrict the region you edit. We also explored Adjust colors, which identifies the six most prominent colors in your image to simplify editing their hue and saturation. We then looked at AI-enhanced tools and features such as Harmonize, which blends the active layer with the document’s background; Remove background, for rapid, high-quality masking of a subject; and Generate image,bringing theFirefly experience directly into the desktop application. Finally, we took a first look at the new Photoshop for mobile app.
In the next chapter, we’ll look at setting up Photoshop’s interface, tools, and preferences to maximize their use.
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2
Making Photoshop Work Harder and Smarter
We all learn Photoshop in our own unique way, discovering the tools and features that work best for us. But here’s the thing: sometimes we might miss out on certain things that could really boost our skills. Part 1 of this book, Raising Your Photoshop Game, not only focuses on new and updated features but also essential skills and builds upon them, starting with Chapter 2, which establishes a streamlined interface and tools setup.
First, we’ll customize the interface, modifying panels and tools so that they’re easier to locate, putting the most effective features front and center in your interface while keeping less frequently used features just a mouse click away. We’ll reorder the Toolspanel, stripping away redundant tools in place of your favored go-to, high-impact tools, and set up keyboard shortcuts that make little-known features easy to activate or modify a tool with ease.
Then we’ll explore digital imaging 101 to ensure you’ve got a clear understanding of key industry terminology and image quality, as well as the resources available online to source your project artwork. Finally, we’ll look at copyright and gaining the appropriate permission to include images in your published projects.
As with many concepts in this book, the first chapter focuses on attaining the best possible quality from the outset while leveraging time-saving techniques whenever possible, essential for today’s busy digital image editors. In this chapter, we’ll cover the following topics:
Creating a bespoke workspaceModifying preferencesQuality-first approachOnline resourcesAn introduction to image usage and copyrightTechnical requirements
The project files for this chapter can be found at - https://packt.link/gbz/9781806021710.
Creating a bespoke workspace
It’s one thing to know your Photoshop tools and features, but quite another to make them more accessible. Delving into a rabbit hole of sub-menus to find a time-saving tool burns valuable time, diminishing its effectiveness. At first, the extra mouse clicks might seem inconsequential, but over the course of a year, that could amount to dozens of hours wasted when you could have been meeting deadlines faster. I would suggest thinking about which tools and panels you use most frequently and prioritizing your screen real estate.
In the following exercises, we’ll look at customizing panels, tools, and shortcuts. You can adjust these techniques to suit your individual workflow.
Modifying panels
Photoshop panels are arranged into workspaces, with the default, called Essentials, active when you open it for the first time, an option that Adobe believes is important to all Photoshop users. This workspace is arranged into two columns on the right-hand side of the interface; the right-hand column is expanded for high-use options, while the left-hand column is collapsed into a thin set of icons for less frequently used features. The Layers panel is core to almost everything we do in Photoshop; therefore, it’s omnipresent and requires space. We will arrange other panels around it. Here’s how to do this:
Click on the Workspace Switcher menu located at the top-right-hand side of the interface (A in Figure 2.1) and choose Essentials from the list of options. Then, return to the same menu and choose Reset Essentials:Figure 2.1: The Workspace Switcher menu
Click on the Colorpanel tab to make it active, then click on its panelfly-out menuin the top-right corner (B). From the list of options, choose Color Wheel(C). This can make visualizing new colors easier. If you need to create a specific color value, you can simply click on the foreground icon located at the top of the Color panel.Figure 2.2: Repositioning the Libraries panel above the History panel
Next, hover your cursor over the Librariespanel tab and drag it over to the image window to undock it. This panel often requires lots of height to browse through assets, and the best place I’ve found for it is in the left-hand column, collapsed into icons with the History and Comments panels. To add the Libraries panel to this column, drag the Librariespanel tab above the icon for the Historypanel, at which point you will see a pale blue line appear. Release the mouse to dock it at the top of the column (D in Figure 2.2).The Librariespanel now appears in icon mode; click on it to expand it. Hover your cursor over its bottom edge to reveal the scaling symbol, a double-headed arrow, and drag the panel edge downward to extend its height so that more content will be visible when needed. Then, click on the Librariespanel icon to minimize. Use the same technique to expand the height of the other panels in the column to reduce the amount of scrolling that is required with small panels: I added the Brushespanel within the collapsed column, which also appears with the Brush Settingspanel (Window → Brushes). Both are handy. Using the same technique, you can add any other infrequently used panels to the collapsed column. In the example shown, and my personal preference, I also dragged the Patterns and Gradient panels, originally adjacent to the Color panel, into the collapsed column, along with the Shapespanel and Stylespanel, found under the Window menu:Figure 2.3: The workspace after reconfiguration
Customizing the Tools panel
The Photoshop Toolspanel contains more than 70 tools; only 21 are visible at any one time, and the majority are hidden. This is another of those scenarios where Adobe can make a best guess as to the tools appropriate to your workflow, but never exactly. This leaves room for improvement and a little simplification. You can start by modifying the default set of tools, or you can create a fresh Tools panel with just a handful of specialist tools; the choice is yours. We’ll start with the former:
Click and hold down on the Edit Toolbar button in the lower section of the Toolspanel (A, in Figure 2.4). From the pop-out menu that appears, click on the only option, also called Edit Toolbar.Figure 2.4: The Customize Toolbar dialog
This opens the Customize Toolbar dialog, where you’ll be presented with two columns. The left-hand column, named Tools panel, lists tools included in the Tools panel, and there is an Extra Tools column on the right-hand side for tools you wish to hide. It’s likely there will be no tools listed on the right at this point.The list of tools on the left is grouped; each group represents a “slot” on the Toolspanel. Take the second group down in the list, starting with the Rectangular MarqueeTool, currently visible in the Toolspanel in the second slot down, under the first slot of tools that include the MoveTool. The remaining three selection tools in the group, Elliptical Marquee,SingleRow, andSingle Column, are hidden under it.Start by dragging the Single Row and Single Column selection tools to the right-hand column. I can honestly say I’ve used them twice in the last 20 years. Repeat the same step for the Slice tool and the Slice Selection tool.As the Frame tool behaves like a clipping mask within which you can place images, it can be associated with the crop tools. Drag the icon for the Frame tool under the Perspective Crop tool to add it to the same group of tools.Focusing on the next group down, drag the 3D Material Eyedropper, Ruler, Notes, and Count tools to the right-hand column.Hover your cursor over the edge of the tool group containing the eraser tools. This will allow you to drag the entire group across to the right-hand column.Drag the Red Eye Tool, Color Replacement Tool, 3D Material Drop Tool, Vertical Type Mask, and Horizontal Type Mask tools to the right-hand column.Although not entirely necessary, you can combine all the brush tools by dragging the History Brush and Art History Brush tools into the same group as the Brush tool.Having removed what I would call redundant tools, you may wish to click on the Save Preset button, give your new Toolspanel a name, and save it in the folder presented to you by Photoshop. Then, click Done.Naturally, this is how I alter the Toolspanel, but you may need to adjust this layout to better suit your own needs by using the same techniques covered in the exercise:
Figure 2.5: The Customize Toolbar dialog alongside the edited Tools panel
Saving a custom workspace
Now that we’ve created a streamlined version of the interface, it’s time to save it. This will achieve two things: firstly, the layout of panels will be captured for future use, and secondly, you can reset a saved workspace back to its original state if you find panels have been moved around on-screen. Let’s get started:
Head up to the top right-hand side of the Photoshop interface and click on the Workspace Switcher menu. From the list of options provided, click on New Workspace. Despite its misleading name, the command won’t undo any of your hard work arranging panels; it simply saves the current state of the interface.From the New Workspace dialog that will now appear, enter a name for your workspace. I entered Pro in this example, but you can choose your own name. Just make sure it’s short and snappy so that it fits neatly into the Workspace Switcher drop-down menu.By default, panel locations are saved with every new workspace, but you can also capture alterations to the Tools panel, keyboard shortcuts, and menu items. The latter two will be explored in the next exercise. I prefer to keep the Tools panel consistent, no matter the task I’m performing. You can update an existing workspace anytime and choose to include changes to the Tools panel, keyboard shortcuts, and menu items. Just enter the same name as the existing workspace to update it.
Figure 2.6: The New Workspace dialog captures panel locations, shortcuts, and menus
